scholarly journals Die tydgerigtheid van die Bybel en die etiek van Bybellees: respons op die artikel van Gerrie Snyman

2006 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fika J. Van Rensburg
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Reformed Churches

The time-orientedness of the Bible, and reading the Bible ethically: response to the article by Gerrie Snyman The Editorial Board of “In die Skriflig” has requested Prof. Fika J. van Rensburg to respond to the article by Prof. Gerrie Snyman (“Homosexuality and time-orientedness: an ethic of reading the Bible?”; p. 715-744 in this edition). Prof. Snyman is critical of the discourse on homosexuality in the Reformed Churches in South Africa, as i.a. verbalised by Prof. Van Rensburg’s view that the pronouncement of the Biblical text on homosexuality is a matter of principle and not a cultural prescription bounded by time. Snyman (2006:718) is of the opinion that the criteria Van Rensburg uses to establish whether Scripture portions are time orientated and/or time bound, have no logic to it, but that it reveals clear ideological preferences. In his response Prof. Van Rensburg does not respond to Snyman’s argument point by point, but gives a systematic presentation of how he would like to see Reformed theologians establish whether a Scripture portion is time- oriented or time-bound. This he does methodologically and theoretically, as well as practically, at each point indicating how he agrees with or differs from Snyman.

scholarly journals Homoseksualiteit en tydgerigtheid: ’n etiek van Bybellees?

2006 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerrie Snyman
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Modern Concept ◽  
Reading Process ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Current Thinking ◽  
The Social

Homosexuality and time-orientedness: an ethic of reading the Bible? The article deals with the discourse on homosexuality within the Reformed Churches in South Africa. At stake is the exegete’s subjectivity, or presupposed arbitrariness in the hermeneutical process. The author takes issue with the view that the Biblical text on homosexuality is a matter of principle and not a cultural prescription bounded by time. The author suggests that the current thinking on homosexuality is infused by a modern concept of heterosexuality and that the use of some Biblical texts that clearly prohibit sex between members of similar gender is problematic, because very little of the social structure that once supported these laws has been honoured since the late 20th century. Adding to the problem of the use of the Bible is intersexuality, which makes any clear principled distinction between two sexes difficult. The author concludes that the Bible readers’ subjectivity (socio-political location) must be recog- nised and put on the table in order to indicate its role in the reading process.

scholarly journals Een teks - meerdere betekenisse: Hoe lees ons die Bybel?

2008 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernest Van Eck
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Reading Strategies ◽  
Cultural Distance ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
Metaphorical Language ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Multiple Meanings ◽  
Theological Debate

One text – multiple meanings: How do we read the Bible? This article discusses three ways of reading the Bible that are evident in the current theological debate in South Africa: a fundamentalist, foundationalist and critical reading. A brief description and evaluation of the three reading strategies are given. It is indicated that a fundamentalist reading of the Bible essentially operates with a canon in the canon, and a foundationalist reading with a canon outside the canon. A critical reading, which roots can be traced back to the Reformation, is put forward as possibly a more responsible way of reading the Biblical text, especially since it takes cognizance of the historical and cultural distance between text and reader. It is argued that readers who take this “differentness” seriously, are enabled to read the Bible afresh and anew, especially in terms of some burning ethical questions of our day. Attention is also given to a critical reading of metaphorical language of the Bible.

scholarly journals Messiasverwagting en prediking uit die Ou Testament

2005 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
H. F. Herrie Van Rooy
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Recent Past ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Related Matter ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Reformed Churches ◽  
The Relationship

Messianic expectation and preaching from the Old Testament In the recent past the issue of the Messiah in the Old Testament received a considerable amount of attention in South Africa, especially in the circles of the Gereformeerde Kerke van Suid-Afrika (the Reformed Churches of South Africa). The debate focused on the question regarding the Messiah in the Psalms, due to the new version of the Psalter in Afrikaans, published in 2001. Similar questions were asked concerning the New Afrikaans translation of the Bible (1983). This matter is related to the whole issue regarding the relationship between the Old and the New Testament. This article deals with a related matter, viz. the matter of Christological preaching from the Old Testament. Once it has described the background of the problem, it formulates some important principles and illustrates the application of the principles through the discussion of four examples from the book of Haggai.

scholarly journals Die aktiwiteit van die belydende GKSAvrouelidmaat tydens die erediens

2002 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Van Helden
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Reformed Tradition ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Worship Services ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Reformed Churches ◽  
Hands And Feet

The activity of the female communicant during worship services in the Reformed Churches in South Africa (GKSA) This article is a report of research done on how a female communicant in the GKSA can be active in Christ while certain traditions tie her tongue, hands and feet. By attempting to outline the internal and external activity of female communicants during worship, this article attempts to determine empirically the extent to which current church practice is Scriptural within The Reformed tradition. Definite and specific tendencies regarding the nature of female ministerial empowerment in the churches have been noticed. Suggestions concerning expanding the involvement by women during worship services have also been indicated. A possible response to the questions raised in this regard depends on the attitude and willingness of the GKSA to correct inhibiting and unbiblical traditions and to reform according to the essence of the Bible. Real reformation is the only way to ensure that a Reformed scriptural approach towards female Christians will be practised in future – an approach that will enable female members to participate fully in worship services.

scholarly journals Liberating reformed theology, social-embedded economics, and the white Afrikaans Reformed Churches

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Pieters
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Reformed Theology ◽  
Privileged Position ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Economic Paradigm ◽  
Reformed Churches ◽  
Conventional Paradigm

In this article, the author used a social-embedded framework to analyse the current economic paradigms of the white Afrikaans Reformed Churches in South Africa. He concluded that the current conventional paradigm is problematic in the lack of engagement with both the poor and alternative economic paradigms. He suggested that the notions of covenant, sovereignty and providence could assist the churches to develop an economic paradigm that is informed by solidarity with the poor. For this to happen he concludes that the churches need to develop a liberating hermeneutic in which the Bible is read as a book for the poor, while the readers remain conscious of their privileged position.

