scholarly journals Baptism – the Revelation of the Filial Relationship of Christ and the Christian

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 459-495
Author(s):  
Marcin Kowalski
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Synoptic Gospels ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Gift ◽  
Christian Understanding ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Point Of Reference

The author analyses Jesus’ baptism in Jordan, looking for its parallel in the Christian baptism. He begins by acknowledging the historicity of Jesus’ baptism and reflects on the meaning of the baptism of John by juxtaposing it with similar rites described in the Old Testament texts, in Second Temple Jewish literature, and in rabbinical sources. Then he analyses the meaning of Jesus’ baptism, criticizing the historical-critical interpretations that separate the scene of baptism from the theophany that follows it. According to the author, such an operation is unfounded due to the nature of ancient texts and the literary and thematic continuity between baptism and theophany in the synoptic Gospels. Further, the author presents arguments demonstrating that Jesus comes to Jordan already aware of his identity and mission, which the Father’s voice announces to others and objectivizes. In the last step, it is argued that Jesus’ baptism in Jordan together with the Lord’s death and resurrection could have been a point of reference for the early Christian understanding of baptism connected with the gift of the Spirit, with the filial dignity and the “Abba” prayer and with the inheritance of heaven. All these elements can be found in Rom 8:14-17,23 which describes the new life of those baptized in Christ.

The Holy Name of the God of Moses and the Prologue of St John's Gospel

1978 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. T. R. Hayward
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
Established Fact ◽  
John's Gospel ◽  
Editio Princeps ◽  
Relationship Of

It is now over twenty years since Alejandro Dez Macho announced his discovery of a complete text of the Palestinian Targum contained in the Codex Neofiti I of the Vatican Library. Even before the first volume of the editio princeps was published, the importance of Neofiti 1(N) and its marginal and interlinear glosses (Ngl) was apparent not only to specialists in the Aramaic language, Old Testament studies, and Jewish Literature of the Second Temple, Mishnaic and Talmudic times, but also to New Testament scholars. A particular feature of N which was bound to attract attention sooner or later is its frequent use of the formula Memra (utterance, word) of ahweh in the first chapter of Genesis in place of the Ἐlohim of the Massoretic Text, a feature encountered otherwise only in the Fragmentary Targum (FT). As we shall see presently, the exact significance of the term Memra was once a matter for keen scholarly debate, some asserting that it represented an entity separate from God, an intermediary between God and the created order, others roundly denying that it was any such thing, and regarding it only as a reverent means of avoiding pronunciation of the Holy and Ineffable Name. For reasons shortly to be described it was the latter opinion which finally prevailed and which is now generally accepted as established fact; but in the days before the scholarly debate on Memra was concluded it had been quite common for New Testament scholars to argue that, as an hypostasis and intermediary between God and the world, Memra had formed either the single antecedent, or one of the antecedents, to the Logos of the prologue of St John's Gospel. The presence of Memra in the text of N to Gen. i, and its frequent appearance in the Ngl, has led to renewed scholarly interest in the relationship of Memra to St John's Logos, so much so that A. Dez Macho, McNamara, and Domingo Muoz are all prepared to consider Memra a key concept in any discussion of St John's prologue. With the results of previous scholarship in mind, and in the light of new evidence, it would appear that the time is now right for a critical evaluation of these recent claims.

Solomon, Exorcism, and the Son of David

1975 ◽  
Vol 68 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 235-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis C. Duling
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
The Other ◽  
Synoptic Gospels ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Comprehensive View ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Usual Solution ◽  
The One

A comprehensive view of the Son of David in the New Testament requires facing the following problem: on the one hand, Davidic quotations, metaphors, and the descent theme are derived from the Old Testament royal tradition as it is channeled through Jewish texts; on the other, thetitleSon of David is found only in the synoptic gospels and is associated primarily with a figure who is so addressed by people in need of exorcism or healing. The usual solution to this problem in works on Christology is to say that a) miracle working is not associated with the Jewish royal Messiah in general or the Son of David in particular in contemporaneous Jewish literature, and b) it is early Christian tradition and/or redaction which has transformed the traditional royal conception and linked it with miracle working.

