During the premodern era, images corresponded to the doctrines of ”The Word”, but in contemporary society this relationship is open and does not correspond to the divine Word. Because of our perceived, postmodern inability to respond to ancient Christian symbols, there is a need to revision these symbols and Christian spirituality. The result of such a revisioning would include an ”opening up” of ”The Word” and of traditional, worn symbols which have lost vitality in this milieu. Art produced with this in mind needs to make ”The Word” more currently accessible and relevant. Further, this revisioning would add significance and enhance the possibility of resurrecting language dealing with ”The Word”. In the process of revitalising old Christian imagery and language, I aim to show that the primary role of contemporary Christian art is to function metaphorically. Finally, I argue that Christian images can take on significance as contemporary images. / Art History Visual Arts and Musicology / M.A. (Visual Arts)

[pt] A palavra mistério, nascida dentro do ambiente cultual grego, entrou na Sagrada Escritura já nas traduções do Antigo Testamento em relação aos termos râz e sôd, respectivamente, em aramaico e hebraico, recebendo assim uma carga semântica teológica dentro das concepções do Povo da primeira Aliança. Por conseguinte, o Novo Testamento, sobretudo as cartas paulinas, faz um abundante uso do termo mistério. Numa linha progressiva de elaboração do conceito de mistério na Sagrada Escritura, ele é a revelação do plano salvífico de Deus Pai em Jesus Cristo através de etapas sucessivas e concatenadas. A teologia patrística, recebendo da tradição bíblica o conceito de mistério, vai desenvolvê-lo quanto as suas mediações no momento eclesial em quatro direções interdependentes: a História Salvífica, a Igreja, a Palavra de Deus e a Liturgia. Na primeira metade do século XX, em virtude do afastamento da teologia das fontes bíblico-patrísticas, o monge beneditino Odo Casel reintroduzirá na reflexão teológico-litúrgico o conceito de mistério, recuperando seu vigor fontal. Esta recuperação, apesar de sofrer uma série de críticas, paulatinamente vai sendo incorporada nos documentos magisteriais. Neste movimento, a Constituição Dogmática Sacrosanctum Concilium é o documento basilar e paradigmático na reintrodução da teologia do mistério pela Igreja. De fato, as intuições mistéricas dos Padres conciliares recolhidas neste documento vão sendo desenvolvidas nas demais Constituições do Concilio Vaticano II, legando a Igreja de hoje uma fecunda herança para repensar sua prática teológico-pastoral. / [en] The word mystery has had born inside of greek cultual ambience and it has been introduced by the translators in the Holy Scriptures translations from Old Testament in order to translate the words râz and sôd, respectively, in Aramaic and Hebrew idioms, receiving their semantic charge according to First Alliance People faith. Posteriorly, the New Testament, especially the Pauline letters, used widely the word mystery. In the progressive development inside of the Scripture Text, the concept of mystery means the revelation of the God Father salvation plan by Jesus Christ through successive and concatenated stages. The patristic theology, receiving the concept of mystery from biblical tradition, continued developing it as its interdependent mediations in the ecclesial stage: the History of Salvation, the Church, the Word of God and the Liturgy. In the first half of the century XX, because of the distance from theology to biblical and patristic sources, the benedictine monk Odo Casel reintroduced the concept the mystery in the theological and liturgical reflections, recovering its source strength. This recovering, in spite of critical positions, little by little, was incorporated by ecclesial works. In this incorporation, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy is the primary and paradigmatic work at reintroducing of the theology of the mystery by the Church. Indeed, council Fathers mysterical insights, written in the Sacrosanctum Concilium, developed on the others Constitution from the Vatican Council II, providing the current church a rich heritage in order to criticize its theological and pastoral practices.

