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[pt] Este trabalho estuda a sétima visão do profeta Zacarias (Zc 5,5-11). A pesquisa surgiu da análise das interpretações que apresentam as seguintes questões: 1. tendência misógina, que atribui à mulher o mal, em detrimento do significado do todo que foi revelado: o efá; o olho deles em toda a terra; os elementos utilizados para tampar o efá e aprisionar a mulher (disco, pedra e chumbo); 2. a remoção do mal, sem morte e destruição: duas mulheres com asas como de cegonha, com vento em suas asas, levantam o efá entre a terra e os céus e o levam para Senaar, onde uma casa será construída, preparada, e onde será assentado sobre sua base. Chama a atenção uma mulher sentada e aprisionada dentro de um efá. O objetivo do estudo é compreender o sentido da extraordinária imagem visionada e dos elementos revelados, no seu contexto sócio-religioso, e o significado teológico da visão. Para isso, foram feitos pesquisa bibliográfica dos últimos 50 anos, análise textual com utilização do método histórico-crítico e análise sincrônica, considerando o texto canônico. Diferentemente das interpretações existentes, que consideram a mulher pecadora e sedutora, concluiu-se que determinado grupo que retornava do exílio na Babilônia, com ideais proféticos, fiel à religião e às tradições, pretendia a mulher sentada no meio do efá (submetida) e prisioneira, por se mostrar com protagonismo com o qual o grupo não concordava. A remoção do mal com final feliz é a resposta de YHWH a este grupo, uma teologia, na qual prevalece a Pedagogia e o Amor divinos para com a mulher e os transgressores, a quem YHWH concede espaço e cuidado para que voltem e se reintegrem à sociedade. / [en] This essay aims to study the seventh vision of the prophet Zechariah (Zech 5:5-11). The research arose from the analysis of interpretations presenting the following issues: 1. a misogynist tendency, which associates women with wickedness to the detriment of the significance of all that was revealed: the ephah, their eye through all the earth; the elements used to cover the ephah and entrap the woman inside it (disk, stone, and lead); 2. the removal of wickedness without death and destruction: two women with wings like the wings of a stork, with wind in their wings, lift the ephah up between the earth and the heaven and take it to Shinar, where a house will be built and prepared for it, and it will be set there upon her own base. The image of an entrapped woman sitting inside an ephah is noteworthy. The objective of this study is to understand the meaning of the extraordinary image envisioned and the elements revealed in it in their socio-religious context, as well as the theological meaning of the vision. For this, a bibliographical research of the last 50 years was carried out alongside with textual analysis using the historical-critical method and synchronic analysis considering the canonical text. Unlike the existing interpretations that consider women as sinful and seductive, this paper concludes that a certain group of exiles returning from Babylon, faithful to religion and tradition and with prophetic ideals, intended for the woman to be sitting in the ephah, (submitted) as a prisoner, for presenting herself with a leading role with which they did not agree. The removal of wickedness with a happy ending is YHWH s response to this group, a theology in which divine Pedagogy and Love prevails towards women and offenders, to whom YHWH grants space and care to allow them to return and be reintegrated into society.

