<p> The "Breath of Fresh Air" project explores the potential for a "Circle of the Word" ministry model to spiritually empower incarcerated men and women while deepening the discipleship of local church members through relationship with imprisoned persons. Circle of the Word is a biblical storytelling workshop structured by peacemaking circle processes. The model was implemented with men at a state prison and women at a county jail. Volunteers from a local church assisted with the jail program. Data results affirm the model's potential. As a spiritual intervention, Circle of the Word joins the restorative justice movement to end mass incarceration.</p>

In recent years, several scholars of the Reformation have worked to complicate the notion of early Protestantism as a singular and liberating hermeneutic movement. In particular, critics like James Simpson and Ramie Targoff have targeted Tudor Bible scholarship as stifling and restrictive. Looking at Elizabethan psalm explications, I see neither a purely liberating nor a purely restrictive hermeneutic culture, but instead a combination of the literal and the figurative, of poetics and theology. Examining three different psalm explications by Martin Luther, John Hooper, and Thomas Wilcox, I find a wide variety of approaches to the Psalms, which suggests a relative interpretive freedom even among the Elizabethan Protestant elite. This analysis leads me to conclude that even early in the development of Protestant England there was no such thing as a unified Protestantism, but instead a patchwork of methods that trace back to humanism and Catholicism as well as emerging theories of literalism and poetics. / text

This dissertation argues that the apostle Paul represents Jesus as the founding hero of the Galatian churches, through whose death the Galatians enter into the inheritance of Abraham and obtain protection from the curse of the law. It draws on the typology of Greek founder cult and the poetics of colonization in order to establish the salient features of hero stories and founder cult, then shows through exegesis and comparison how Galatians reflects those features. "Poetics" refers to certain shared and idealised practices of remembrance that are grounded in broader traditions and rituals, specifically the traditions and rituals associated with the ancient, ongoing practice of worshipping heroes, commonly known as hero cult, and the closely related practice of honouring civic founders, also called founder cult. The death of the founder plays a critical role in ancient Greek colonization stories, both by marking the independence of the colony from the mother city and by linking the citizens of the newly independent city to the past through the cyclical performance of rituals established by or for the founder. In Galatians 1–2 Paul represents himself as a tomb-that-signifies Jesus and a sign for the Galatians to read. / Cette thèse soutient que le récit autobiographique de l'apôtre Paul dans Galates 1–2 s'appuie sur la même poétique ancienne de la colonization qui influence l'histoire de Tlepolemos, le fondateur de Rhodes, comme raconté dans la Septième ode olympique de Pindare. «Poétique» se réfère à certaines pratiques partagées et idéalisées du souvenir qui sont ancrées dans les traditions et les rituels plus larges—à savoir, les traditions et les rituels associés à la pratique ancienne et constante d'adorer les héros, aussi connue comme le culte de héro, et la pratique intimement liée d'honorer les fondateurs civiques, aussi appelée le culte fondateur. La mort du fondateur joue un rôle essentiel dans les histoires anciennes de la colonization grecque comme la Septième ode olympique, à la fois en marquant l'indépendance de la colonie de la ville mère et en liant les citoyens de la ville nouvellement indépendante au passé, à travers la performance cyclique de rituels établis par ou pour le fondateur. L'héroïsation du fondateur représente donc un tournant dans la vie d'une colonie. De même, dans Galates 1-2, Paul raconte une histoire de fondation qui se termine avec sa mort. Dans le récit, c'est son propre corps qui devient un tombeau, un tournant, et un signe à lire pour les Galates.

The majority of commentators have taken Luke 12:5 as a reference to God, while a few well-known New Testament scholars have taken it to be a reference to Satan. Yet neither position has adequately substantiated its interpretation with reference to the setting in Luke's gospel. We argue that taking it as a reference to Satan makes better sense of the passage within its context. The literature is reviewed to show which commentators, namely Conzelmann, Wink and Lampe, have understood this verse as a reference to Satan. A comparison with the parallel text in Matthew reveals the differences in text and context between Matthew and Luke. These are significant enough to allow for different interpretations of the reference in Matthew and Luke. Focussing on $ varepsilon chi o upsilon sigma grave iota alpha$ and Satan shows that Luke uses these concepts in a more developed way, and ascribes authority to Satan in his writings. This interpretation of Luke 12:5 fits in well with the theme of conflict developed in Luke's gospel. The cumulative weight of these arguments points in the direction of Luke 12:5 being a reference to Satan.