This research was stimulated by pastoral concerns pertaining to the South African Hindu Community. It was found that the community had a noticeable number of individuals stagnant or stranded at the level of gross spirituality. On the other hand it is known that the primary texts of Hinduism and its long mystical traditions, from the Vedic Period to the Neo-Vedanta Movement, had adequate motivational and goal-orientated material to address this challenge. This work surveys the Vedic and Upanishadic texts in order to show the literary, social and philosophical conditions under which they were produced. Hindu mysticism emerges from all these strands of development. Gross mysticism in the form of elaborate rituals occupies the attention of the early Vedic seers. This graduates into subtle subjective mysticism in the Upanishads. At each phase there is a paradigm shift which this study interprets in the light of Shankara (medieval period) and Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Aurobindo and Radhakrishnan of the Neo-Vedanta Movement. In the early Vedic period the soul is a metaphysical entity. Upon death it is judged in accordance with its good or bad actions. Heavenly rewards or the punishment of hell are meted out to it. Heaven and hell are final eschatological goals for the soul in the Vedic period. In the Upanishadic period heaven and hell are temporary eschatological goals. The ultimate Upanishadic goal is Liberation which implies the mystical cessation of empirical existence and the realization of Unitary Consciousness. The Taittiriya Upanishad defines the soul analytically as a formulation of five sheaths : body, vital energy, mind, intellect and bliss with an immortal consciousness as its divine focus. These sheaths are fundamental to Hindu sacred psychology. Functioning under the effects of ignorance each sheath binds the soul to mundane existence. However, each sheath also possesses an intrinsic capacity to liberate the soul from suffering. This research explores the limitations and opportunities of each sheath and indicates the path by which the soul's divine potential may be realized. In the light of the Neo-Vedantic outlook this process is considered with a life-affirming attitude which is of relevance to South African Hindus. / Religious Studies and Arabic / D.Lit et Phil. (Religious Studies)

Prophecy is a major theme in Scripture and in contemporary practice in Pentecostal and charismatic settings. At its simplest, prophecy can be understood as a message from God delivered through a spokesperson to an audience, usually in the form of a revelatory experience. Despite the significance of prophecy in the history of Pentecostalism, the experiential coherence between modern-day charismatic prophets and Old Testament prophets has not been directly examined. Consideration of the literature shows conflicting messages. The application of biblical and historical studies tends to emphasize the divide between the Old Testament prophets and modern-day charismatic prophets while practical theological studies emphasize coherence. The heart of this practical theological study is a phenomenological investigation of the practice of charismatic prophecy in the Canadian context. Five textural and three structural elements are identified: Prophets recognize the presence of God, receive the prophetic impulse, discern the source and recipient of the message, release the prophetic message or act, and experience attendant physical and emotional sensations. The way that prophets experience this phenomenon is impacted by their mentoring, setting, and response to failure. This phenomenological description was then compared with the experience of Jeremiah to evaluate the level of coherence. Aside from uncertainty regarding the distinction of the first two textural components and the issue of discernment, a strong level of coherence was discovered between the Old Testament prophets and modern-day charismatic prophets. Jeremiah and modern-day Canadian prophets experience the phenomenon of prophecy in very similar ways. This high level of coherence leads to three conclusions. First, the application of biblical and historical studies that emphasize the discontinuity between the Old Testament prophets and modern-day charismatic prophets should be resisted in light of the data. This application—often based on a concern to safeguard the unique authority of Scripture from contemporary prophetic messages—is unnecessary since Canadian prophets hold a high value of Scripture that can be seen in the experience of Jeremiah himself. Second, Pentecostals should expand their narrative understanding backward in time to include the Old Testament prophetic lineage. Third, modern-day charismatic prophets should be encouraged to return to the Old Testament prophets for a deeper understanding of their practice.

English speakers use the concept of "darkness" in a number of metaphors to portray a wide variety of experiences from evil to fear to ignorance. These metaphorical connections or entailments are so natural that we can see an image of a dark-clad person in a film or book and usually be correct in assuming that they are at best questionably moral and at worst a villain. The Old Testament (OT) also employs dark images and dark imagery to various effects. From Job's description of the underworld in Job 3 to Isaiah 's description of the coming light that will dispel the darkness in Isa 8- 9, to the dark paths the wicked trod in Eccl 2:14, the OT uses a number of metaphors of darkness. For most of these examples, it would be easy to assume that the ancient Hebrew writers of the OT were working with the same concepts of darkness that we do today and thus interpret these passages along the same lines as our own modem English metaphors. But such assumptions can and have led to a number of misunderstandings and conflicting interpretations of passages that employ dark images. These miscommunications are most apparent in passages where God's presence is indicated by darkness like at the Sinai and Temple theophanies (Exod 20:19-20 and 1 Kgs 8:12, respectively) as well as later poetry about God (Ps 97:2). By combining the theoretical framework of Cognitive Metaphor Theory (CMT), and the methodology of Conceptual Blending (CB), this study will work toward a clearer understanding of how the writers of the OT understood darkness and how that shaped their use of it in their images and imagery of death, captivity, the unknowable, and God. It will be shown that the ancient Hebrew conception and use of darkness centres around three key recurring metaphors - Death is Darkness, Captivity is Darkness, and the Unknown is Darkness - while the metaphor Evil is Darkness is foreign to the OT. These findings serve to provide greater clarity in interpreting those OT passages that portray God as having a penchant for darkness.

