The goal of this D.Min. project is to nurture the ability of patient caregivers at Baylor University Medical Center (BUMC) in Dallas to provide emotional and spiritual care to patients, families and co-workers. A multidisciplinary Spiritual Companionship Project Committee led by the D.Min. student researched best practices in spiritual and emotional care among health care providers and selected the Sacred Vocation Program, developed by Rabbi Samuel Karff at The University of Texas Medical School in Houston, as the vehicle to accomplish the projects goal. From September 2005 through May 2006 more than 220 patient care technicians, who provide more direct patient care than any other health care professional at Baylor, were trained through the Sacred Vocation program to see themselves as healers providing spiritual companionship, and to understand their work as a sacred vocation. Increased patient satisfaction with spiritual care and tech job satisfaction following the Sacred Vocation program demonstrate the projects positive results and goal attainment.

The story of Rahab in Joshua 2 has traditionally been interpreted as the account of a foreign woman and low-status prostitute who changes the course of her life when she converts to Yahweh, the God of Moses. In return for her faithful act of saving the spies sent by Joshua to search the land of Canaan, Rahab along with her family obtains salvation once her city of Jericho is destroyed. Rahab reappears in the New Testament where she is remembered in Jesus genealogy in the gospel of Mathew 1:5. The story of Jael in Judges 4:17-23 has commonly been read as Jaels violent act of killing Sisera, King Jabins commander in chief, with a tent peg to his temple while he was asleep. She is also perceived as someone who fails to fulfill the hospitality codes of her society. The story of Jephthah and his unnamed daughter in Judges 10:6-12:7 describes the tragic event in which Jephthah makes a foolish and horrible vow offering his innocent daughter in sacrifice to God. Typically this text is read as Jephthah being immensely irresponsible and his daughter being the poor victim who pays for her fathers oath. Such interpretations of these stories are widely accepted within the scholarly biblical guild. But perhaps there are also other ways in which they can be read. In this dissertation, I propose that the stories of Rahab, Jael, and Jephthah can be particularly enriched and give hope to contemporary contexts of hardship when they are read through the Cuban notion of resolviendo (survival). The word resolviendo, meaning to find an answer or solution, was first used this way in Cuba at the beginning of the 1990s. It was then that Cuba began to suffer the economic consequences of the fall of socialist countries from which a great part of its resources and economic help had come during the previous four decades. Without subsidies Cuba and its people had to create new economic opportunities. It is in this context that the words resolver and resolviendo began to have a special meaning for Cubans. Resolver in many ways became synonymous with struggling to survive, making do. I read these biblical stories using narrative criticism as the main methodology along with different contemporary approaches to the texts including feminist, post-modern, and post-colonial approaches. I hope that my readings of the biblical narratives from a perspective of resolviendo can offer insights in the struggle for survival many Cubans face today. Last, I explore the implications that a reading through the notion of resolviendo or survival can have for other contexts in contemporary societies where survival is at stake.

The author argues that becoming a person of exemplary faith is a complex process. It involves a strong determination to be in God's will, the ability to persist when one's back is against the wall, consistent engagement in chosen faith practices and disciplines, a willingness to actively be a part of a faith community and accepting that community's support in various ways and contexts, the capacity to hold on to one's hope and belief in ultimate values while not succumbing to despair in the short term, and constantly nurturing and participating in vital relationships in order that such relationships might flourish and serve as a source of ongoing spiritual development and meaning-making as one grows in deeper relationship with God.