In this thesis I attempt to demonstrate that the so-called "Johannine problem" is deeply involved in the hermeneutical issues of concealing and revealing, secrecy and mystery. Thus, the "Johannine problem" is re-constituted in a narrative that deconstructs unity and coherence through a dynamic process of concealing and disclosure, disclosure and concealing. With that as the operating thesis, it follows that the goal of this project is to demonstrate that the Gospel of John resists interpretation and understanding when read on its own terms. In Chapter 1 Johannine secrecy is placed in the context of the work of William Wrede who first introduced the notion of secrecy into gospel studies, and in doing so, raised the issue of understanding in biblical hermeneutics. When Wrede applied the secrecy motif to the Fourth Gospel, he concluded that the notion of Jesus as a bringer of truth and light is not fully sustained in the narrative of John's Gospel as an unbroken whole, or as a closely conceived idea. In Chapter 2 Rudolf Bultmann's hermeneutic and exposition of the Fourth Gospel is presented as an example of one who has astutely perceived the central issues with which a specifically modern program for biblical interpretation must wrestle; that is, the alien character of the world views represented in biblical texts. Bultmann observed how the tension between concealing and revealing is implicated in the mythological language used by the Fourth Evangelist. Bultmann, however, was preoccupied with the existential categories of Martin Heidegger and thus missed the turn when Heidegger moved toward a hermeneutic of language. It is only when language is thought of as the disclosure of being that religious texts can be thought of as "vehicles of revelation." In Chapter 3 Martin Heidegger's hermeneutic of concealing and revealing is introduced through his concept of aletheia, or truth as the interplay between concealing and revealing. It is this concept which provides the cornerstone of this thesis. In Heidegger's terms, secrecy is the ground of revelation. Heidegger's philosophical categories open new possibilities for reading gospel narratives because the tension between concealing and revealing is now considered as a hermeneutical obstacle to full disclosure and understanding. Thus, what gospel narratives reveal is also withdrawn again into concealment, thus making the valid interpretation sought by traditional critics extremely difficult to achieve. In the final two chapters of this thesis the Prologue of the Fourth Gospel (John 1:1-18) and the story of the trial of Jesus before Pilate (John 18:28-19:16a) are examined as test cases for the hermeneutic developed by Heidegger. Using Heidegger's hermeneutical categories I show that the Gospel of John is as much a story about concealing as it is about revelation. The narrative pushes toward the full disclosure of Jesus as the truth and the light, but this revelation takes place in concealing. Revelation is promised, but the promise is left unfulfilled. Truth is disclosed in the person of Jesus, and then qualified in ways that leave the reader in doubt about the nature of truth. In the final analysis, this thesis argues that the Gospel of John victimizes the reader by undermining meaning, concealing revelation, and preventing disclosure in ways unforeseen by either traditional historical criticism or the newer literary criticism.

The concept of meaning-as-correspondence is developed and employed to demonstrate how in the modern period the meaning of a narrative is conceived as a separate entity from the narrative itself. Meaning-as-correspondence is manifest in three modes: (1) as a referent to which a narrative points, (2) as an object that a narrative describes or (3) as a content that a narrative contains. As a preunderstanding of narrative, meaning-as-correspondence eclipses the power of narrative. The enervating effect of meaning-as-correspondence on the interpretation of the gospels is demonstrated. The work of the Mythical School, D. F. Strauss and R. Bultmann is assessed. All employed a concept of myth to the gospels which presupposed that the meaning of the gospels was a separate entity from the narrative. Members of the Mythical School conceived of meaning as an ideal or historical content. Strauss understood the gospels as mythical representations of a philosophical content which must be speculatively rendered into the language of idealism. Bultmann believed that the gospels referred to the early church's proclamation of the gospel, the kerygma. The concept of meaning-as-performance is presented as a way to re-conceive meaning as an event which occurs through narrative performance. The critical tools of narrative criticism are employed to understand the way gospel narratives are structured for the experience of reading/hearing. Reader-response criticism shifts attention from the objective critical plane to the pragmatic or rhetorical plane. The story of Jesus' healing of the blind beggar is used as a test case by which to contrast the methods of Strauss and Bultmann with a performative approach.

