Doctoral Degrees (Old and New Testament)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Old and New Testament) by Author "Amevenku, Frederick Mawusi"

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    The Reinterpretation of the law in Matthew’s sermon on the Mount : exploring its contextual interpretation among the Ewes of Ghana
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2019-04) Amevenku, Frederick Mawusi; Punt, Jeremy; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Theology. Dept. of Old and New Testament.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Many scholars believe that the Sermon on the Mount (SOM) in Matthew’s gospel deals with the reinterpretation of the Mosaic Law and its applicability to disciples of Jesus. Most Patristic scholars focused on how the ethics of the SOM might apply to believers. The dominant medieval view was that the SOM was a higher ethic reserved for the clergy. Reformation and modern era scholarship on the SOM was/is intense. Luther thought it was an impossible demand just like the Law; Anabaptists applied it literally; Liberalists derived their Social Gospel from it and existentialists claimed the SOM was a challenge to decision. Weiss and Schweitzer said it was an interim ethic of Jesus’ mistaken notion of imminent eschatology; Dispensationalists viewed it as ethics of the millennial kingdom. Other scholars think it is ideal ethics to aspire to. Most of these scholars studied the text using the historical critical method (HCM). Is the SOM simply “difficult ethics”? From the 1970s, many scholars applied narrative criticism (NC) to study the SOM. Others used social-scientific methods (SSMs). An attempt to merge the benefits of NC and SSM, led to Vernon K. Robbins’ socio-rhetorical interpretation (SRI). Using Robbins’ SRI, this dissertation explored the contextual application of the SOM among the Ghana-Ewe, and concluded that the SOM can be viewed as Jesus’ new Kingdom Gospel, which is his reinterpretation of the Mosaic Law. Viewed this way, the SOM teaches not just ethics, but above all, kingdom-appropriate righteousness for theological and ethical renewal. This righteousness is natured through daily beneficial exchanges with God, leading to habitual forgiveness and subsequent divine perfection of love for God, and one’s enemies. Kingdom-appropriate righteousness offers an antidote to the monster which this dissertation calls “compulsory-wealth Christianity” being promoted in Ghanaian Christianity today.