In hierdie navorsing word die toelating van vrouepredikante in die Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk vanuit ’n kerkhistoriese en prakties-teologiese hoek bestudeer. Die navorsingswaardes wat in die sosiaal-konstruksionisme geld, naamlik dat sodanige navorsing ’n deelnemende en verhalende proses is, dat die invloed van diskoerse bestudeer word en dat die belangrikheid van taal in ag geneem word, is in die navorsing verreken. Vanuit ’n post-fundamentele teologiese posisionering is van ’n paar van die bewegings in ’n postfundamentele prakties-teologiese metodologie gebruik gemaak om na die belewing van agt vroueproponente en -predikante deur die loop van die proses van toelating, én daarna, te luister en saam met hulle te interpreteer. Daar is van die volgende bewegings gebruik gemaak: Die beskrywing van die verskillende kontekste waarteen die roepingsverhale en loopbane van vrouepredikante afgespeel het; die aanhoor en beskrywing van die kontekstuele ervarings van die betrokke vroue; die interpretasie van en betekenisgewing aan die verhale in samewerking met die vroue wat as medenavorsers geag word en die beskrywing van en refleksie oor die ervaring van God se teenwoordigheid in hulle roepingsverhale en bedieninge as proponente en predikante. Hierdie postfundamentele prakties-teologiese metodologie is inherent narratief van aard en sluit ook nou aan by die denklyne wat in die sosiaal-konstruksionisme geld. Deur hierdie metodologie is daar probeer om ’n bydrae te lewer tot die ontwikkeling en uitbou van mondelinge geskiedenis. Die beskrywing van vroue se verhale is terselfdertyd ook vrouegeskiedenis wat poog om vroue meer hoor- en sigbaar in algemene geskiedenis, maar spesifiek ook kerkgeskiedenis te maak. Die metodologie pas ook binne ’n meer postmoderne benadering tot geskiedenis in. Aan die hand hiervan is die breër landkaart en historiese konteks waarteen die roepingsverhale van vrouepredikante en kerklike vergaderings oor ’n tydperk van bykans 107 jaar afgespeel is, in breë trekke en deur middel van tydlyne beskryf. Die ontwikkeling en uitbouing van die volksmoederdiskoers oor die dieselfde tydperk is van nader beskou. Daar is verder gekyk na die invloed wat die breër konteks en die volksmoederdiskoers op vroue gedurende die twintigste eeu gehad het, hoe vroue oor die algemeen hulleself in bepaalde vroueruimtes soos vroue-organisasies uitgeleef het en of Afrikanervroue se stemme in die openbaar gehoor is al dan nie. Teen hierdie agtergrond is die verloop van die kerklike debat oor die toelating van vroue tot die besondere ampte, naamlik diakens, ouderlinge en vrouepredikante, beskryf. Hierdie debat kan in drie tydperke opgedeel word. Die eerste tydperk wat van 1966-1978 strek kan as ’n tyd van nadenke beskryf word. Vanaf 1982 tot 1990 is die debat deur ’n sterk verskil in Skrifbeskouing gekenmerk. Die laaste tydperk wat vanaf 1991 tot 2007 strek, beskryf hoe die praktyk stadig pos gevat het en hoe die gesprek uiteindelik na gendersake uitgebrei het. Die vroueproponente en -predikante se roepingsverhale, hulle belewenis van God in die pad wat hulle moes loop en eerste treë in die bediening is weer deurgaans teen die agtergrond van die breër landkaart, volksmoederdiskoers en die NG Kerk se verskillende sinodes aangehoor, beskryf en in samewerking met hulle geïnterpreteer. Bykomend tot die groep persoonlike verhale is twee verhale van vroue wat reeds voor 1950 teologie studeer het en nie meer vandag leef nie, opgeteken. In al die gesprekke het die belangrikheid van vrouepredikante se roepingsverhale, hulle positiewe en negatiewe belewenisse in die kerk, die impak van oorwegend manlike kerktaal op vroue, die gemis en impak van rolmodelle, die frustrasies rondom proponentskap en hulle belewing van God onder andere na vore gekom. Dit is ook opmerklik dat vrouepredikante oor die algemeen nie aktief aan die debat deelgeneem nie en dat die meeste van die medenavorsers in hierdie studie ’n bepaalde stuk ongemak met gendersake en feminisme beleef. Hulle laat net soos in die volksmoederdiskoers die praatwerk aan ander oor. / Thesis (DD)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Church History and Church Policy / unrestricted