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Substitutes In Hell: Schemes Of Atonement In The Ezra Apocalypses, Meghan Henning

Books and Book Chapters by University of Dayton Faculty

This book is one of the first modern collections of studies on important aspects of the Ezra figure that combines both Jewish and Christian traditions. The volume opens with a study of Ezra in rabbinic literature and continues with four chapters on 4 Ezra, discussing its dimensions of time, future agents and visionary practices as well as reminiscences of 4 Ezra in the Armenian Script of the Lord's Infancy. The following chapters study the relationship of 4, 5 and 6 Ezra, the nature of 5 Ezra and dissimulation strategies in 6 Ezra. The last chapters concentrate on the important discovery …

Mark's Gospel Compared With Virgil's Aeneid, Floyd Schneider

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation will present the Gospel of Mark in light of the Aeneid, Virgil’s epic poem published by Augustus immediately after Virgil’s death in 19 B.C. The Aeneid’s genre, literary style, grammar, symbolic hermeneutics, and lasting influence has been thoroughly researched and dissected in literature courses throughout the centuries. It has been translated into numerous languages and widely distributed in terms of geography and nationalities. Virgil wrote the Aeneid to proclaim the deity of Augustus. “Hic Caesar et omnis Juli progenies magnum caeli ventura sub axem. Hic vir, his est, tibi quem promitti saepius audis, Augustus Caesar, Divi genus, aurea …

Resuscitated Indeed: Paul And The Resurrection Age, Christopher Paul Davis

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study seeks to uncover a link between the Second Temple and patristic material as it relates to the resurrection. The methodology employed here is a diachronic interconceptual analysis. After surveying this material Paul's discussion of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 is then addressed. Given the surrounding milieu in which Paul was operating and the way some Fathers understood the resurrection (via Paul's writings), it is possible that Paul was not trying to discuss an individual resurrection. Instead, he was speaking of a resurrection in which the physical raising of the body is but one step. The terminology utilized …

Beyond "Authentically Black And Truly Catholic": Black Catholic Identity For A New Time, Bryan M. Massingale

Journal of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium

This essay examines the genesis and implications of the oft-cited phrase, "authentically black and truly Catholic." Tracing its origins as descriptive of the aspirations of Black Catholics in the United States following the Second Vatican Council, the author relates both the contributions and the significant limitations of this ecclesial project. He concludes by offering a new phrasing that he argues is more adequate to the current aspirations and needs of the Black Catholic faith community, namely, "radically Black and authentically Catholic."

The Ecclesiological Implications Of The Priesthood Of All Believers, Alan Parker

Faculty Works

The Protestant Reformation encouraged the "priesthood of all believers" but how does that concept impact the local church in the Seventh-day Adventist denomination? The lack of a clear ecclesiology has hampered the growth and effectiveness of Adventism. Both Exodus 19:6 and 1 Peter 2:9 provide a theological hermeneutic for how to reframe our ecclesiology in a way consistent with the Protestant principle of every believer serving as a priest. Priests are teachers, holy representatives, and mediators. The practical implications of these three aspects are examined. Luther's struggle with papal power structures are examined in the light of his radical understanding …

Calvin Theological Journal (Vol 52 No 2 - November 2017), Calvin Theological Seminary

Calvin Theological Journal

From the Editor: Karin Maag - 149 / Articles: Genevan Psalms in Javanese by Yudha Thianto - 151 / Reengaging Figural Interpretation: The Impact of Erich Auerbach by James W. Skillen - 181 / Blessing and Glory: Abraham Kuyper on the Beatific Vision by Hans Boersma - 205 / Sermon: “Heaven: The Present Reality”—A Sermon on Hebrews 12:18–29 by Laura Smit - 243 / Short Studies: Why a Bavinck Institute? Why at Calvin Seminary? by John Bolt - 251 / Comparing Spirit Hermeneutics by Craig Keener with Classic Pentecostal Hermeneutics by Dean Deppe - 265 / Interpreting Figural Interpretation: A …

Rudolf Bultmann On Myth, History, And The Resurrection, Brent Hege

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

The Christian faith stands or falls with the confession that Jesus Christ is risen. While that assertion itself is perhaps uncontroversial, precisely what this confession means has been a subject of profound significance and immense controversy for centuries. Central to this discussion is the role of myth and history in the biblical witness and in the church’s theological engagement with the confession that Jesus Christ is risen. This book traces key trajectories of German Protestant discussions of myth, history, and the resurrection from its earliest critical analysis in the work of Hermann Samuel Reimarus and David Friedrich Strauss to contemporary …

Ecclesiology, Susan K. Wood

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Health And Healing In The Documentary Papyri : A Comparison With The Healing Texts In Luke-Acts, Thomas Evan Grafton