Ezekiel's Wheel is a tone poem based on the experience of the prophet Ezekiel, as told in the Old Testament. The piece deals with the moment of his vision and the sensations during the course of his experience. The piece manifests itself through an opening chord which is a combination of major, minor and half-diminished triads which are stacked and inverted. Various bits of detail from the desert setting and the vision itself are interspersed through the winds, strings and percussion.

Wolfhart Pannenberg and Karl Rahner argue for an "opening" of theology to broader intellectual input. The similarity of their positions derives from the foundational status accorded anthropology and from common opposition to literal, supernatural and positivist interpretations of Christianity. The critique of Neo-orthodoxy and Neo-Thomism that they reduce theology to anthropology is unjustified. Their anthropologies show a marked difference which derives from two sources. Pannenberg and Rahner have different conceptions of theology's task: Pannenberg writes apologetics for a non-Christian academic audience; Rahner writes philosophical dogmatics for Christians. Pannenberg interrogates secular anthropology for its Biblical foundation. Rahner embraces a Christian anthropology founded upon the experience of grace. Secondly, their doctrines of eternal life evidence their philosophical heritage. Rahner applies the conception of transcendental subjectivity found in Marechal's and Heidegger's reinterpretations of Kant to basic Thomistic commitments. Pannenberg accepts Hegel's understanding of reality as historical expression. This difference in orientation accounts for the underlying structural differences which surface in the individual components of their doctrines of eternal life. Rahner focuses on the hiddenness of transcendental subjectivity; Pannenberg on the unity and expressiveness of history. Rahner links eternity to an analytic of human freedom: eternity is the fruit of time. For Rahner, the surplus of meaning which supports the Christian hope lies hidden in the depths of the experience of grace. Pannenberg begins with time and builds a doctrine of eternity as the unity of history with Hegel's temporalized interpretation of the part/whole distinction. The modern concept of reason implicitly anticipates the whole of eternity. For Rahner, the real is the creative ground behind appearance, an impenetrable mystery which manifests itself in categorical determinations. Truth is disclosure of the transcendental conditions which underlie experience. For Pannenberg, the appearance of the entire temporal span provides the content of eternity. Truth is the coherence and coordination of historical appearances. For Pannenberg, the surplus of meaning upon which the Christian hope is dependent lies in the future. Reality is incomplete and truth provisional until the end of history. Rahner focuses on the vertical dimension of reality; Pannenberg on the horizontal.

The biblical narrative of Jephthah and his daughter (Judges 11:31-40) recounts the story of the judge, Jephthah, who vowed to sacrifice to God whatever came to greet him upon his return from a victorious battle with Ammon, and whose daughter became the victim of this vow. The goal of this thesis is to examine a sample of the Jewish responses to this biblical narrative from ancient and medieval times through the twentieth century. The analysis demonstrates the difficult nature of this text, its linguistic and conceptual ambiguities, the solutions to a well-defined series of problems proposed by more than two dozen interpreters, and their failure to deal with most of the historical and ethical problems that emerge from the story.

