Chapters in Books (Old and New Testament)
Permanent URI for this collection
Browse
Recent Submissions
Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
- ItemAn Apocalyptic Womb? The Great Harlot of Revelation 17-18(2020-12) Punt, Jeremy; Punt JeremyThe depiction of the literary figure of the Great Harlotin Revelation17and 18is a poignant expression of the wider New Testamentapocalyptic concern withGod’s power over humanity and creation. The depiction portrays what is deemedrequisite social control through and over women’s bodies,andin a particularly poignant way,inthat of the Great Harlot.This essayexplores how a neglected element, namely the Harlot’s womb is tenuously present and,alongsidedivine power,is eschatologically positioned and apocalyptically framed in Revelation17-18, while exploring its intersections with the violence generated within a gendered context andthrough the posturing of authorita-rian political and social regimes.
- ItemOf "Basters" and "Bastards" : overcoming the problematic connection of race and gender in the Hebrew Bible and its interpretation(African Sun Media, 2020) Claassens, L. Juliana M.During the fallout from the now infamous Sport Science article,1 a colleague of mine in the Faculty of Theology at Stellenbosch University shared an anecdote of some coloured woman who was removed from a shortlist for some position at some company. The reason for this decision: “You know, that study … .” Some coloured woman. Some position. Some company. Like most anecdotes, this one is not easily verified. However, what rings true about it is what everyone knows who so fiercely critiqued this study portraying some coloured South African women as somehow representing all coloured South African women: ethnic and gender stereotypes, once they are out there, have an effect. And even though the article has been retracted, the stereotypes out there remain out there.
- ItemConquering evil : engaging violence from the perspective of Paul’s letter to the Romans(African Sun Media, 2020) Mekonnen, Endale SebsebeThe scholarly definition of violence has created conceptual complexity across disciplines. It is not possible to deal with all proposed definitions of violence in this brief chapter and therefore it will only focus on a number of interdisciplinary definitions which might contribute as a conceptual framework for understanding Paul’s letter to the Romans’ view of violence.
- ItemMatthew's reconfiguring of salvation in a context of oppression(African Sun Media, 2020) Nel, Marius J.Socio-historically both the story of Jesus narrated by Matthew, and the community he wrote for, can be located within Rome’s sphere of influence (Wainwright, 2017:30).2 According to Jonker (2018:6), it is important to take both these contexts (the world in and behind the text) into consideration when interpreting the biblical text in Africa. In reading the biblical text simply with a comparative paradigm, as is often done in studies undertaken by African scholars, a direct relationship between the world(s) constructed in the text and various African contexts is often assumed. Jonker has instead argued for an analogical paradigm that relates the textual communication to its socio-historical setting of communication (the world behind the text). While both the setting of Matthew’s story and that of Matthew’s communication must therefore be taken into consideration, the point of departure should be the contextual engagement of the constructed realities with the social-historical circumstances of the time of textual formation (Jonker, 2018:12–13). Matthew’s story of Jesus (the world in the text) is primarily set in Roman-occupied Galilee and Judea with its protagonist, in the words of Sim (2012:73), ultimately “brutally executed in Roman fashion by Roman soldiers on the orders of the local Roman governor.” The composition of the Gospel itself occurred approximately two decades after the disastrous Jewish revolt against Rome. In this period its audience would have been exposed to a relentless Roman propaganda campaign3 that sought to humiliate the defeated Jewish people with which Matthew’s community had a close association (Sim, 2012:63, 73). While it is a speculative enterprise to attempt to reconstruct the precise social history of a text like the Gospel of Matthew (the world behind the text) in terms of its patterns of scriptural citation, it remains important to read it in terms of the broad context of its protagonist and initial readers. It is clear from Matthew that they were subject to the economic exploitation, political oppression, military power and idolatry that characterised the Roman Empire (Hays, 2016:108; Sim, 2012:73).
- ItemGod the Saviour in Greco-Roman popular philosophy(BRILL, 2019) Thom, Johan Carl, 1954-God is often referred to as Saviour (σωτήρ) in Greco-Roman popular philosophy. His function as saviour is described as both cosmological and ethical: On the cosmological level, God is responsible for the preservation of the world and for saving it from the conflicting natural forces that threaten to tear it apart. On the ethical level, God saves humans from the suffering caused by their folly by helping them to gain the insight to live well-ordered and rational lives. In my essay, I will trace these motifs in various popular-philosophical texts and show how God’s soteriological role is reflected within popular philosophy.