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Providential Capitalism: Heavenly Intervention And The Atlantic’S Divine Economist, Ian F.P. Green

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Providential capitalism names the marriage of providential Christian values and market-oriented capitalist ideology in the post-revolutionary Atlantic through the mid nineteenth century. This is a process by which individuals permitted themselves to be used by a so-called “divine economist” at work in the Atlantic market economy. Backed by a slave market, capital transactions were rendered as often violent ecstatic individual and cultural experiences. Those experiences also formed the bases for national, racial, and classed identification and negotiation among the constellated communities of the Atlantic. With this in mind, writers like Benjamin Franklin, Olaudah Equiano, and Ukawsaw Gronniosaw presented market success …

Christus Satisfactor: An Anselmian Approach To The Doctrine Of Atonement, David M. Mahfood

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I develop and defend a revised satisfaction account of the Christian doctrine of atonement based primarily on the thought of St. Anselm of Canterbury. The project thus has both a historical and a normative dimension, since I offer an interpretation of Anselm, and then derive from it an account of the atonement as a candidate for how Christians ought to think about and understand what God has accomplished in Christ on our behalf.

I begin, in Chapter 2, by examining the most common way of framing the doctrine of atonement today, which I call the “atonement theory …

A Study On The Principles And Methods Of A Retreat Program For The Spiritual Growth Of Youth With A Focus On The United Retreat Ministry In South Korea, Eunho Lee

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this thesis is to help Korean churches create more effective retreats for the spiritual growth of their youth. Most of the youth in Korean churches participate in spiritual retreats during their summer and winter vacations. In the past, many of the youth converted or recovered their faith through retreats. Nowadays, the Korean youth are exposed to all sorts of secularized culture and media, which result in the deterioration of their spirituality. Therefore, it is a major challenge for youth ministry in Korean churches to have their youth experience personal spiritual growth at retreats. The writer has organized …

John Calvin, Authority, And The Evangelical Conviction Of The Evidentness Of Truth, Joshua Miller

The Kabod

John Calvin stands apart as a singularly powerful figure in the history of Western Civilization. His thought undergirds the fundamental principles of liberal democracy that dominate the most advanced nations on earth in the modern age, and his theology continues to influence the doctrine and leadership of the Reformed church’s many inheritors. This paper emphasizes and identifies the importance of understanding of Calvin’s views on secular and ecclesiastical authority and evaluates them.

Miracles As Evidence For The Existence Of God, Alan G. Padgett

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Death As Sleep: The (Mis)Use Of A Biblical Metaphor, William Paroschi

Journal of the Adventist Theological Society

"The SDA view on what happens at death has been sometimes misunderstood; first, because the way we ourselves have occasionally used the sleep metaphor to describe death and, second, as a result of the dualistic connotation traditionally associated with soul-sleep. It could be argued that this comes from a reading of Adventist literature unmindful of the larger context of biblical anthropology in which these statements are made. This, however, is no excuse for not making every effort to express our understanding of the subject as clearly and completely as possible. Sleep is not a description of the nature of death. …

Book Review: The Gender Of Caste: Representing Dalits In Print, Claire C. Robison

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Book review of The Gender of Caste: Representing Dalits in Print. By Charu Gupta. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2016, 352 pages.

Book Review: To Be Cared For: The Power Of Conversion And Foreignness Of Belonging In An Indian Slum, James Elisha Taneti

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Book review of To Be Cared For: The Power of Conversion and Foreignness of Belonging in an Indian Slum. By Nathaniel Roberts. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2016, xv + 312 pages.

War In The Bible, Thomas Wetzel

Theology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Speculating The Subject Of Money: Georg Simmel On Human Value, Devin Singh

Dartmouth Scholarship

This article initiates an inquiry into the sources and frameworks of value used to denote human subjects in modernity. In particular, I consider the conflation of monetary, legal, and theological registers employed to demarcate human worth. Drawing on Simmel’s speculative genealogy of the money equivalent of human values, I consider the spectrum of ascriptions from specifically quantified to infinite human value. I suggest that predications of infinite human value require and imply quantified—and specifically monetary-economic—human value. Cost and worth, economically and legally defined, provide a foundation for subsequent eternal projections in a theological imaginary. This calls into question the interventionist …

Opium Eaters: Buddhism As Revolutionary Politics, James Mark Shields

Faculty Contributions to Books

There is no one, single answer to the question: What is or are ‘Buddhist politics’? Rather than seek general historical trends or broad tendencies, in this chapter I explore the meaning and implications of the modern, Western conception of ‘politics’ as understood in relation to key features of Buddhist doctrine. In particular, I pose the question of whether we might fruitfully conceive at least certain interpretations of Buddhism—or perhaps, of Dharma—as politics, rather than ‘religion’ or ‘philosophy.’ I argue that twentieth century progressive Buddhists Seno’o Girō (1889–1961) and B. R. Ambedkar (1891–1956) were not so much in conflict with …

Divine Temporality: Bonhoeffer's Theological Appropriation Of Heidegger's Existential Analytic Of Dasein, Nicholas Byle

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation’s guiding question is: What was the impact of Martin Heidegger’s early philosophy on Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology? I argue that Heidegger’s analysis of Dasein, his technical term for human existence, provides Bonhoeffer with important conceptual tools for developing his Christology, from which the rest of his theology follows.