scholarly journals The requirement of the law fulfilled in Romans 8:4

2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk J. Venter
Keyword(s):  
Moral Aspect ◽  
The Gift ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The Law ◽  
Point Of Reference ◽  
Romans 8

God effects the fulfilment of the requirement of the law through the agency (mission) of Christ. Those ‘in him’ are the point of reference in whose favour the law’s requirement is fulfilled, with the effect that they are no longer obligated to Torah. Being ‘in Christ’ they, nonetheless, are also envisioned as living in a way that corresponds to what Torah would have required of them, had they still been subject to it, but they are now being governed and empowered by the Spirit. Consequently their lives give expression to the ultimate (singular) requirement and intention (δικαίωμα) of Torah. The fulfilment of the requirement of the law refers to the purpose of the law as a whole, and not only of the ‘moral’ aspect, often anachronistically separated from the ‘cultic’ aspect. Ultimately, God who originally gave Torah now effected the fulfilment of its intention − something that had been unrealised before the mission of Christ and the gift of the Spirit due to the incapability of the law.Die vervulling van die wet se vereiste in Romeine 8:4. God bewerk die vervulling van die wet se vereiste (δικαίωμα) deur die bemiddeling van (die sending van) Christus. Dié wat ‘in Christus’ is, is die begunstigdes van die feit dat die vereiste van die wet vervul is, met die gevolg dat hulle nie meer aan die bepalinge van Tora as sodanig onderhewig is nie. Aangesien hulle ‘in Christus’ is, word dit egter voorsien dat hulle steeds sodanig sal leef dat dit ooreenstem met wat Tora in beginsel van hulle sou vereis indien hulle steeds daaraan onderhewig was, maar dat hulle dit nou vanweë die heerskappy en bekragtiging van die Gees uitleef. Gevolglik gee hulle lewens gestalte aan die uiteindelike (enkelvoudige) doel en vereiste (δικαίωμα) van Tora. Die vervulling van die wet se vereiste verwys nie na die vervulling van slegs die ‘morele’ vereistes nie, maar ook na dít wat dikwels op anachronistiese wyse as die ‘seremoniële’ wet afgesonder word. Uiteindelik het God, wat Tora oorspronklik daargestel het, die vervulling van die wet se bedoeling gerealiseer − iets wat vanweë die onvermoë van die wet ongerealiseerd gebly het in die epog voor die koms van Christus en die gawe van die Gees.

scholarly journals Wisdom and Law in the Hebrew Bible and at Qumran

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-181
Author(s):  
Charlotte Hempel
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Spread Model ◽  
Community Rule ◽  
Relationship Of

This article begins by noting the paucity of engagement between scholarship on the Dead Sea Scrolls (dss) and a number of significant studies on the relationship of wisdom and law in the Hebrew Bible. A substantial case study on Proverbs 1-9 and the Community Rule from Qumran is put in conversation with the seminal work of, especially, Moshe Weinfeld on Deuteronomy and its refinement by subsequent research to trace a dynamic interaction between wisdom and law in the Second Temple period. The article ends with critical reflections on the wide-spread model of segmenting ancient Jewish literature and those responsible for it into neat categories such as wisdom and law. It is argued that such a model presupposes a degree of specialization that is not borne out by the range of literature that found its way into the Hebrew Bible or the caves in the vicinity of Khirbet Qumran.

“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10): An Ecological Reading of John’s Gospel

2012 ◽  
Vol 124 (2) ◽  
pp. 64-71
Author(s):  
Susan Miller
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Kingdom Of God ◽  
Eternal Life ◽  
Synoptic Gospels ◽  
Presence Of God ◽  
The Gift ◽  
John's Gospel ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Samaritan Woman

