Religion Commons^™

Mobile Societies, Mobile Religions: On The Ecological Roots Of Two Religions Deemed Monotheistic, Edward Surman

CGU Theses & Dissertations

How do environments affect the generation and development of religions? The investigation taken up in this dissertation is one attempt to address this question. This work focuses on one comparative case study: the potential causal relationship between agriculturally marginal landscapes and the two oldest religions deemed monotheistic. This dissertation argues that the respective origins (and early development) of communities of worship centered around Ahura Mazda and YHWH were affected by similar environmental contexts. The dearth of literature concerning the effects of environments on religions extends to established theoretical and methodological approaches on the topic. The framework for approaching this research …

A Critical Comparative Scriptural Analysis Of Genesis 1:1-5 Based On Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Greek, And Coptic Manuscripts, Edens Elveus

CGU Theses & Dissertations

A translation of Gen. 1:1-5 may seem to be both close and far at the same time from the original Hebrew text because of historical, geographical, theological, cultural, philological, and linguistic reasons. The scribes who translated the biblical narrative of the creation of light from Hebrew to a lingua franca of their time had a translation technique. They knew what they were doing. They provided a translation that the people of their time (d’alors) could understand, depending on a consideration of the milieu where they lived, and the jargon used to express their ideas – straight or in a zigzag …

Mark’S Young Man And Homer’S Elpenor: Mark 14:51-52, 16:1-8 And Odyssey 10-12, Sungchan Moon

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Mark obviously says that all of the disciples of Jesus desert him and flee (Mark 14:50). Mark, however, introduces a young man as a new character who was following Jesus like other disciples and fled naked before Jesus’s suffering. This young man is the most enigmatic character in Mark. In particular, the young man never appears in other Gospels. For this reason, the young man’s identity and his conduct has been a topic of longstanding dispute among scholars.

Some regard him as historical figures, one of Jesus’ own disciples like John the son of Zebedee, James the Lord’s brother, or …

My Faith In The Constitution Is Whole: Barbara Jordan Signifies On Scriptures, Robin L. Owens

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation is a critical investigation of the engagements of scriptures in the life and speeches of U.S. Congresswoman Barbara C. Jordan (1936–1996). I engage in a research methodology that utilizes critical historical, auto/biographical, literary, and rhetorical analyses. My research agenda is to explain how scriptures work and are used by Barbara Jordan to illustrate an example of a larger phenomenon of scripturalizing and scripturalization outside of the context of institutional religion. In order to give a fuller context to Barbara Jordan’s rhetorical strategies, as an African American woman, I first consider the lives, speeches and use of scriptures of …

“Let Joy Size At God Knows When To God Knows What”: Gerard Manley Hopkins’S Struggle For Comfort, And The Illuminating Nature Of Unwarranted Suffering, Joel Kirk

CMC Senior Theses

Gerard Manley Hopkins suffered deeply. His “Terrible Sonnets” are confessional poetry that demonstrate his struggle with his God and with himself. This work analyses the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, starting Noah and ending with Jesus’s promise of a Paraclete, to analyze how both God and Man approach earthly and heavenly comfort. The work will then turn to Hopkins’s poetry to show that Hopkins’s unshakable faith and deep understanding of the Bible is both the cause and the cure of his suffering. This essay concludes that it is only through suffering that Hopkins, like Job, Jesus, and King Lear, …

Game Theory Meets The Humanities And Both Win Or Book Review: Game Theory And The Humanities: Bridging Two Worlds, By Steven J. Brams, Karl-Dieter Crisman

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This review discusses Brams' wide-ranging book Game Theory and the Humanities and gives some basic examples of the methodology and style, including how the Theory of Moves contributes to understanding such games.

