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Cut Off From(One's) People_Punitive Expulsion In The Torah, G Thomas Hobson

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

Hobson, G. Thomas. “‘Cut Off From (One’s) People’: Punitive Expulsion in the Torah.” Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, 2010. 245 pp.

This dissertation argues that the Torah’s penalty “cut off from (one’s) people” (kareth) is normally a form of expulsion from the community of Israel, in contrast to the view that this penalty is a threatened divine extermination curse, a view reflected in the LXX and rabbinic traditions. The author traces a punitive expulsion interpretation from the fifth century B.C.E. Jewish community, to Maccabean-era practice as described by Josephus, to expulsion at Qumran. The use of the verb כדת is examined, …

“Wait For Me”: Appreciating The Curious Juxtaposition Of Zephaniah 3:8 And 9, Bob Caldwell

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

When I started doctoral work, I had no intention of doing anything in the Latter Prophets. Perhaps it is my earlier accounting training, but wrestling with the details of the historical books and mining them for theological insights has always had my interest. The Latter Prophets involved the difficulties of understanding Hebrew poetry, searching for referents, and trying to make sense of a message that was delivered in a context to which I am barely connected. Unfortunately, one day I found myself without a dissertation topic (a previous topic idea proved to be unworkable). In the mercies of God, Dr. …

Problems In A Movement-Towards A Mutual Hierarchy Social Model Of The Trinity, Jeffrey Dukeman

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

Dukeman, Jeffrey, A. “Problems in a Movement: Towards a Mutual Hierarchy Social Model of the Trinity.” PhD diss., Concordia Seminary, 2010. 241 pp.

Many chief adherents of a social model of the Trinity, which posits community as the ultimate ontological category in Trinitarian discourse, exhibit a hierarchy-equality polarity or tension in various aspects of their Trinitarian thought. Typically, social Trinitarians “resolve” this tension by emphasizing or choosing one side of the polarity, either hierarchy or equality, over the other. This results in an inadequate accounting for full sociality among the divine persons, where such sociality requires, among other things, both …

The Waves Of The Deluge Breaking On Jonah The Intertextual Use Of The Noachic Narrative In Jonah, Kevin S. Golden

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

Golden, Kevin S. “The Waves of the Deluge Breaking on Jonah: The Intertextual Use of the Noachic Narrative in Jonah.” Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, 2010. 251 pp.

Two overarching matters are considered: intertextual methodology and its application to the use of the Noachic narrative within the book of Jonah. The intertextual methodology, the lesser of the two foci, employed within this study seeks a symbiotic relationship between the text and the reader. Textual evidence establishes the existence of the link while the reader’s interaction with the texts explores the subtleties of the intertextual relationship based upon the textual evidence. The …

Beyond Justice: Death And The Retribution Principle In The Book Of Job, Varunaj Churnai

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

Churnai, Varunaj., “Beyond Justice: Death and the Retribution Principle in the Book of Job.” Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, 2010. 232 pp.

In recent decades, scholars have tended to interpret what Job says about death either as part of the broader reading of the Old Testament about death, or by imposing ancient Near Eastern mythological concepts upon the text of Job, read apart from the Old Testament’s wisdom tradition. This dissertation attempts to redress the latter trend of interpretation by articulating that what Job says about death is related to Job’s struggle to understand his relationship to God in relation to …

Aural Design And Coherence In The Prologue Of First John, Jeffrey E. Brickle

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

Brickle, Jeffrey E., “Aural Design and Coherence in the Prologue of First John.” Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, 2010. 236 pp.

The dissertation focuses on the aural features of the Prologue of 1 John. These features reflect an underlying design which facilitated the communication of its rhetorically powerful message within the dynamic oral culture of the late first century. The complexity of the passage’s grammar and syntax has long puzzled modern biblical scholars—who typically read in silence and evaluate ancient documents from a print-based viewpoint—and hampered attempts to discern a coherent structure. The dissertation surveys these scholarly attempts to resolve the …

“Made In Each Other:” John Scottus Eriugena’S Conception Of The Human Person As A Unifying Vocabulary For Trinitarian Metanarrative And Anticartesian Phenomenology, Carey B. Vinzant

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

Vinzant, Carey B. “Made in each Other: John Scottus Eriugena’s Conception of the Human Person as a Unifying Vocabulary for Trinitarian Metanarrative and Anti-Cartesian Phenomenology.” Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, 2010. 260 pp.

This study sets forth an account of the human person, drawn primarily from the thought of John Scottus Eriugena, which integrates the metaphysical account of personhood set forth by Trinitarian theology (especially John Zizioulas) with the phenomenological one set forth by certain Anti-Cartesian philosophers (especially John Macmurray, Martin Buber, and Gabriel Marcel). These two schools of thought have in common the conviction that uniqueness and relation to other …