In the synoptic gospels Jesus proclaims the imminence of the Kingdom of God but in John’s Gospel Jesus is concerned with the gift of eternal life. Interpretations of John’s Gospel have emphasised the relationship between salvation and an individual’s faith in Jesus. Several passages feature accounts of the meeting of Jesus and characters who come to faith in him such as the Samaritan woman, the blind man, Martha, and Thomas. The focus on the faith of individuals and their desire for eternal life has downplayed the importance of the natural world. An ecological strategy of identification, however, illustrates the ways in which Jesus is aligned with Earth. He offers the Samaritan woman living water, and he identifies himself as the bread of life (6:35), the light of the world (8:12), and the true vine (15:1). This strategy of identification highlights images of fruitfulness and abundant harvests. This approach, moreover, emphasises the presence of God in the processes of nature, and the gift of eternal life is described in terms of the abundance of the natural world. An ecological interpretation of John’s Gospel challenges the view that salvation may be defined purely in terms of the gift of eternal life to an individual, and points to an understanding of salvation as the restoration of the relationship of God, humanity, and Earth.

scholarly journals Old Testament spirituality in the gospel of John

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk G. Van der Merwe
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Gospel Of John ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Second Temple Judaism ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
Real People ◽  
Fixed Part ◽  
Positive Feature

The majority of early Christian documents are saturated with Jewish thought. Although Second-Temple Judaism did include a certain amount of diversity, when the Gospel of John was written in different phases during the latter half of the 1st century, the written Torah was a fixed part of Jewish Scripture. In this research, I endeavour to point out how Torah themes saturate the Prologue of the Gospel of John and also how these themes create a certain spirituality amongst its readers. A positive feature of Old Testament imagery and themes is that they are polysemantic, which made it easy for the writers of New Testament documents to reinterpret the Old Testament in the light of Jesus Christ. The author of the Gospel of John also made use of significant characters, themes and imagery, all taken from the Torah. In doing so, he created new spiritualities amongst the readers of the Gospel of John to endorse the identity, reality and a certain image and experience of the unseen God (1:18) of the Old Testament through Jesus Christ. The spirituality in the Gospel of John is bound up with a real God interacting with real people in real situations.

What's Divine about Divine Law?

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Hayes
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Dissonance ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Philo Of Alexandria ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Western Idea ◽  
Jewish Writers ◽  
Divine Law

In the thousand years before the rise of Islam, two radically diverse conceptions of what it means to say that a law is divine confronted one another with a force that reverberates to the present. This book untangles the classical and biblical roots of the Western idea of divine law and shows how early adherents to biblical tradition—Hellenistic Jewish writers such as Philo, the community at Qumran, Paul, and the talmudic rabbis—struggled to make sense of this conflicting legacy. This book shows that for the ancient Greeks, divine law was divine by virtue of its inherent qualities of intrinsic rationality, truth, universality, and immutability, while for the biblical authors, divine law was divine because it was grounded in revelation with no presumption of rationality, conformity to truth, universality, or immutability. The book describes the collision of these opposing conceptions in the Hellenistic period, and details competing attempts to resolve the resulting cognitive dissonance. It shows how Second Temple and Hellenistic Jewish writers, from the author of 1 Enoch to Philo of Alexandria, were engaged in a common project of bridging the gulf between classical and biblical notions of divine law, while Paul, in his letters to the early Christian church, sought to widen it. The book then delves into the literature of classical rabbinic Judaism to reveal how the talmudic rabbis took a third and scandalous path, insisting on a construction of divine law intentionally at odds with the Greco-Roman and Pauline conceptions that would come to dominate the Christianized West. This book sheds critical light on an ancient debate that would shape foundational Western thought, and that continues to inform contemporary views about the nature and purpose of law and the nature and authority of Scripture.

Going Through Hell; ΤΑΡΤΑΡΟΣ in Greco-Roman Culture, Second Temple Judaism, and Philo of Alexandria

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 352-378
Author(s):  
Clint Burnett
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Second Temple Judaism ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Philo Of Alexandria ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
Roman Culture ◽  
Greek Myths

This article questions the longstanding supposition that the eschatology of the Second Temple period was solely influenced by Persian or Iranian eschatology, arguing instead that the literature of this period reflects awareness of several key Greco-Roman mythological concepts. In particular, the concepts of Tartarus and the Greek myths of Titans and Giants underlie much of the treatment of eschatology in the Jewish literature of the period. A thorough treatment of Tartarus and related concepts in literary and non-literary sources from ancient Greek and Greco-Roman culture provides a backdrop for a discussion of these themes in the Second Temple period and especially in the writings of Philo of Alexandria.

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