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The purpose of this study is to pose possibilities in addressing the problem of ethnical discrimination, its development into supersessionism and the perpetual discriminatory practices in the contemporary church by engaging Acts 6:1-7 from a rhetorical and deconstructive perspective. The episode in Acts 6:1-7, where the seven men have been selected to deal with the issue of the “daily distribution of food” presents a problem with regard to its interpretation. The problem resides in the fact that the text itself contains a certain number of inconsistencies. The most obvious is the contradiction between the task assigned to the seven and their actual function in the subsequent narrative. The account of the selection of the seven has attracted the attention of many scholars. However, although they have identified the contradictions and incoherencies, the methodologies applied by these scholars to uncover the original meaning, did not enable them to dismantle the hierarchical dichotomies underlying the text, and to question how ethnical discrimination can be prevented as well as how the leadership is differently constructed. The objective of this study is to expose these contradictions and to ask how we can deal with this exposure, and how we can think with a text such as Acts 6:1-7 in addressing the problem of ethnical discrimination, supersessionism and leadership, not only in the church but also in its wider political manifestations. The research methodology used in this study derives from deconstruction and rhetoric within the wider ambit of critical theory. Acts 6:1-7, when read from a conjunction of rhetorical and deconstruction perspectives, demonstrates that there is indeed a problem of ethnicity in Acts 6, reveals how the author of Acts privileges an engendered masculinity ethos, exposes the absence of taking the plight of widows into full consideration, shows that the roots of supersessionism can be found in Acts 6: 1-7, and also infuses the notion of leadership with an ethical overturning that requires rethinking the implications for leadership. The significance of the study lies in considering how a continuation of ethnical discrimination in contemporary denominational context can be resisted via my thinking with Acts 6:1-7. / New Testament / D. Th. (New Testament)

<p>This study presents a new reading of the <i>Perlesvaus</i>, an anonymous thirteenth-century Old French Grail romance bizarrely structured around an Arthurian restaging of the battle between the Old and the New Law. I construe this hyper-violent, phantasmagorical text as a profoundly significant work of “trauma fiction” encoding a hitherto-unrecognized crisis of religious ethics and identity in Western Europe in the first half of the thirteenth century. Combining literary and historical analysis and drawing on current trends in trauma studies, I tie what I term the “deranged discourse” of the <i>Perlesvaus</i> to the brutal onset of internal crusading in southern France (the papal-sponsored Albigensian Crusade, 1209-29), making the case that the collective trauma staged in its narrative perturbations was a contributing factor in the well-documented worsening of Western European antisemitism during this period. One key analytical construct I develop is the “doppelganger Jew”—personified in the <i>Perlesvaus</i> by its schizoid authority figure, Josephus, a conflation of first Christian priest and first-century Romano-Jewish historian—who functions as an uncanny embodiment of powerful, unacknowledged fears that Christians were losing their spiritual moorings and reverting into reviled, scapegoated Jews. Traces of this collective trauma are explored in other contemporary texts, and one chapter examines how the fourteenth-century <i>Book of John Mandeville</i> revives similar fears of collapsing Judeo-Christian identity and unfolds under the sign of the doppelganger Jew.</p>

This thesis examines three students of Karl Barth’s work, all of whom articulate Christian theologies of Israel and Judaism under the influence of his thought and thus the wording of the title, after him. The three theologians are Paul M. van Buren (1924-1998), John Howard Yoder (1927-1997), and Robert Jenson (1930-2017). All three studied with or were supervised by Barth during the 1950s. Later, each of them would make significant contributions to post-Holocaust theologies of Israel and Judaism. In this thesis, I seek to elucidate the conceptual relationship between these two elements—each theologian’s early engagement with Barth and their later contributions to post-Holocaust theology—and argue that by examining the former, one can better understand the theological bases for the latter. I begin with an analysis of Barth’s doctrine of Israel. Barth claims that Israel and rabbinic Judaism are eternally determined to be witnesses to God’s own self-determination in Jesus Christ to be the God whose mercy rules in God’s judgment. A close comparative reading of van Buren, Yoder, and Jenson then follows. I begin by outlining the ways these three theologians appropriate and depart from Barth during or shortly after their time studying with him. I then trace the way each theologian’s early appropriation of and departure from Barth relates fundamentally to the development of their theologies of Israel and Judaism. My analysis reveals that each of the three critique Barth’s doctrine of God’s self-determination as the pre-determination of the identity of Israel and Judaism to be witnesses of Jesus Christ. This common critique enables each of the three to articulate a more positive account of Israel’s and rabbinic Judaism’s witness. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis examines three students of Karl Barth’s work, all of whom articulate Christian theologies of Israel and Judaism under the influence of his thought and thus the wording of the title, after him. Paul M. van Buren, John Howard Yoder, and Robert Jenson studied with or were supervised by Barth in the 1950s. Each of them would later make significant contributions to post-Holocaust theologies of Israel and Judaism. In this thesis, I seek to elucidate the conceptual relationship between these two elements—each theologian’s early engagement with Barth and their later contributions to post-Holocaust theology. My analysis reveals that these three theologians all critique Barth’s doctrine of God’s self-determination as the pre-determination of the identity of Israel and Judaism to be witnesses of God’s judgment. This critique enables each of the three to articulate a more positive account of Israel’s and rabbinic Judaism’s witness.