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The King And The Land: A Geography Of Royal Power In The Biblical World, Stephen C. Russell

Publications and Research

The King and the Land offers an innovative history of space and power in the biblical world. Stephen C. Russell shows how the monarchies in ancient Israel and Judah asserted their power over strategically important spaces such as privately-held lands, religious buildings, collectively-governed towns, and urban water systems. Among the case studies examined are Solomon's use of foreign architecture, David's dedication of land to Yahweh, Jehu's decommissioning of Baal's temple, Absalom's navigation of the collective politics of Levantine towns, and Hezekiah's reshaping of the tunnels that supplied Jerusalem with water.

By treating the full range of archaeological and textual evidence …

Matthew 23:34 And The Discipleship Ideal, Cedric Vine

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

No abstract provided.

You Shall Know That I Am Yhwh: The Holiness Composition In The Book Of Exodus, Paavo Nataniel Tucker

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Shema Through The Ages: A Pre-Modern History Of Its Interpretation, Esteban J. Hidalgo

Andrews University Seminary Student Journal

This article traces the history of the interpretation of Deuteronomy 6:4 from its original context, through the dawning of early Christianity in the Second Temple period up to the twilight of the late medieval period. The reader will appreciate the persistent centrality of an unchanging doctrine and simultaneously discern fluidity in its meaning and application in both Jewish and Christian perspectives. Proportionally, the focus is placed on how early Christian writers hermeneutically accommodated the doctrine of the Trinity in the oneness of God as stated in the Shema.

Indices, Studia Antiqua

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

Applying To Graduate School In Religious Studies And Cognate Fields, Daniel Becerra, Stephen Whitaker

Studia Antiqua

No abstract provided.

Perspectives About Pontius Pilate In The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Frank F. Judd Jr.

Studies in the Bible and Antiquity

Whenever a new movie depicts the events associated with the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s passion, it must decide how to portray the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. Was Pilate a pawn in the hands of the Jewish leaders? Was he acting independently according to his own imperium? What responsibility did the Roman governor bear in the trial and condemnation of Jesus? These questions are not new, for early Christians dealt with the same issues and came to a variety of conclusions.

Circumcising The Mouth Of Moses: The Idolatrous Status Of Yahweh's Mediator Among The Idols Of Ancient Mesopotamia, Amy L. Balogh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The thesis of this dissertation is that in the defining moment in which he is transformed from "uncircumcised of lips" to "god to Pharaoh" (Ex 6:28-7:1), Moses is best understood as Yahweh's idol, undergoing a status change akin to the induction ritual for ancient Mesopotamian idols, the Mīs Pȋ ("Washing/Purifying of the Mouth"). To make this point, I argue that Moses and idols be compared with respect to their status as mediator between divine and human realms. With their respective status changes, not only are idols and Moses transformed on an ontological level, but so are their relationships to their …

When Not To "Tie The Knot”: A Study Of Exogamous Marriage In Ezra-Nehemiah Against The Backdrop Of Biblical Legal Tradition, Gerald A. Klingbeil

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Mythicism And The Making Of Mark, James F. Mcgrath

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Carrier’s approach allows him to say that every single thing he finds in the relevant sources is “exactly what we’d expect” if mythicism is true – “as symbolic myth, every oddity is explained, and indeed expected.” This is because “they made this up” is compatible with everything that any text says – especially if one excludes in advance the possibility of using traditional critical methods and criteria for determining that some details may reflect actual historical events.

The Function Of 'Hope' As A Lexical And Theological Keyword In The Psalter: A Structural-Theological Study Of Five Psalms (Pss 42-43, 52, 62, 69, 71) Within Their Final Shape Context (Pss 42-72), Christine Maria Vetne

Dissertations

The shape and message of the Psalter has been of central interest for many Old Testament scholars during the last thirty years. At the core of shape scholarship stands the issue of hope. Often this is related to what is commonly considered a major hope-shift in the Psalter, which moves its focus from hoping in the Davidic covenant (Books I-III) to hoping in God (Books IV-V). However, when considering the shape and message of Book II, there is evidence that these two hopes coexist, side by side, as also seen in the introduction to the Psalter (Ps 2).