Know Yourself And You Will Be Known: The Gospel Of Thomas And Middle Platonism, Seth A. Clark

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The Gospel of Thomas is a collection of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus and is primarily composed of rhetorical statements that were used to preserve the teachings of itinerant Greek philosophers. These collections were used to persuade individuals to join the philosophical schools represented, much like the early followers of the Jesus movement would use his teachings to convince others to join them as well. However, the theological background for the text is still debated because it contains esoteric and enigmatic references not fully understood by most scholars. This work argues that the theological and philosophical background for the Gospel …

Unbelief, Lawlessness, And Satan: Viewing The Freer Logion As A Scribal Response To Open- Ended Eschatological Themes In Mark, Seth Clark

LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University

The focus of my study is to demonstrate that major variants in the text of Early Christian Literature were purposely inserted into the text in light of theological controversies by scribes who represented a certain perspective on behalf of an Early Christian community. The text on which this paper is focused is the ending of the Gospel of Mark and the major textual variant known as the “Freer Logion.” I will argue that the Freer Logion was purposely inserted to conclude themes that were left open by the author of Mark and not addressed by the scribe who inserted the …

Scriptures, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Introduction

Interchangeable with holy/sacred book, “scriptures” is the English language term that is still popularly used to refer to a text or collection of texts deemed to be of special if not unique origins, authority and power. Users of the term also tend to assume that “the Bible” of the Jewish and Christian traditions represents either the only instance of such or the example par excellence among some others. A popular linguistic and rhetorical placeholder among cultures of Indo-European origins, the English term originally simply meant (from the Greek graphe/-ai, ta biblia; Latin, scriptura/-ae; Hebrew, ketav/-uvim) and continues to mean …

The Work We Make Scriptures Do For Us: An Argument For Signifying (On) Scriptures As Intellectual Project, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

I propose to argue in this essay for the agenda and practices of a research institute that a new agenda and set of practices put forward by a particular research institute offers a compelling future for biblical studies. In order to make such an argument about a direction for the future, I think it important for me to provide my own unavoidably tendentious current perspective on the personal and intellectual experiences and challenges of the past that have led me to this point.

The Bible As Read By African Americans, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

African Americans engagements with the Bible suggest much not only about who the people of the Bible are, how they sound and think, and what they mean and communicate but also about how Scripture functions in society and culture. African Americans use of the Bible as Scripture is varied and wide-ranging and has a storied history. These engagements should be understood as reflections of a people's long and continuing efforts to define and empower themselves. They are at once "readings" of the people of the worlds with which they were forced to negotiate. These engagements reflect the people's consistent aspiration …

Abstinence, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

This is an encyclopedia article.

The Sanctified ‘Adultress’ And Her Circumstantial Clause: Bathsheba’S Bath And Self-Consecration In 2 Samuel 11, J. D'Ror Chankin-Gould, Derek Hutchinson, David H. Jackson, Tyler D. Mayfield, Leah Rediger Schulte, Tammi J. Schneider, E. Winkelman

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Bathsheba's actions in 2 Sam. 11.2-4 identify crucial aspects of her character. Past commentators interpret these words in connection with menstrual purification, stressing the certain paternity of David's adulterine child. This article demonstrates that the participles rōheset and mitqaddesšet and the noun mittum'ātāh do not denote menstrual cleansing. Bathsheba's washing is an innocent bath. She is the only individual human to self-sanctify, placing her in the company of the Israelite deity. The syntax of the verse necessitates that her action of self-sanctifying occurs simultaneously as David lies with her. The three focal terms highlight the important legitimacy of Bathsheba before …

Book Review: "Yet With A Steady Beat: Contemporary U.S. Afrocentric Biblical Interpretation" By Randall C. Bailey, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Written at different times for different purposes and occasions, by African American scholars who are differently oriented and differently situated, eight essays have been collected and edited by biblical scholar Randall C. Bailey with a particular focus and purpose in mind. Such focus and purpose are not elaborated upon in the editor's slim introduction. Aside from the issue of the quality of the essays - of uneven quality, as is the case, as everyone knows, with almost all collected essays - what is at stake in this volume, and all volumes that are collections of essays by different authors, is …

