The main focus of this dissertation is on the interpretation of Abraham as a spiritual ancestor in the context of the Roman appropriation of ancestors and the implications of perspective for Shona Christians in postcolonial Zimbabwe. In constructing Abraham as a spiritual ancestor, Paul not only builds upon an apologetic tradition in Hellenistic Judaism, but also interacts with an ideological trend in early Roman imperialism, which sought a basis for reconciliation between Greeks and Romans in the tradition of Aeneas as a common cultural ancestor. Thus, Pauls portrayal of Abraham as an ancestor of Jews and Greeks is an analogous ideological construction to that which was familiar to his Roman audience shaped by the propaganda of the Augustan Age (26 B.C.E. 68 C.E.).
By asserting that Abraham the Jew, rather than Aeneas the Roman, is the ancestor of the people of faith (fides), Paul constructs a liberating counterideology, the effect of which is to subvert the basis of Roman power. Unlike Aeneas, Abraham is an ancestor for all Gods people and can be claimed by the Shona people of Zimbabwe on the basis of faith. Abraham is a model for all Christians, Jews, and Muslims, and through him all faith religions are able to establish a unique relationship with God. Drawing upon the Greco-Roman appropriation of Aeneas as a figure of reconciliation between cultures, Paul does something creative within the Abraham tradition. He makes Abraham the spiritual ancestor of all those whose lives are characterized by pistis/fides, regardless of whether they are Jews or Greeks.
The paradigm for Pauls attempt to use Abraham our forefather as an ideological construct enabling the reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles is found in the literature of Greek and Roman writers of the firstcentury B.C.E., namely Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Virgil, who made Aeneas a vehicle for the reconciliation of Greeks and Romans. Paul was interacting with the intellectual work of Greek and Roman writers, such as Dionysius and Virgil who, in the decades before Paul, had sought a means for reconciling Greeks and Romans in the figure of Aeneas as a
source of identity.
The dissertation concludes that the construction of Abraham as a spiritual ancestor allows Shona people to claim Abraham as a spiritual ancestor on the basis of faith, and thus reincarnating the gospel in the continent of Africa where ancestor veneration is regarded as a spiritual practice. Abraham is an ideal figure through whom the nations of the world can see each other as sisters and brothers.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TCU/oai:etd.tcu.edu:etd-12052007-125945 |
| Date | 05 December 2007 |
| Creators | Kamudzandu, Israel |
| Contributors | David L Balch |
| Publisher | Texas Christian University |
| Source Sets | Texas Christian University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.tcu.edu/etdfiles/available/etd-12052007-125945/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to TCU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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