This dissertation …

Cleansing The Common: A Narrative-Intertextual Study Of Mark 7:1-23, Eike Arend Mueller

Dissertations

The conflict story of Mark 7:1–23 between Jesus and the religious leaders over the issue of defilement is the meeting point of a variety of disciplines: Purity studies, Jewish studies, exegetical studies, Historical Jesus studies, and studies on Jesus and the law. The crux of the passage, the meaning of the parable in v. 15 and the ensuing “cleansing” in v. 19, has been interpreted very differently. Scholars doing exegetical studies and studies on the relationship between Jesus and the law have maintained that the Gospel writer correctly reflects in 7:19 the meaning of Jesus’ parable (7:15), abrogating the clean/unclean …

'Whence This Evil?' A Critical Assessment Of (Anti)Theodicy And Innocent Suffering In Lamentations 3, Mark P. Stone

Theses and Dissertations

Recent scholarship on Lamentations has focused on the voice of Daughter Zion in chapters 1-2. Arguing that the frank protests constitute an antitheodicy, interpreters have placed these poems in opposition to the voice of the man in Lam 3, specifically 3:21-42. This Wisdom-like, paraenetic section is seen to put forth a theodicy, counseling penitent acceptance of God's righteous judgment. The present study argues instead that, when incorporated into the rhetorical movement of Lam 3 as a whole, 3:21-42 instead constitutes an antitheodicy consonant with Lam 1-2. It is proposed that Lamentations manipulates the expected theodicy solution until it has been …

Esau, Son Of Isaac And Grandson Of Abraham: The Model Of A Faithful Son, Moshe Reiss

The Asbury Journal

The story of Esau and Jacob, the two powerful sons of Isaac and Rebekah is one of the several conflicting families noted in the book of Genesis. Jacob, whose other name is Israel, is the father of the twelve tribes and thus the founder of the Jewish people. Rebekah may be the most pow- erful of the matriarchs; the one God talks to directly about her role in the covenant. The reconciliation of the brothers is one of the more powerful descriptions in the Bible.

Revisiting The Mandaeans And The New Testament, James F. Mcgrath

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

The Mandaeans have been known to scholars for as long as there has been modern scholarship. Thanks to advances in technology, you can now find some of their ancient texts online, and videos of their baptismal rituals on YouTube. Yet as fascinating as the Mandaeans are, and as much as modern technologies can facilitate greater familiarity with them, the amount of attention that they receive is surprisingly sparse – although there are encouraging signs that that is at least beginning to change.

In The Wilderness: Of Tassels, Wanderings, And The Promised Land, Gerald A. Klingbeil

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Origin Of The Eschatological Feast As A Wedding Banquet In The Synoptic Gospels: An Intertextual Study, Phillip J. Long

Dissertations

The Problem. The problem this dissertation seeks to address is the origins of the wedding banquet imagery in the teaching of Jesus. Frequently, scholars will state that the image of a wedding banquet was a common messianic image in the first century. However, other than Isa 25:6-8, sources for the image of a banquet for the messianic age in the Hebrew Bible are sparse. Yet the image of a banquet clearly appears in the Synoptic Gospels in both the actions of Jesus as well as his teaching. Because the metaphor of a wedding banquet is not found in the literature …

The Last Of The Rephaim: Conquest And Cataclysm In The Heroic Ages Of Ancient Israel, Brian R. Doak

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

This dissertation explores the role of giants in the narrative and historiographic worlds of symbol, geography, and religion in ancient Israel. The Nephilim, Anaqim, Rephaim, Emim, Zamzumim/Zuzim, some Gibborim, and other individuals (e.g., Goliath) can all be classified as “giants”—not only with respect to their height and other physical properties, but also with respect to the negative moral qualities assigned to giants in antiquity. Previous interpreters have treated giants as merely a fantastical prop against which God’s agents emerge victorious. I argue that giants are a theologically and historiographically generative group, through which we gain insight into central aspects of …

Mark’S Missing Ending: Clues From The Gospel Of John And The Gospel Of Peter, James F. Mcgrath

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

The Gospel of Peter may be unique among early Christian Gospels in its embracing of those details towards the end of Mark’s story that other readers and authors both ancient and modern have found to be problematic, in particular the fear of the women and their failure to say anything to anyone.

Katapausis And Sabbatismos In Hebrews 4, Erhard Gallos

Dissertations

Problem. Enthusiasm for the subject has not resulted in a general consensus regarding the meaning of “rest” in Heb 4. The dissertation studies the meaning of katapausis and sabbatismos in Heb 4 together with its relation to the neglected gatherings in Heb 10.

Method. The study consists of an analysis of those passages in which the rest motif is found explicitly (Heb 3-4) as well as the unit (Heb 10) which exhibits cohesion to the rest motif in Heb 4, giving special attention to the use of the term katapausis in the Septuagint, sabbatismos in Christian and non-Christian literature, and …

Cultic Allusions In The Suffering Servant Poem (Isaiah 52:13-53:12), Kyesang Ha

Dissertations

This study investigates the Hebrew cultic allusions in the Suffering Servant Poem (Isa 52:13-53:12) in order to discover the nature or meaning of the suffering of Yahweh's Servant. The survey of literature reveals that the background of the Suffering Servant Poem is to be found in the Hebrew cultus. Thus the nature or meaning of the Servant's suffering is determined by a penetrating as well as comprehensive study of the text, specifically from the Hebrew cultic perspective. However, there has never been any careful, comprehensive study of the cultic allusions in the Poem in connection with the Suffering Servant. This …