Book Review: Ed. Musa W. Dube, Other Ways Of Reading: African Women And The Bible, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

I take great delight in having the opportunity to review this collection ofthirteen essays having to do with contemporary African women and their engagements of the Bible. Ably edited and introduced by Musa W. Dube, Senior Lecturer in the New Testament in the Department ofTheology and Religious Studies at the University ofBotswana, the essays have been long awaited. They fill a tremendous need--among and beyond the women of Africa. They inform and challenge and inspire communities far beyond the circle ofthe discussants in the book. They make a dramatic statement about the powerful voices and sentiments and creative impulses of …

Through Assyria's Eyes: Israel's Relationship With Judah, Tammi J. Schneider

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

The goal of the Bible was not to record history, and the text does not shy away from theological explanations for events. Given this problematic relationship between sacred interpretation and historical accuracy, historians welcomed the discovery of ancient Assyrian cuneiform documents that refer to people and places mentioned in the Bible. Discovered in the 19th century, these historical records are now being used by scholars to corroborate and augment the biblical text, especially the Bible’s “historical books” of Kings. This field for comparison complements the recent trend among biblical scholars of using new interpretative methodologies and archaeology to question some …

Contemptus Mundi Means "...Bound For The Promised Land...": Religion From The Site Of Cultural Marronage, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

The basic assumption behind this project is that all humanistic inquiries more or less explicitly involve self-discovery. I have chosen to try to be more rather than less explicit. I have realized for some time now that I am both a problem and a promise for the primary field in which I was academically socialized: biblical (New Testament) studies as defined and practiced by the guilds of biblical scholars in North America. I have provided enough evidence that I can “play the game” that the guilds require in terms of publications, research projects, and general scholarly orientation. And as such …

Past As Present, Present As Past: Freedom To Read The Self And The World, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Historical inquiry of the sort that seeks, in its different but necessarily naive ways, merely to "establish the facts," or merely to "defend the race," or "my people," or "my religion/denomination," or "our position," simply to accuse the other as source of current problems, needs to be identified for what it is and renounced. Such "history" is problematic, not so much because it has no insights or tells no truths, but because it cannot generally even adequately, or critically, problematize the "facts" and "truths" it discovers and engages. Put another way, this type of history seems unable to address the …

African Americans And The Bible, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Rationale for a History of "Readings": The history of the engagement of the Bible among African Americans is dramatic and complex and has important implications for biblical interpretation. It provides the student of the Bible not only a conceptual window onto a dramatic and complex history of self-definitions and worldviews among those in the modern world who now call themselves African Americans, but also the opportunity to rethink the basic hermeneutical assumptions about biblical interpretation, especially its focus upon the ancient text and/or ancient historical situation as the starting and end point of interpretation. The critical juxtaposition of the Bible …

Book Review: Conjuring Culture: Biblical Formations In Black America, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Reading Texts As Reading Ourselves: A Chapter In The History Of African American Biblical Interpretation, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Literature, especially religious literature, ideally aims to trigger degrees of empathy in readers who share a particular universe of meaning, with the goal of entertaining, provoking, challenging, and persuading. The literary text that has achieved something of the status of a "classic" is one that has consistently--that is, "beyond its time...beyond its space"--proved to be engaging and empathetic, consistently challenging and inspiring the spirit, provoking thoughts and arresting the imagination of those generally sharing a universe of meaning, or culture. But such texts, precisely because of their empathy-producing qualities, should also inspire among readers again and again over time a …

The Bible And African-American Culture, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

The history of the influence, uses, and functions of the Bible among African Americans is dramatic and complex, and reflects the different, sometimes conflicting, sociopolitical and religious self-understandings, orientations, and aspirations of a dominant segment, if not the great majority, of African Americans.