Scholarly works on the Synoptic Gospels reflect a basic presupposition that the content of the gospels is serious, and thereby, seriousness precludes humor. This dissertation demonstrates that humor in the ancient Mediterranean world served serious functions, which often brought about deadly serious effects. The aim of this study is to explore the forms, functions, and effects of humor in the Synoptic Gospels as situated within the cultural context of the ancient Mediterranean world. There are three aims: to challenge basic presuppositions regarding humor in the Synoptic gospels, to construct a model that would aid in the recognition of humor in the Synoptic gospels, and to explore examples of Synoptic humor. Particular attention is focuses on the cultural context of agonistic exchanges between the Matthean Jesus and his opponents in the Temple precinct (12:12-23:36) and in the antagonistic setting of the Sanhedrin trial of Jesus (Luke 22:67-70; Matt 26:64). Additional discussion situates Synoptic humor within the context of ancient oral performances, and provides examples of Synoptic humor that exemplifies the kinds of humor that surface in the oral performances of biographical encomium and in the authorial commentary of in-group literature.

This dissertation presents the first translation in English of the Georgian text of Hippolytus' commentary On the Song of Songs and discusses the authorship, provenance, rhetorical features, social setting, and hermeneutical proclivities of the In Cant. It argues for the traditional assumption that Hippolytus was a culturally eastern writer in Rome. This study builds upon previous musings by some scholars that the In Cant. is a work of baptismal instruction, arguing more precisely that it represents a mystagogy centering on the post-baptismal rite of anointing with oil as a symbol of receiving the Holy Spirit. The In Cant. should be imagined as performed in the convivial setting of a Paschal banquet. Such rites suggest a western provenance. Particular attention is given to the Greco-Roman context and Valentinian influences on the commentary. Hippolytus used New Testament passages, the Logos theology he inherited from Irenaeus, and also popular images of Greco-Roman domestic art as inspirations for his interpretation of the Song. Hippolytus used the Song to reinterpret popular images of Dionysus and Ariadne, the chariot of Helios and the zodiac, the Dioscuri Castor and Pollux, and Heracles and the Hesperides in the fabled Garden of the West. Themes of the commentary selected for discussion are Hippolytus' Logos theology, the attitude displayed by Hippolytus toward women, the synagogue, and heretics.

The central thesis of this study is that the narrative of Acts attempts the recategorization of Judean and non-Judean Christ followers, as well as those on either side of the debate over non-Judean inclusion in the Christ movement, into a common ingroup with a superordinate identity. This is accomplished by presenting Peter and Paul as prototypical of a common superordinate Christian identity in the midst of diversity and conflict within the Christ movement near the end of the first or the beginning of the second century C.E. After reviewing relevant literature on Peter and Paul in Acts and early Christian identity formation, Baker develops a narrative-identity model for biblical interpretation, which is used to read the characterization of Peter and Paul in Acts through the remainder of the study.

Queen mothers were arguably an integral part of the cult of YHWH/Asherah in ancient Israel/Judah, although authors of the Deuteronomistic History refused to acknowledge this phenomenon. Most of these women are ignored by the biblical authors, and if mentioned, their evaluations by the authors of the Deuteronomistic History mostly hinged on the approval or disapproval of their sons' reigns. Clearly within this corpus it is impossible to discern the true nature of the queen mothers' duties within cult and court, yet archaeology and ancient Near Eastern parallels reveal a much different story--one that becomes evident in the only marriage text in the Psalter, Ps 45. Within the text of Ps 45, a queen mother <italic>segal</italic> presides at the marriage of her son, a ritual that appears to be rooted in the hieros gamos ceremonies prevalent throughout the ancient Near East. She appears in a position equal to her son and stands at his right hand; her son is called Elohim and is anointed by his adoptive father, YHWH. Aramaic inscriptions from the ancient city of Hatra in modern Iraq have linked the term <italic>segal</italic> with a goddess who may have been synonymous with goddesses such as Ishtar or Asherah. Therefore, the queen mother, or <italic>segal</italic> of Ps 45 appears to have occupied a prominent position within the state cult and within this marriage ceremony. Her role reflects that of Asherah, the wife of YHWH, as determined by archaeology, Canaanite mythology, and my own reading of Ps 45.