Philo Of Alexandria's Exposition Of The Tenth Commandment, Hans Svebakken

Dissertations

As part of a larger exposition on the Ten Commandments, Philo offers in Spec.4.78b-131 a detailed exposition of both the Tenth Commandment, which he reads simply as "You shall not desire," and the Mosaic dietary laws, which he identifies as a distinct set of subsidiary laws designed to promote observance of the Tenth Commandment. Setting his exposition in the context of Middle-Platonic moral psychology, this dissertation answers two fundamental questions: First, what, in Philo's view, does the Tenth Commandment prohibit? (All desire? A certain type? What type?) Second, how, in Philo's view, is the Tenth Commandment observed? (What are the …

Images Of Egypt In Early Biblical Literature: Cisjordan-Israelite, Transjordan-Israelite, And Judahite Portrayals, Stephen C. Russell

Publications and Research

This book suggests a regional paradigm for understanding the development of the traditions about Egypt and the exodus in the Hebrew Bible. It offers fresh readings of the golden calf stories in 1 Kgs 12:25-33 and Exod 32, the Balaam oracles in Num 22-24, and the Song of the Sea in Exod 15:1b-18 and from these paints a picture of the differing traditions about Egypt that circulated in Cisjordan Israel, Transjordan Israel, and Judah in the 8th century B.C.E. and earlier.
In the north, an exodus from Egypt was celebrated in the Bethel calf cult as a journey of Israelites …

"The Anchor Of The Soul That Enters Within The Veil": The Ascension Of The "Son" In The Letter To The Hebrews, Felix H. Cortez

Faculty Publications

Problem This dissertation studies the nature of Jesus’ ascension to heaven and its role in the argument of Hebrews. Method The study consists of an analysis of those passages in which Jesus’ ascension is referred to directly (Heb 1:6; 4:14-16; 6:19-20; 9:11-14, 24; 10:19-22) and a study of the imagery Hebrews uses to couch its theology, giving special attention to the role of this imagery in the progression of the argument. The study is both exegetical and theological in nature, seeking to provide an analysis of specific passages as well as systematization of their import. Results The six passages that …

Good Fences And Good Neighbors? Biblical Scholars And Theologians, Jean-Pierre Ruiz

Journal of Hispanic / Latino Theology

The author takes occasion of the decision by the American Academic of Religion to separate its annual meetings from those of the Society for Biblical Literature, to reflect on the challenging disciplinary frontier arrayed between systematic theology and biblical studies. In particular, he calls for critical theological interpretation of the claims of biblical scholarship, bearing in mind the contextuality of all discourses. For their part, biblical scholars should call systematic theologians to operate within the framework of what Fernando Segovia has called a hermeneutics of otherness and engagement, as a preface to reading with exegetes and other academic, pastoral, professional …

Proverbs 8 And The Place Of Christ In The Trinity, Richard M. Davidson

Journal of the Adventist Theological Society

No abstract provided.

"Eating" And "Drinking" In The Book Of Revelation: A Study Of New Testament Thought And Theolgy, Gerald Klingbeil

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Biblical Psalms Outside The Psalter, James W. Watts

Religion - All Scholarship

Psalms appear irregularly in the narrative and prophetic literature of the Hebrew Bible, at Exod 15:1-21, Deut 32:1-43, Jdg 5, 1 Sam 2:1-20, 2 Samuel 22, Isa 38:9-20, Jon 2:3-10, Habakkuk 3, Dan 2:20-23, 1 Chron 16:8-36; in the Apocrypha/Deuterocanon at Daniel 3, Jdg 16:1-17, Tobit 13; and in the New Testament at Lk 1:46-5,67-79. More often, fragments of hymns and other poems are quoted as natural parts of story-lines (e.g. 2 Sam 1:17-27; 3:33-34) or are employed as elements in prophetic compositions (e.g. Am 4:13; 5:8; 9:5-6). Complete poetic compositions appear less frequently but more prominently. Many of these …

The Heavenly Sanctuary/Temple Motif In The Hebrew Bible : Function And Relationship To The Earthly Counterparts, Elias Brasil De Souza

Dissertations

The present dissertation investigates the function of the heavenly sanctuary/temple and its relationship to the earthly counterparts, as reflected in forty-three passages of Hebrew Bible.

Following an introductory chapter, the second chapter of this dissertation is devoted to a survey of the heavenly sanctuary/temple motif in the ANE literature, as represented by Sumerian, Akkadian, Hittite, Ugaritic, and Egyptian texts. The investigation of these texts reveals that the heavenly sanctuary/temple motif was part of the worldview of the ANE, where the heavenly sanctuary was not only assumed as existing in heaven, but also as functioning in close relationship to the earthly …

"Eating" And "Drinking" In The Book Of Revelation: A Study Of New Testament Thought And Theology, Gerald A. Klingbeil

Journal of the Adventist Theological Society

No abstract provided.