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Mid-seventeenth-century England saw numerous religious sects come into existence, one of which was the Calvinistic Baptist group. During the upheaveal of the revolutionary years this group was often accused of heresy by their orthodox/reformed contemporaries. At that time Hanserd Knollys, one of their London pastors, was personally charged with holding heterodox beliefs, in particular, Antinomianism, Anabaptism and Fifth Monarchism. In addition, Knollys has been accused of hyper-Calvinism. This version of Calvinism was held by some eighteenth-century English Calvinistic Baptists. Some Baptist historians have suspected Knollys of holding this teaching in the seventeenth-century, or at least they have felt it necessary to defend him against it. All of these charges are serious, and consequently bring into question Knollys' orthodoxy. This thesis will systematically examine each charge made against Knollys in its context, and comprehensively from Knollys' writings seek to determine if they were valid. Furthermore, this thesis will elucidate Knollys theology, particularly his soteriology, ecclesiology and eschatology.

This thesis will critically examine the project on globalization as articulated by the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada (ATS) in an effort to uncover the presuppositions and motivations that underlie the project, and to situate them historically and with reference to current North American trends in education and politics. It will argue that the project, as it has been described and defined, comes out of the ethos of Protestant liberalism, particularly as this is embodied in missiology and the 19th century Social Gospel Movement, and that this liberal foundation has been influenced since the 1960's in North America by the Civil Rights Movement, the Women's Movement and the more recent concern related to minorities and North American pluralism. Although lip service is paid to evangelism, ecumenism and interreligious dialogue, the globalization agenda is expressed in terms of social ethics, predominantly justice or liberation theology.

This dissertation contends that in spite of the increasing trajectory toward a more corporate, covenantal understanding of justification within Pauline scholarship since the emergence of the New Perspective on Paul, there still remains significant evidence that justification, at its core, is concerned with the individual before God in need of grace, who is counted righteous apart from any human works. Chapter 1 provides a history of research that traces this corporate trajectory within modern scholarship, as well as noting some of the responses to it. Chapter 2 examines the case for the presence of Jewish legalism at Paul's time of writing, to which he responds with his doctrine of justification by faith. Though E. P. Sanders successfully showed that legalism did not define second-temple Judaism, his work does not rule out the possibility of legalism within elements of the religion during the lifetime of Paul. This legalism would be more subtle than in pre-Sanders caricatures of Judaism, and is intricately tied to ethnocentrism, since the works in question were often those such as circumcision, which separated Jews from Gentiles--hence, ethnocentric legalism. Chapters 3 and 4 apply a framework that does not rule out legalism to three key justification texts (Gal 2:16; Rom 3:20; Rom 4:1-8). In these passages, Paul alludes to or cites a psalm text, each of which highlights an underlying anthropological approach to justification that denies the place of works, which was also timeless, though now fully revealed in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Chapter 5 examines evidence in other places in Paul, including some of the disputed letters, that undergirds the idea that fundamental to justification and Pauline soteriology in general is a distinction between grace (through faith) and works. Chapter 6 seeks to align the present argument with more corporate concerns in Pauline soteriology through exegesis of two passages that are often considered to be linchpin texts for the New Perspective (Rom 3:27-30; Eph 2:14-18). Chapter 7 provides a summary of the argument, as well as implications of the present study, with further reflection on what it means for future work on the subject.

This is an exploratory study that seeks to establish the extent to which traditional theologies on 'imago Dei' may contribute to the vulnerability of Catholic single women to HIV and AIDS. It employs a feminist framework of study to critically analyse how androcentric theologies on imago Dei informed by the Greek philosophies of Plato and Aristotle and advanced by the Church fathers do contribute to the dehumanisation of women. Argued in this study, is that these teachings could be responsible for single women‟s vulnerability in the context of HIV and AIDS. Following extensive research done on women, HIV and AIDS, this study also presents cultural, social, economic and religious factors as players in women‟s susceptibility to HIV and AIDS. However, in a unique and particular way, this study seeks and presents a possible connection between the Catholic Church‟s teachings on imago Dei and the vulnerability of Catholic single women to HIV and AIDS. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2011.

Language maintenance investigations have, for the most part, been limited to the study of the effect that socio-cultural factors have on language preservation. Unfortunately, language maintenance has been studied in tandem with language shift. Language shift has generated more interested from scholars than has language maintenance. This dissertation is an attempt to open up new ways to look at the study of language maintenance by presenting a theoretical framework whereby the domain of language use is the principal focus of study. I studied the domain of religion, subdivided into several dimensions. One dimension, that of ideology, is at the center of my study. The main objective of the dissertation was to identify ideological themes within the doctrinal body of the church selected for the study. Twenty-five such themes were identified and analyzed to determine the ways in which the themes influence language maintenance among the church members. The case study approach and the use of several ethnographic data collection methods were employed to assist us in having a better understanding of the phenomenon of language maintenance and to pave the way for future language maintenance studies.