As an artist working with the female model, this practice-led research examines concepts of alterity and subjectivity while challenging the dominant role of male subjectivity in the western world. It revolves around the relationship between myself and the female subject, a specific woman who within the context of my work epitomises but at the same time transcends womanhood. This undertaking suggests that my representations of her body grow out of a dialectical tension between the feeling that the female other has almost become a metonymic extension of myself, and the awareness that such a feeling is at the same time illusory. The practical component of my investigations takes the form of body-themed box assemblages which are reminiscent of polyptychs, tabernacles and reliquaries. However, the sacred images which form part of these ecclesiastical items are replaced with others showing close-ups of the fragmented bodies of the model and myself. While this kind of profane artefact acts as a receptacle for our bodies which are broken down and enshrined together with other objects, it constitutes part of an ongoing process whereby the relationship between myself and the female figure is metamorphosed, re-shaped, and re-visioned. The significance of these creations is meant to extend beyond their artefactual existence and become mediums through which I re-visit female sexuality and eroticism and assess them within a spiritual context, albeit in the circumscribed framework of a particular woman. The artefact s ultimate objective is to appease my innate desire to access the other via a self-reflexive process which involves both mirroring and distancing at one and the same time. This process also includes an exploration into the spiritual with the aim of exploiting that which is other in the western theological tradition, namely God and the Divine. The gaze is also deeply involved in this exploration of the other. In fact, while our bodies are subjected to a re-visitation and trans-valuation in parts through multiplication and fragmentation, the gaze is in the process broken down into a series of glances which originate from myself, the viewer or the female subject. This process questions and disrupts the dominance of the male gaze, and its associated precepts, in Western visual culture. Finally, by correlating the model s body with the divine, my artefacts seek to give this woman, as an embodiment of the true other, a trans-corporeal identity. Rather than seeking to exert control over the other, they provide a pious space wherein the self and the other are able to encounter each other in a manner that initiates an equitable relationship, unhindered by presumptive knowledge. This is aided by the aesthetics and dynamics underlying the box assemblage which, while expressing gender fluidity and encouraging disengagement from preconceived dogmas a sort of reverse cognition also enhances the experience of its deific symbolism.

Christian faith turns on the claim that God revealed Himself in Jesus of Nazareth and that he is the Lord and Saviour for all humanity. This exclusive claim raises many questions in a pluralistic and multi-cultural world. In particular it seems to be both excluding and therefore to presuppose various kinds of violence towards others. This research endeavors to address such questions by seeing what can be learned from the Swiss theologian Karl Barth. Barth is a good test case because of his famous Christological concentration. He is often taken as a paradigm ‘exclusivist’. Situating Barth in his historical and intellectual context I shall argue that Barth formulates a Christologically inclusive humanism that addresses the supposed tolerance of Liberal theology, the actual violence of anti Semitism, secularizing understandings of community and the imperial mentality of Western Christendom towards non-Christian religions. By adapting a scripturally informed rationality which is cultivated in the Christian community, Barth expounds (1) a Christologically based tolerance towards non-Christian others (Chapter one); (2) a covenantal understanding of Jewish-Christian solidarity (Chapter two); (3) an ethic of the neighbours which grounds solidarity with poor, marginalized and oppressed communities (Chapter three); (4) a Christological anthropology which respects the irreducible otherness of others (Chapter four); (5) a politics of community which celebrates the community of near and distant neighbours (Chapter five); and, based on the above understandings, (6) a self-critical theology of religion for grounding interfaith encounter (Chapter six). By way of conclusion, I argue that Barth’s theology should not be understood on postmodern lines but that it accentuates the universal in the particular. For this reason, I claim that Barth’s theology, though Christologically based, is capable of contributing to a global responsibility for building a society of love and justice. As a Chinese scholar, I also argue that Barth can contribute to a burgeoning Chinese theological tradition, advancing a Christologically based humanism in a multi-religious and cultural society.

The publication of The Origin of Species in 1859 raised a host of theological issues. Chief amongst them is the question of how a good, loving, and powerful God could create through an evolutionary process that involved so much suffering, pain, and violence. The traditional Christian answers for suffering in the natural world are not plausible in an evolutionary world. We cannot blame natural evil on human sin, since earth history shows that non-human suffering long preceded humans. Nor can we say that God allows suffering because it allows opportunity for moral choice, spiritual closeness with God, and the development of virtue, as none of these apply to the non-human realm. A new approach is needed to address the question of suffering and violence amongst non-human animals. In this dissertation, I address the question of evolutionary suffering with a multi-disciplinary approach of biblical studies, philosophical theology, and systematic theology to build a compound theodicy. After a survey of the various scholarly contributions in this area, I begin with biblical considerations of the God-world relationship. I set aside, based on exegetical examinations of Genesis 1-9, notions of “fallenness” in the natural world. I therefore argue that evolution was God’s intended process of creation, and that we should not attribute it to any kind of corruption. The rest of the dissertation engages in the development of a compound theodicy rooted in a philosophical and theological definition of love. How does a God who loves creatures respond to their suffering? I argue that God’s action in creation is characterised by kenotic restraint, the giving of freedom, co-suffering with creatures, and the work of redemption.