This dissertation investigates the representation of personal religious experience in the letters of Paul, seeking insight into the nature of the phenomena attested there, and into the communicative purpose of his experiential references. The study aims at helping to redress a habitual scholarly neglect of testimonies to subjective experience in the New Testament, and in ancient religious texts, generally. The thesis combines socio-rhetorical readings of selected Pauline texts with analysis of the resulting experiential data, through contemporary cognitive and ritual theory, and through anthropological models for the comparative study of religious practitioners and practices. In particular, the systematic application of the comprehensive analytical model of divergent "modes of religiosity," by anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse, enhances the comparative project. Whitehouse distinguishes between "doctrinal" and "imagistic" religious practices, involving twelve distinguishing variables, some cognitive, and others socio-political in nature. One central variable is the inverse relationship of sensory pageantry to ritual frequency, which he relates to corresponding differences in ritually mediated subjective experience, building on the prior insights of ritual theorists Robert McCauley and Thomas Lawson. Whitehouse's robust synthesis of social-pragmatic and cognitive-experiential factors strengthens this thesis' central claim that Pauline texts are intentional, competent evocations of meaningful, potentially shared religious experiences.The first main argument of this thesis is therefore that Paul's rhetoric in 1 Corinthians 12 -14 can best be understood as addressing a situation marked by the tension between "doctrinal" and "imagistic" concerns and practices, and that such a reading affords fresh insights into the nature of some of the charismata mentioned by Paul, and particularly of practices of inspired speech in the Corinthian church. The second principal argument concerns various other experiential phenomena in Paul's letters, including visions, altered states of consciousness (or ecstasy), and spiritual indwelling and empowerment. I contend that such phenomena, as attested by Paul, can be more fruitfully studied with the help of Max Weber's "ideal type" of the Charismatic, which has considerable congruence with Whitehouse's theoretical conceptions, than with other models (favoured by some scholars) from the anthropology of religion, especially those of the Shaman or the Medium.Overall, this study seeks to better establish the legitimacy of an experientially focused scholarly investigation of Paul's letters, in light of that author's evident and consistent confidence in what I call the "communicativity" of personal religious experience. / Cette thèse étudie les représentations de l'expérience religieuse personnelle dans les lettres de Paul en essayant de mieux cerner la nature des phénomènes qui y sont évoqués et l'objectif que poursuit leur auteur en y faisant référence. L'enquête voudrait contribuer à corriger une omission fréquente dans l'étude universitaire des témoignages d'expérience subjective dans le Nouveau Testament et dans les textes religieux anciens en général. La thèse marie une lecture socio-rhétorique des textes pauliniens à l'analyse des données expérientielles qui s'en dégagent, en faisant appel à la théorie contemporaine du rituel et de la connaissance et à des modèles anthropologiques pour l'étude comparée des praticiens religieux et des pratiques religieuses. Plus particulièrement, l'application systématique du modèle d'analyse globale des « modes de religiosité » divergents, élaboré par l'anthropologue Harvey Whitehouse, soutient le projet comparatiste. Whitehouse distingue entre pratiques religieuses « doctrinales » et « iconistes» [imagistic] en fonction de douze variables, les unes d'ordre cognitif, d'autres de nature sociopolitique. Une variable fondamentale a trait au rapport inverse entre cérémonial sensoriel et fréquence du rite, qu'il rattache à des différences correspondantes dans l'expérience subjective médiatisée par le rite, en se fondant sur les idées des théoriciens du rite que sont Robert McCauley et Thomas Lawson. La solide synthèse qu'opère Whitehouse entre les facteurs sociaux pragmatiques, d'une part, et les facteurs cognitifs expérientiels, de l'autre, renforce l'idée centrale de notre thèse selon laquelle les textes pauliniens sont des évocations compétentes et délibérées d'expériences religieuses porteuses de sens et susceptibles d'être partagées.Le premier grand point de la thèse pose donc que la rhétorique de Paul en 1 Corinthiens 12 -14 doit d'abord être comprise à la lumière de la tension entre préoccupations et pratiques « doctrinales » et « iconistes », et qu'une lecture de ce genre jette une lumière neuve sur la nature de certains des charismata cités par Paul, notamment sur la nature des pratiques de discours inspiré dans l'église de Corinthe. Le deuxième grand point porte sur différents autres phénomènes expérientiels dans les lettres de Paul, dont les visions, les phénomènes de conscience altérée (extase) ou le fait de se dire habité (indwelling) ou habilité (empowerment) par l'Esprit. Je soutiens que de tels phénomènes, attestés par Paul, gagneraient à être étudiés à la lumière du « type idéal » du charismatique chez Max Weber, qui a une plus forte congruence avec la théorie de Whitehouse qu'avec d'autres modèles (préférés par certains universitaires) tirés de l'anthropologie de la religion, ceux du chaman et du médium.En somme, cette étude cherche à mieux fonder la légitimité d'une étude universitaire des lettres de Paul qui soit axée sur l'expérientiel, à la lumière de sa confiance évidente et constante en ce que j'appelle la « communicabilité » [communicativity] de l'expérience religieuse personnelle.