Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document / Thesis (DPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Old Testament Studies / unrestricted

The aim of the research is to derive a set of hermeneutical principles of the author of the book of Hebrews from the introductory formulae and, to a lesser degree, to contrast these with contemporary hermeneutical approaches. The research is important for three reasons. Firstly, the introductory formulae have largely been neglected as a source for consideration when analysing the hermeneutic of a writer, such that this study is, to some degree, ground-breaking in nature. Secondly, the introductory formulae provide the clearest presentation of the author’s hermeneutic in that here may be found the most explicit statements revealing the author’s hermeneutic rather than deriving these. Thirdly, in the book of Hebrews we have the best example of how a New Testament writer interpreted the Old Testament (most quotations and introductory formulae per size of book). The research was conducted along the following lines: A comprehensive and workable list of introductory formulae in Hebrews was derived. This list was compared and contrasted firstly within the book itself and secondly in comparison to that of the other New Testament writers. A set of principles was derived from the introductory formulae of Hebrews and compared to the hermeneutics of contemporary modern approaches. The results of the research are encapsulated in six principles which together summarise the author of Hebrews’ hermeneutic. The Old Testament is understood as, -- spoken not written, -- spoken by a Trinitarian God comprising Father, Son and Holy Spirit, -- dynamic, that is, spoken with equal authority and equal effect to a current generation, -- authoritative and complete, -- the words of God do not require the intervention of man but rather the removal of man permitting God to address His people personally, -- pertaining to the person and work of Christ. The conclusion of the research can be summarised in one sentence: “God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) is speaking to you now and what He says concerns His Son.” When these principles are compared with contemporary modern hermeneutic, the following is observed; -- the ‘written-and-dated’ nature of God’s revelation instead of an understanding that God is speaking to us today. -- a focus on a single person of the Godhead and a resultant infatuation with some doctrines at the expense of others. -- an illegitimate concern to make God relevant. -- the reader no longer reads in order to understand but reads in order to define meaning and the meaning primarily pertains to himself -- the listener has become the speaker and the speaker is a primarily concerned about himself and how he is coming across not about God. -- the exposition of the Bible has degenerated from theology to anthropology. / Dissertation (MA (Biblical Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Biblical and Religious Studies / unrestricted

Western society is pervaded by a value system that leads to a virtually natural discrimination against women and an accompanying unbridled “right” to Earth. Dichotomies, whereby, amongst others, masculinity is prioritized over femininity, lie at the heart of these value systems. These dichotomies are underpinned by the gender ideologies in the texts of the Old Testament that are regarded as normative. The possibility that creation texts of the Old Testament contain dimensions of ecojustice was foreseen, specifically regarding the potential femininity of the god constructs in cosmological texts. The ideological values leading to the construction of certain god characters were weighed up against the six principles of ecojustice promoted by the Earth Bible series. These principles are: intrinsic value, interconnectedness, voice, purpose, mutual custodianship and resistance to exploitation. The method of body criticism was employed in analyzing the texts and exposing the values foundational thereto. Body criticism as analytical tool is based upon the findings of modern cognitive science regarding the embodiment of thought, the cognitive unconscious as well as the metaphoricity of human abstract constructs. The paradigm or model of embodied realism was construed, wherein the body is regarded as “text” reflecting the deepest values and convictions of a community. God constructs represent the ideal symbolic body of a community, a regulating body that moulds and refines the values and norms of that community. In an ecojust phenomenology of the body, including the concepts of an ideal body and god constructs, gender will function as a dynamic interactive continuum. In the exposition of the body ideology of antique Israel, the focus was placed on the Israelite regulatory body in the form of God as foundation of the patriarchal ideology of the ancient world. That ideal or regulatory body was found to be decidedly male. The body critical analysis of Genesis 1:1-2:4a exposed that cosmogony as accommodating a metaphor of a god that is clearly and pertinently male. The god construct of the first creation narrative is a rhetorical power mechanism for the confirmation of male dominance. Values inherent to the god construct leave no room for Earth as equal subject. With the possible exception of a moment of wonderment and awe in Genesis 1:31, this text does not support the principles of ecojustice. The god metaphor in Psalm 74 is strictly and brutally male. Nature and Earth and her components simply form the stage on which the male dominated cult performs. The gender values underlying the god construct in Proverbs 8 and 9 represent the typical male-female dichotomy or duality. Woman Wisdom is a rhetorical power strategy employed in the service of the male God. The god character in Job 38:1-42:6 represents a contrast with the previous god constructs since hierarchized gender constructs seem to be absent. Multi-faceted gender continuum metaphorizations safeguard the god construct against one-sided and exclusive masculinity. A god construct and cosmology that serves ecojustice is constituted by the mutual incorporation of masculine and feminine values. The metaphor of a balanced body thus construed can be utilized as starting point for the regeneration of ecojust principles. Values wherein femininity is incorporated, specifically with regards to the construction of a god character, lead to a more just attitude towards Earth. Values that lead to the construction of a god character as male, or the metaphorization of a god as exclusively and one-sidedly masculine, lead to an attitude of disregard and destructiveness towards Earth. This hypothesis was confirmed by the findings of the body critical analysis of well known and important Biblical cosmological texts. Mutual incorporation of male as well as female values should constitute the god symbols of society. A society that share the conviction of ecojustice will deconstruct traditional polarizing gender categories and gender hierarchies and replace them with concepts such as the continuum of gender, empathic absorption, mutual incorporation and reciprocal constitution. / Prof. Hennie Viviers