Parce que l’infinité divine n’est pas une évidence théologique, Descartes travaille à lui donner un sens particulier : à la fois instauratrice des vérités créées dans les lettres du printemps1630 et nom divin par excellence selon les exigences de la philosophie première en 1641, elle endosse des déterminations incontestablement dionysiennes (l’incompréhensibilité) en même temps qu’elle relève au plus haut point de la métaphysique en voie de constitution (idea maxime vera). La détermination de la situation de l’infinité de Dieu chez Descartes au regard d’autres concepts du corpus (immensité, indéfini), de ses rapports au concept aristotélicien d’apeiron et de son histoire médiévale (Thomas d'Aquin, Bonaventure, Henri de Gand, Scot) et moderne (Suarez, Bérulle, Montaigne), doit permettre de faire voir la tension interne dont l’infinité grève la métaphysique cartésienne. / Because divine infinity is not a theological obvious fact, Descartes works to give him a particular meaning : at the same time founder of the eternal truths in the letters of printemps1630, and the divine name par excellence according to the requirements of the first philosophy in 1641. Then, infinity both assumes dionysian characteristics (incomprehensibility) and fulfils the requirements of the metaphysics in the process of constitution (idea maxime vera). The determination of the situation of God's infinity in Descartes with regard to the other concepts of the corpus (unlimitedness, indefinite), of its relationships with the Aristotelian concept of apeiron and its medieval history (Thomas d' Aquin, Bonaventure, Henry of Ghent, Scot) and modern (Suarez, Bérulle, Montaigne), allows to show the internal tension the infinite burdens Cartesian metaphysics.

Thesis advisor: Pheme Perkins / Psalm 110:1 was not a Second Temple messianic proof-text. Yet, it became the early Christian text par excellence for articulating exaltation Christology: Jesus was exalted to God’s right hand (Acts 2:33, 34-35; 5:31; 7:55-56; Rom 8:34; Col 3:1; Eph 1:20; 1 Pet 3:22; Heb 1:3, 13; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2) and κύριος of the cosmos (Phil 2:9-11). Therefore, this unprecedented and singular use of Ps 110:1 by early Christians requires an explanation. This dissertation argues that the unparalleled Christian use of Ps 110:1 is indebted to a Greco-Roman royal ideological concept: rulers as sharers of divine/sacred space, which consisted of three elements: temple sharing, throne sharing, and joint temples of imperials and gods. Greek cities and Roman period provinces made autocrats sharers of sacred space to show appreciation for concrete royal benefactions and to acknowledge the piety of monarchs and divine approval of their regimes. Early Christians adopted two of these practices—temple sharing and throne sharing—for similar purposes, creating a unique variant of the Greco-Roman royal practice and using scripture to justify it (Ps 110:1). Consequently, early Christian use of Ps 110:1, exaltation Christology, and Jesus’s Lordship are indebted to royal messianism. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

O presente estudo é resultado das pesquisas de campo sobre a festa do Divino em Brotas de Macaúbas, Chapada Velha do sertão baiano, realizadas em 2011 e 2014. Neste movimento etnográfico, as questões socioespaciais da Festa, através das visitações durante os cinquenta dias de itinerância, indicaram elementos importantes para a nossa pesquisa. Neste sentido, destacamos a ideia de circuito comunitário, que são as comunidades visitadas anualmente pela bandeira do Divino. Suas espacialidades, conexões, linhas, improvisos e mudanças, bem como os mecanismos utilizados na escolha e exclusão das comunidades, serão os temas abordados. / This study is the result of a field research on the Feast of the Divine Holy Spirit held in 2011 and 2014 in Brotas de Macaúbas, Chapada Velha, in the arid backcountry of Bahia. In this ethnographic movement, the socio-spatial aspects of the feast, which are characterized by the visitations during fifty days of itinerancy, indicated important elements for our research. In this regard, we emphasize the idea of community circuit, which are the communities visited annually by the Divine flag. The approached themes concern spatiality, connections, lines, improvisations and changes as well as the mechanisms used in the choice and exclusion of the communities.