Part of recognizing Heidegger’s importance to Bonhoeffer involves understanding the latter’s critiques of previous notable philosophers such as Kant, Hegel, Husserl, and Scheler. As Bonhoeffer evaluates these philosophers, they lead to theologically unacceptable positions. Heidegger, in contrast, has come to a theologically profitable understanding of human existence and epistemology. Though there …

A Study Of Developing Healthy Disciples In The Korean-American Church, Kyung Seo

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Korean-American congregations within the Presbyterian denomination need to implement a Bible-centered discipleship model in order to become a more spiritual and viable Christian church. As the Senior Pastor for the Columbia Korean Presbyterian Church (2009-2014), the author utilized qualitative and quantitative analysis when interviewing church pastors within the Korean-American Presbyterian Churches of America. The surveys identified the need for a practical model of spiritual growth to develop healthy disciples within the Korean-American Church. Based upon the biblical principle of Christian discipleship, the author developed an overall a three-level strategy of making healthy disciples.

What Is Mortal Shall Be Swallowed Up By Life (2 Cor 5:4): A Critical And Constructive Engagement With John Hick's Theology Of Death In Death And Eternal Life (1976), Hongmei Zhao

Dissertations

The springboard for my investigation is John Hick’s theology of death or “par-eschatology” in Death and Eternal Life (1976), a postmortem soteriology rooted in Irenaeus’ teleological framework of person-making. I organize my project around the two constitutive aspects of human existence: time and space, or temporality and embodiment.

Regarding postmortem temporality, I present: 1) new scholarships in the New Testament, early Christianity, and Reformation studies, and 2) recent developments in ecumenical dialogues and the Justification-Sanctification Debate. Through this, I demonstrate a widely emerging emphasis–the centrality of sanctification in the Christian understanding of salvation. I argue that this crystalizing consensus lends …

Book Review: Modern Hindu Personalism: The History, Life And Thought Of BhaktisiddhāNta Sarasvatī, Michael Mclaughlin

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Book Review of Modern Hindu Personalism: The History, Life and Thought of Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī. Ferdinando Sardella. Oxford University Press, 2013, xv + 342 pp.

Book Review: Hindu Christian Faqir: Modern Monks, Global Christianity, And Indian Sainthood, Stephanie Corigliano

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Book Review of Hindu Christian Faqir: Modern Monks, Global Christianity, and Indian Sainthood. Timothy S. Dobe. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015, 363 + xiii pp.

Genesis 3 As A Model For Understanding The Nature Of Sin And Salvation, Jiri Moskala Thd, Phd

Journal of the Adventist Theological Society

"In order to perceive the nature of sin clearly, it is necessary to freshly investigate what is sin and its consequences according to God’s revelation. This biblical-theological study is principally limited to Genesis chap. 3."

Prophetic Conflict And Yahwistic Tradition : A Synthetic Study Of True And False Prophecy (Jeremiah 26-29), M. Sashi Jamir

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Vinculum Caritatis: Bond Of Love, Susan K. Wood

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

An Examination Of The Prosperity Gospel: A Plea For Return To Biblical Truth, Aaron Phillips

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The prosperity gospel teaches that the Bible promises health, wealth and uncommon success to all believers. A problem surfaces when the prosperity that is promised does not materialize to all members of the congregation. In examining the validity of this teaching, extensive writings, books, articles and sermons by leading proponents, have been reviewed. Additionally, interviews with at least one hundred pastors inform this writing. The purpose of the research is to furnish contemporary, active insight to this project. The conclusion of this writer is that the prosperity gospel offers an unbalanced application of scripture, which results in a departure from …

Canonical Development And The Early Church Fathers: Establishing The Validity And Elevating The Weight Of Accurate Textual Citations, Chris Davis

Masters Theses

The predominant theory of textual criticism known as “reasoned eclecticism” often engages the NT manuscripts in a manner that is not truly eclectic. Instead, the modus operandi is often to overlook textual witnesses from manuscript families that do not agree with the favored Alexandrian text-type. At the same time, in cases where the early church fathers seem to cite passages from these other known families, their words are often discounted and removed as evidence for a particular reading. This thesis deals predominantly with the second issue, and it addresses a number of foundational issues that lead to such a flawed …