The Ascetic Impulse In Early Christianity: Some Current Methodological Challenges, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

As a student of New Testament and Christian Origins, thus, of the earliest period in the history of early Christianity, I come to the study of asceticism very much in the middle, forced from the beginning to address methodological issues. Very little attention has been paid to asceticism by those scholars who deal with the earliest texts and periods; it is as though the phenomenon did non exist in the first three centuries of the common era. The bulk of the literature on asceticism comes from those scholars whose expertise is in the fourth centuries and beyond. Such literature rarely …

African American Traditions And The Bible, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Introduction: Reading the Bible = Reading the Self and the World. African Americans' engagement of the Bible is complex and dynamic. It is a fascinating historical drama, beginning with the Africans' involuntary arrival in the New World. But as sign of the creativity and adaptability of the Africans and of the evocative power of the Bible, the drama continues to the present day, notwithstanding the complexity and controversies of intervening periods. Thus, there is in African Americans' engagement of the Bible potential not only for an interpretive history of their readings as a history of their collective self understandings, visions, …

Introduction To The New Testament: Books That Changed The World, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

The "New Testament" is the late ancient and modern religious and cultural designation given to the second part of the Christian Bible (in distinction from the "Old Testament," which constitutes the Hebrew Bible). The designation itself (he kaine daitheke, "new covenant," or "new testament") is a religious/theological one, not an historical or literary one descriptive of the character of historical events or literary documents. It is found in a number of passages from the twenty-seven book collection, and in subsequent customary usage first among Christians. The initial reference was not the collection of documents, but to the "new" …

African Americans And The Bible: Outline Of An Interpretive History, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Since every reading of important texts, especially mythic or religious texts, reflects a "reading" or assessment of one's world, and since the Bible has from the founding of the nation served as an icon, a history of African Americans' historical readings of the Bible is likely to reflect their historical self-understandings—as Africans in America.

Book Review: "Paul And The Torah" By Lloyd Gaston, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Paul and the Torah is the mature work of a well-known Canadian (Vancouver) biblical scholar in an important area of religious scholarship. The book is a collection of previously published essays having to do with Paul and his teachings regarding the relationship between the Jewish law and the Gentile Christianity of which he was pioneer. The essays, written over a period of at least a decade and arranged in chronological order, are remarkable for their coherence and consistency, and are a tribute to the author's powerful grasp and clear articulation of the materials and some very knotty issues and questions. …

Biblical-Historical Study As Liberation: Toward An Afro-Christian Hermeneutic, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

In the sense that they have always sought to know and articulate "the biblical position" on all matters pertaining to existence, including liberation for their people, all African American leaders--predominantly, though not exclusively, Christian--have been biblical theologians. But very few of these leaders have had as their major concern the academic study of the Bible apart from preparation for, and acceptance of, the presuppositions of confessional vocations. The paucity of African American biblical scholars only confirms the point.

Historical/Cultural Criticism As Liberation : A Proposal For An African American Biblical Hermenutic, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Historical and cultural criticism can serve to aid minority, culturalist readings of the Bible to stand with integrity against alien imperialistic readings. Historical criticism is necessary in order to gain perspective on the historically determined nature of all religious constructs, including those in biblical texts. Cross-cultural analysis is necessary in order to interpret the symbols and referents of biblical cultures and contemporary dominant cultures, so as to determine which symbols and referents from any culture are relevant and affirming.

Historical Study As Cultural Critique: A Proposal For The Role Of Biblical Scholarship In Theological Education, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Some things are a bit clearer to me today than they were a decade or so ago. For example, I can now better understand and articulate the reasons for my initial and continuing interest in biblical studies. It was the recognition of the pervasive influence of the Bible in the historical experiences of African Americans that first inspired the interest. The importance of the Bible among African Americans is not of significance to me because it is assumed to be unique in the history of the United States. I am quite aware of the historical importance of the Bible among …