Bien que le concept philosophique original du libre arbitre d’Augustin occupe une place à part dans l’histoire de la philosophie, son argumentation philosophique relative au libre arbitre s’appuie sur les théories des philosophes antiques. Cette thèse se concentre sur quatre approches philosophiques antiques élaborées par les Stoïciens, Cicéron, Alexandre d’Aphrodise et Plotin. Augustin accepte fragmentairement le principe du mouvement de la volonté, les formes de liberté et la relation entre la providence divine et la liberté humaine, etc., proposés par les philosophes antiques. Mais aussi, le libre arbitre chez Augustin prend de plus en plus forme au cours de ses controverses avec les Manichéens et les Pélagiens. Lors des controverses contre les Manichéens, Augustin se focalise tout d’abord sur le libre arbitre humain en relation avec le problème de la cause du mal. Augustin élabore une logique philosophique pour étayer son concept et parer aux attaques manichéennes. La cause du mal n’est pas la nature mauvaise de l’âme ni ne résulte de la volonté de Dieu, mais de notre volonté libre. D’autre part, lors de ses controverses contre les Pélagiens, son concept philosophique du libre arbitre entre dans une nouvelle phase. La volonté humaine n’échappe pas à la bride du péché sans la grâce divine, il s’agit donc d’une volonté faible. Le pouvoir de la volonté humaine est affaibli par le péché originel, même si l’homme possède son propre vouloir. Toutefois, dans la pensée augustinienne, la volonté humaine n’est pas contrainte par des puissances extérieures. Ainsi, le pouvoir du choix est toujours volontaire et libre. / Although Augustine’s philosophical concept of free will occupies a special place in the history of philosophy, the philosophical arguments about free will are based on the theories of ancient philosophers. This thesis focuses on four ancient philosophical approaches, elaborated respectively by the Stoics, Cicero, Alexander of Aphrodisias, and Plotinus. Augustine accepts the principle of the fragmentary movement of the will, the forms of freedom and the relationship between divine providence and human freedom, etc., offered by the ancient philosophers, but free will in Augustine takes on more shape in his arguments with the Manichaeans and the Pelagians. In his argument with the Manichaeans, Augustine first focuses on human free will in relation to the problem of the cause of evil. He develops a philosophical logic to support his concept and defend it against the Manicheans’ attacks. The cause of evil is not the evil nature of the soul or the result of the will of God, but of our free will. In his argument with the Pelagians, his philosophical concept of free will enters a new phase. Without divine grace, human will is too weak to restrain themselves from making sin. Thus, even if a man has his own volition, the ability of human will is weakened by original sin. Nonetheless, in Augustinian thought, the human will is not constrained by outside powers. Thus, the power of choice is voluntary and free.

The present thesis aims to analyse the divine-human relationship in Paul's theology, focusing on Paul's portrayal of the relationship in Romans 1-8. The issue of the divine-human relationship has been treated by multiple Pauline studies with various foci, for instance, the issues of agency, the apocalyptic character of Paul's gospel, the concept of charis, and the covenantal relationship. Nevertheless, these approaches often do not pay sufficient attention to the fact that the divine-human relationship in Romans is not static but exhibits progression and development towards a goal. As a result of this, such studies cannot effectively address the significance of the human agent's role in the relationship, a role which changes at each stage of the relationship's development. In order to offer a different perspective, the present thesis utilises a social psychological theory, namely, interdependence theory (IT). IT offers a consistent analytic framework for diagnosing the interactions in a dyadic relationship in terms of the dependency created by each partner's expectations of outcomes. By deploying IT, we explore several key stages of the divine-human relationship and the direction in which the relationship develops throughout Romans 1-8 in order to highlight the significance of the human partners in the course of the development. The key stages include: betrayal (1.18-3.20), restoration (3.21-26; 5.1-11), the oppressive relationship with Sin (5.12-8.11), and the investment for the future (8.12-39). From our investigation, we conclude that although the foundation of the relationship rests on God's initiative, the divine outworking guides the relationship so that it facilitates mutual participation of the human partners in the restoration and development of the relationship toward the ultimate goal. Another contribution of the present study can be found in our attempt to introduce IT to the field of NT studies through our methodological considerations.