The colonizers invaded the peoples and nations not only politically and economically but also culturally and emotionally. The tools of this invasion and the continuing domination over the colonized were not only militaristic and economic; they also included the developing of a stratified class structure, in which the colonized were judged in terms of their degrees of usefulness to the empire. Throughout the history of colonization, colonizers used education as one of the major devices to propagate their cultural values, ethos, and lifestyle among the colonized. The primary aim of the colonial education program was to create a separate class of people who were not only meek and suppliant in its attitude towards the colonizers, but also felt a degree of loathing for its fellow citizens. This class was formed mainly to establish an effective imperial administration and channel of communication between the colonizers and the millions those whom they governed. Taking the colonial education system as one of the major analytical categories, this dissertation makes an inquiry into how colonialism functioned and continues to function in both the ancient and the modern world. By analyzing the role of the Greek gymnasium in Jerusalem, as mentioned in the books of Maccabees, from a postcolonial perspective, this study establishes a constitutive relationship between the colonial education and the formation of a hierarchical class structure among the colonized. More concretely, this study attends to the transition from the traditional Jewish educational system to the establishment of Greek gymnasium. On the basis of the study of several textsBen Sira, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo, Josephus, and early rabbinic literaturethe investigation seeks to determine how the institution of the gymnasium was used to educate the elites and enable Greek citizens, Hellenes, and Hellenistic Jews to function politically, ethnically, and economically within the larger Greek empire and particularly in Judea, by creating a separate class of the Hellenized Jews among the Jewish population. The dissertation reveals the continuity of the role of the colonial education system in the formation of a class structure among the colonized by exploring a similar historical incident from the modern period, the British colonial era in India and demonstrates how the British education introduced into colonial India in the early nineteenth century played a similar role in creating a distinct class of the Brown Englishmen among the Indians. The present study not only examines similarities and differences between the Hellenistic education program in Israel and the British colonial education system in India, but it also demonstrates how postcolonial historiography provides insight into the policies of cultural infusion adopted by Hellenistic empires. In particular, the study of the expansion of Greek education in Hellenistic empires offers valuable insight into the cultural and political role of colonial education in modern forms of colonialism.

This dissertation engages the question "what is the substance of the philosophical teachings that women may have known in the Pauline communities of the Greek East, and how does this knowledge inform their understanding of 1 Corinthians?" The involvement of women in philosophy indicates that some women in the Corinthian church could have the philosophical background required to interact with selected teachings in 1 Corinthians which are already located in Greco-Roman philosophy: friendship and patronage, self-sufficiency and the agon motif, and teachings concerning marriage and family that Paul applies to worship regulations. These widely known teachings in popular philosophy are investigated from the perspective of two philosophically educated women, Sophia and Fortuna, who read Paul in light of their social location as wealthy widows and intellectual background.

Scholars use widely accepted criteria for reconstructing source texts within the gospels in order to "get behind the text" for the sake of historical inquiry. As these reconstructed sources are relied upon with greater frequency, sound scholarship needs a model that helps scholars assess the <bold>reliability</bold> of a text that has been reconstructed from presumably independent witnesses that used it as a source. This study reconstructs a text of Mark based upon the evidence in Matthew and Luke in triple tradition pericopes. The aim is to create a hypothetical, parallel situation that the gospel sayings source Q survived instead of Mark. So then, the task at hand is to identify all the places where Matthew and Luke share material that they did not get from Q. Furthermore, the present approach achieves the best possible reconstruction of Mark, one that benefits from the privileged position of knowledge of Mark's canonical text, in order to amplify the significance of the differences found when comparing this reconstructed text with the canonical form of Mark. Examination of the resulting text, including a comprehensive comparative stylographic statistical analysis between the reconstructed Mark and canonical Mark, will provide a means for evaluating the reconstruction process. Assessing what is lost in the reconstruction, what is introduced, and what is changed in relation to canonical Mark, highlights what limits may also apply to the study and use of a reconstructed text of Q. Among the conclusions are the determinations that a reconstructed text will lack features pervasive in the real text it is approximating, a reconstructed text will bear its own characteristics that have no correlation to the historical text, and that a reconstructed narrative text will contain more sayings material than did the historical original.