Hadriaan Beverland (1650-1716) was banished from Holland in 1679. Why did this humanist scholar get into so much trouble in the most tolerant part of Europe in the seventeenth century? In an attempt to answer this question, this thesis places Beverland's writings on sex, sin, Scripture, and scholarship in their historical context for the first time. Beverland argued that lust was the original sin and highlighted the importance of sex in human nature, ancient history, and his own society. His works were characterized by his erudite Latin, satirical style, and disregard for traditional genres and hierarchies in early modern scholarship. Dutch theologians disliked his theology and exegesis, and hated his use of erudition to mock their learning, morality, and authority. Beverland's humanist colleagues did not support his studies either, because they believed that drawing attention to the sexual side of the classics threatened the basis of the humanist enterprise. When theologians asked for his arrest and humanist professors left him to his fate, Dutch magistrates were happy to convict Beverland because he had insolently accused the political and economic, as well as the religious and intellectual elite of the Dutch Republic, of hypocrisy. By restricting sex to marriage, in compliance with Reformed doctrine, secular authorities upheld a sexual morality that was unattainable, Beverland argued. He proposed honest discussion of the problem of sex and suggested that greater sexual liberty for the male elite might be the solution. Beverland's crime was to expose the gap between principle and practice in sexual relations in Dutch society, highlighting the hypocrisy of a deeply conflicted elite at a precarious time. His intervention came at the moment when the uneasy balance struck between Reformed orthodoxy, humanist scholarship, economic prosperity, and patrician politics, which had characterized the Golden Age of the Dutch Republic, was disintegrating, with unsettling consequences for all concerned. Placing Beverland's fate in this context of change provides a fresh perspective on the intellectual environment of the Republic in the last decades of the seventeenth century.

The interpretation of the letter to the Hebrews made a distinctive contribution to doctrinal construction, polemical controversy, and evolution of scripture-critical technique in the early modern period. This was because many of its themes and passages were considered significant to contemporary theological debates. Hebrews therefore offers an important case study for biblical reception history. This thesis adopts a diachronic approach, highlighting the priorities and worries of English Hebrews exegetes between the reigns of Edward VI and Charles II, and asks how these shifts catalysed hermeneutical advances towards higher biblical criticism. Calvin interpreted Hebrews' theology of sacrifice as an antidote to Catholic christology, soteriology, and beliefs about the mass. His thinking was adopted by Elizabethan Protestant readers, popularised through public documents like the Reformation Bibles (chapter one), and analysed in detail by sermons and lectures (chapter two). The reception of Hebrews also illustrates established historiography about the break-down of Reformed hegemony in England. Chapter three demonstrates how the use of the epistle by anti-puritans clashed with the censored Reformed exegete William Jones. Scholars of the seventeenth century have largely ignored how Hebrews' latent supersessionism promoted innovation in Church and society. Chapter four explores the way in which civil war Socinians expounded Christ's priesthood in terms of heavenly expiation, while radicals seized on the epistle's potential to support their vision of politico-religious liberation. Initially the Reformed countered by defending the trinity and Chalcedonian christology, as shown from mid-century exegesis in chapter five. However, two writers realised the underlying challenge of supersessionism and wrote Hebrews commentaries which served as systematic rebuttals. William Gouge deployed typology and Ramism to rebind the two dispensations (chapter six), and John Owen revised received expressions of the covenant in order to permit more development within God's plan while retaining unity of purpose before and after Jesus (chapter seven).

What is the correct way to interpret the relationship between the message of Jesus and the kerygma, a hermeneutic of discontinuity and evolution or a hermeneutic of continuity and development? The Eschatological Jesus will argue for continuity and development. In their portraits of a non-eschatological and non-messianic Jesus J.D. Crossan and Marcus Borg raise questions about the relationship between Jesus and the kerygma but do not answer them. Reginald H. Fuller and Martin Hengel demonstrate that high Christology can be traced directly to the eschatological ministry of Jesus, especially his authority. Fuller describes Jesus' authority in terms of an inaugurated eschatology and a distinctive sonship which he extends to others. Martin Hengel describes Jesus' eschatological authority as one who acted in God's place when he called his disciples the way God called his prophets and imposed on them a divine discipline and in Lk. 13:34 which has parallels in Sir. 1:15 and Deut. 32:11. This is a messianic authority since it was the Messiah who stood in God's place at the end of time. This Jesus who is in control of the end gave rise to a belief in his pre-existence and the claims of the Fourth Gospel. P.M. Casey, on the other hand, rejects such authority as being apparent in Jesus' ministry. Unlike Fuller and Hengel who see the Fourth Gospel as the logical outgrowth of Jesus' use of 'Abbā, Casey sees the Fourth Gospel as a betrayal of Jesus and the synoptic tradition. However, Casey overlooks the synoptic gospels' portrait of Jesus' acting in God's place and Matthew's use of προσκγνεῖν and προσέρχεσθαι. The Eschatological Jesus concludes with the belief that Jesus' ministry was messianic and eschatological and that the authority he exhibits provides the basis for not only his being Christ, but divine Lord and Son of God.

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