Leadership functions and church decline in the Reformed Churches in South Africa: Considering Ephesians 4:11–16

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignatius W. Ferreira ◽  
Wilbert Chipenyu
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Church Growth ◽  
Church Decline ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
The Gift ◽  
Reformed Churches ◽  
Practical Theological ◽  
The Church

Multiple studies from Ephesians 4:11–16 have been carried out that focused mostly on aspects of the believers’ priesthood. This article highlights the significance of adhering to the biblical instructions of God as a means to attain church growth. The church was instituted by God and as such he directs the process of church growth. Nevertheless, the ongoing membership decline in the World Protestant Churches globally and the Reformed Churches in South Africa (RCSA) locally is an indicator that the church is failing to meet the will and purpose of God with the church. In the World Protestant Churches and the RCSA, the decline trends are basically the same, and the loopholes are pointing at church leadership. This article seeks to describe the leadership failure to uphold the blueprint of church health according to Ephesians 4:11–16. These are the keys to real church revitalisation and growth. The exegesis of the problem verse (Eph 4:11) was carried out to indicate the various leadership gifts that are necessary for church growth to occur. The Bible and related literature are the sources of data. This article identifies how an omission of the gift-oriented tasks in a congregation leads to church decline.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: Within the context of the continued church decline within Western Christianity (Christendom), this article reflects on the historical, mostly ‘Practical theological’ focus on church growth by exegeting the source texts from a ‘missiological perspective’. This study is also very conscious of modernity’s onslaught on the evangelical church through the therapeutic and managerial revolutions, which functions with an attitude of anti-clericalism when focusing on church growth.

‘Limping, Yet Made to Climb a Mountain!’ Re-Reading the Vashti Character in the Hiv And Aids South African Context

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madipoane Masenya (Ngwan’A Mphahlele)
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
External Factor ◽  
Hiv And Aids ◽  
African Women ◽  
South African Context ◽  
Land Grabbing ◽  
The Bible ◽  
History Of ◽  
African Context

The history of the Christian Bible’s reception in South Africa was part of a package that included among others, the importation of European patriarchy, land grabbing and its impoverishment of Africans and challenged masculinities of African men. The preceding factors, together with the history of the marginalization of African women in bible and theology, and how the Bible was and continues to be used in our HIV and AIDS contexts, have only made the proverbial limping animal to climb a mountain. Wa re o e bona a e hlotša, wa e nametša thaba (while limping, you still let it climb a mountain) simply means that a certain situation is being aggravated (by an external factor). In this chapter the preceding Northern Sotho proverb is used as a hermeneutical lens to present an HIV and AIDS gender sensitive re-reading of the Vashti character in the Hebrew Bible within the South African context.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk van Miert
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
The Bible ◽  
External Pressures ◽  
History Of

In the conclusion, the intrinsic deconstructive power of philology is contrasted with external pressures moving philology in different political and religious directions. The positions of the main protagonists differed widely, but they show that the less they were institutionalized, the more freedom they had to present unorthodox theories. As in the case of natural science, biblical philology was a handmaiden of theology, but it could also be used against certain theologies. In the end, the accumulation of evidence regarding the history of the Bible and the transmission of its texts, could not fail to impinge on the authority of Scripture. The problems in the transmission of the biblical text were widely discussed in the decade leading up to the publication of the Theological-political Treatise. Readers of Spinoza were already familiar with the type of reasoning which Spinoza employed in the central chapters of his notorious work.

Reading from Worlds under the Text: Oceanic Women in the missio Dei

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-51
Author(s):  
Rosemary Dewerse ◽  
Cathy Hine
Keyword(s):  
Global South ◽  
Missio Dei ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Women

Abstract Missional hermeneutics is a relatively recent development in the field of biblical hermeneutics, emerging from several decades of scholarly engagement with the concept and frame of missio Dei. In a key recent publication in the field, Reading the Bible Missionally, edited by Michael Goheen, the voices of the Global South and of women – and certainly of women from Oceania – do not feature. In this article the authors, both Oceanic women, interrupt the discourse to read biblical text from their twice-under perspective. The Beatitudes provide the frame and the lens for a spiralling discussion of the missio Dei as, to borrow from Letty M. Russell, “calculated inefficiency.” Stories of faithful Oceanic women interweave with those of God and of biblical women, offering their complexities to challenge assumptions and simplicities.

scholarly journals Openbaring as principium theologiae

1993 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Kruger
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Contextual Theology ◽  
World Religions ◽  
General Revelation ◽  
Reformed Churches ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
The Universe

Theological renewal regarding different theological disciplines as well as the complete theological encyclopedia has lately been debated worldwide. Likewise, the Reformed Churches in South Africa are in a process of reconsidering the traditional reformed theological encyclopedia. This task can, however, not be fulfilled unless the basic issues are not also reconsidered. This article focuses on revelation as the principium theologiae. The line of argumentation centres round the fundamental confession in article 2 of the Belgian Confession. The truth implicit in this article, and accepted by the Reformed Churches, stresses that God can be known through his creation, sustenance and government of the universe, but He can be known more convincingly by studying holy Scripture. To prove this point of departure, Romans 1-4 and Romans 10 are discussed. The distinction between special and general revelation, contextual theology and the relationship to world religions and H. Bavinck's concept of the principium theologiae are also considered.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document