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / The recent discovery of documents at Qumran has provoked renewed interest in the possibility of Jewish influence on primitive Christianity in several areas. The purpose of this dissertation is to describe historically Jewish and Christian disciplinary procedures, particularly excommunication, in order to determine whether the practice of the church indicates indebtedness to pre-Christian Judaism. Since an important excursus, der Synagogenbann, in the Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch by H. Strack and P. Billerbeck is frequently referred to in works on church discipline, a secondary purpose of the dissertation is to examine the methodology and results of the excursus. The investigation covers the Old Testament, the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigrapha, the Manual of Discipline, the Damascus Document, rabbinic literature, the New Testament, and the Apostolic Fathers. The curses alah, arar, qalal, and especially herem, were used (often by intimidation)in the Old Testament to maintain moral and spiritual standards. Since anathema is the usual translation in the Septuagint for berem, its use in its classical setting is examined. In addition to the curse, the threat of immediate punishment or future divine judgment was employed to guard the purity of the worship of Yahweh. In the literature of the Intertestamental period, all traces of punishment have disappeared from the Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha, except for the mention of the curse in a few poetic passages. However, an elaborate system of punishment is found in the Qumran literature. Further evidence of the practice of excommunication in this period is revealed in the rabbinic material. In IQS and CD the punishment for sins generally depended on whether the sins were considered to be against an individual or the community as a whole. Mild punishment was reserved for social infractions against one's neighbor, but irrevocable expulsion was the sentence for sins thought to have been prompted by an attitude that was not sympathetic with the ideals of the group. The conclusions of the excursus, der Synagogenbann, must be revised by giving closer attention to the problem of chronology. The synagogue at the time of Jesus knew of only one ban, the niddui. The shammatha, as a disciplinary measure, was an interchangeable term with niddui, but was confined to the Babylonian Jews. Herem probably did not appear as a term for excommunication in the synagogue until the third century. The principal reason for the pronouncing of the niddui was to safeguard the halakhah. The practice of excommunication in the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers scarcely appears, and the use of the curse as a means of discipline does not occur at all. The first Gospel shows that even though Matthew conceived of the church as a corpus mixtum, judgment was properly a (divine) matter for the future. The mark of a Christian in the church was a readiness to forgive an offending brother. In the crucial Pauline passages excommunication has no prominent place. Paul's use of anathema bore little relationship to church discipline. In the remainder of the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers a spirit of restraint with regard to excommunication characterized the early Christian movement. Thus, members in good standing were to take note of offenders, rebuke them, pray for them, invite and receive them back if they repented. Despite the conclusion that Judaism and the church exercised considerable restraint in the matter of discipline, one cannot claim with certainty the dependence of the church on known Jewish disciplinary practices.

The book of Amos preserves powerful critiques of injustices in ancient Israel, and accordingly it has become famous as a resource for social justice movements across the centuries. The text has also been a testing ground for the history of prophets and prophetic literature. Given these emphases on socio-economic justice and historical dimensions of human culture, there has been a glaring neglect of “nature" themes in Amos and how these references to the non-human, created universe function in shaping the moral character of the readers. Without ecological features, the ethical message is hollow, since the character of humans and even of Yahweh as God are often evaluated and illustrated by realities in the rest of the natural world. Amos reciprocally connects the natural world (cosmos) and the moral world (ethos) together, implying that the condition and conceptions of the cosmos are partly reflective of human character and partly formative for human character in turn. The second aspect deserves attention at last. There is an ethos of the cosmos in Amos. Nature is not neutral. To describe this cosmos and ethos, the study proceeds in two steps for each major section of the translated Hebrew text. First, after establishing a historical setting for the final form of the text, there is a careful analysis of the "creation rhetoric." followed by a second step that doubles back to ask how such nature imagery encourages or discourages moral “character formation” for an audience in Judah. The rhetorical analysis uses insights into genre and speech act theory, while the ethical analysis uses character ethics to discuss practices, dispositions, and desires for visions of good and evil in Amos. In the end, the cosmos in Amos is more than ancient cosmology or dispensable background scenery. Built into the cosmos are dynamics that link justice with matters of life and death, and only through the nature imagery does the audience most vividly gain reverence for each other, their world, and their God. From earthquakes to new growth, creation shapes character. Creation rhetoric and character formation are mutually related and profitably compared for Old Testament ethics. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Adam, the father of all men initiated a fall from innocence; the story of postlapsarian humanity discloses an omnipresent attempt to return to the Garden, the state of innocence. This journey back to consciously achieved innocence is revealed in the story of Israel's quest for the Promised Land, a land covenanted to this people by YHWH. To live in a holy land (sacred space), Israel must put off all attachments to mortal aims, she must sacrifice the profane, horizontal world and enter the sacralized, vertical sphere to become hale, healthy, holy, and whole: wholeness accompanies this return to the center.The Old Testament is the story of a people who fail to come to the promised wholeness. Although Israel never realized this potential holiness, her movement from Egypt through the Wilderness to Canaan is typology for everyman's journey to a new consciousness: God separated Israel from the profane world opening the door to cleansed perception, greater unity and conscious innocence. In keeping his covenant they would find the sacred and return to the center, thus recreating the primordial pattern: moving from chaos to order--the eternal return.

A. Purpose of this Thesis:1. To present the variants between the Authorized Version of Genesis and the Inspired Revision of Genesis as published by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and2. To indicated the implications of the most significant variants.B. Significance of This Thesis:1. This thesis helps to clarify the position of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in regard to the problem of the Pentateuch. This is one of the most important, if not the most important, of the literary problems of the Bible; and the Latter-day Saint position concerning it needs further analysis and clarification, because many Latter-day Saints consider that the critical view is sound, apparently because they have not been made aware of the basic conflicts between it and the modern Scriptures of the Latter-day Saints. This Thesis reveals the relationship of the Inspired Revision of Genesis and The Book of Moses to the problem of the Pentateuch.2. This thesis also presents the portions of the textual material of The Book of Moses and The Book of Abraham, which correspond to the Inspired Revision of Genesis, aligned vertically with the textual material of the Inspired Revision so the reader can readily see the similarities and the differences.C. Method of Presenting the Data:1. In order that the reader might obtain a clearer picture of the data and their implications, the presentation of the data is preceded by "A Survey of the Origin and History of the Authorized Version of the Bible," and "A Survey of the History and Origin of the Inspired Revision of the Bible by Joseph Smith, Jr.".2. The variants between the texts compared are made to stand out conspicuously by means of a special interlinear system devised by the writer.a. The Text of the Authorized Version is assigned the top position, and the full text of it only is written out. Only the variants of the other texts compared are written out.b. The text of the Inspired Revision is assigned the position beneath that of the Authorized Version; and wherever the wording of the two are identical, the space assigned to the Inspired Revision is left blank. Ditto marks are not used.

The first objective of this thesis was to examine the Old Testament chronology carefully to see how it is computed. The second objective was to examine the modern scriptures to see what contributions they make in establishing a more accurate, reliable chronology. The third objective was to examine certain hypotheses in archaeology, carbon dating processes, and geology that seem to conflict with the Old Testament chronology with the purpose in mind of learning how accurate their findings are and what possibilities exist for a closer harmony between these sciences and the Old Testament scriptural chronology.

The thesis of this dissertation is that the picture of the New Jerusalem in Revelation draws upon antecedent Jerusalem/Zion theology to provide a meaningful depiction of the final state of believers in Jesus as both communion with God and life as a community. <p> This biblical theological study uses a canonical approach that includes an examination of extra-biblical Second Temple literature as an aid to accessing NT understandings of OT texts. Previous studies of Jerusalem do not cover the entire canon, focus on historical or literary issues rather than theology, or access only OT texts clearly alluded to in Rev 21-22 rather than the entire theological tradition about Jerusalem, which culminates in the "New" Jerusalem</p> <p> The Pentateuch foresees Jerusalem's role as place of contact between God and Israel. In the Historical Books, David completes the conquest of Canaan by taking Jerusalem and establishing YHWH's cult there. But because of the sin of the kings and people God abandons the city for a time. Jerusalem after the return from exile is still less than ideal. In the Psalms, Jerusalem is depicted as God's inviolable holy mountain. The prophets proclaim punishment for sinful Jerusalem but future restoration to the kind of ideal state described in the Psalms. Jerusalem/Zion can be seen as the ultimate goal of both the First and Second Exoduses. </p> <p> Non-canonical Second Temple literature emphasizes the pre-Davidic role of Zion as place of God's contact with humanity. The Babylonians could not have taken the city without God's co-operation, and even then, the Temple furnishings were secretly preserved. Zion's cosmic importance and eschatological role are often emphasized, with emergence of belief in a heavenly Jerusalem.</p> <p> eschatological role are often emphasized, with emergence of belief in a heavenly Jerusalem. In the New Testament, earthly Jerusalem rejects the Messiah, and so forfeits its role as link to glorious eschatological Jerusalem. Old Testament prophecies of renewal are instead fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus, emergence of the church, and ultimately the New Jerusalem.</p> <p> of deep intimacy with God, community among all believers, intense experience of life, and complete eternal safety from sin and evil. This was God's plan since creation. Jerusalem as the goal and focus of God's people on their journey towards him in the Old Testament foreshadows the New Jerusalem as their destination at the end of the age.</p> <p> The dissertation closes with suggestions for practical application and further study.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)