Arts and Humanities Commons^™

"Who Wrote The Epistle, God Only Knows": A Statistical Authorial Analysis Of Hebrews In Comparison With Pauline And Lukan Literature, Benjamin J. Erickson

Senior Honors Theses

The authorship of Hebrews has been a point of contention for scholars for the past two millennia. While the epistle is traditionally attributed to Paul, many scholars assert that it carries thematic, structural, and stylistic differences from the remainder of his extant epistles; therefore, many other possible authors have been proposed. Of these, only Luke has other New Testament writings. Therefore, this project conducts a statistical comparison of Hebrews to the Pauline and Lukan corpora using stylometric authorial analysis methods. This analysis demonstrates that Hebrews is stylistically closer to Lukan literature than Pauline (but not to a significant degree), and …

A Community Centered By Love: A Linguistic Approach To The Theology Of Paul's Instruction For The Corinthian Body, Cadence Moore

Honors Projects

This article appropriates elements of M.A.K. Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to analyze the Apostle Paul’s communication with the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 12-14. The linguistic evidence of the text reveals that Paul’s instructions guide the Corinthians to order their community through love, imitating the Trinity’s nature of diversity and unity. The final section translates Paul’s teachings to a modern context using Richard B. Steele’s article, “Disability and the Beloved Community,” a reframing of how Christian communities interact with and not only include persons with disabilities but fully incorporate their diverse gifts into the church body.

On God’S Side Of History: Time And Apocalyptic History In Paul’S Speech To The Areopagus, Keldie Paroschi

Andrews University Seminary Studies (AUSS)

This paper considers Paul’s speech to the Areopagus from the framework of Jewish apocalyptic historiography in order to determine the degree of overlap between Paul’s conceptual background on history and time and Stoic philosophy. The main facets of Jewish apocalyptic historiography include unique conceptions of God, time, and human existence with unique existential implications, all of which are found in Acts 17:22–31. The added element of the Christ event (vv. 30–31) heightens the urgency of Paul’s message of repentance. Despite some proximity between Paul and Stoicism, the Jewish apocalyptic worldview of Acts 17 differs significantly from the pantheistic and deterministic …

Δικαιοσύνη Θεοῦ: The Holistic Connotation Of The Term ‘Righteousness’ And Its Implications For Social Service, Uma John

The Asbury Journal

The concept “righteousness” is weighty and indispensable in the biblical tradition and understanding the concept has changed and developed through the centuries. The current article explores the topic from the ancient to modern canonical and non-canonical literature on the concept of righteousness to seek its wide range of meanings. Traditionally, the term “righteousness” has forensic, and religious connotations, but this paper argues that alongside these, the legal and social aspects of human beings i.e., the aspect of fulfilling communal obligations and the acts of philanthropy to those who are poor, oppressed, and deprived are standard expectations connoted into the term …

Paul's Attitude Towards Empire, Matthew Kwabena Appiah

Master's Theses

The concept of imperialism has come to stay in the study of Paul and his letters. However, does contextual analysis of his selected texts support such claims of him being anti-imperial? Various arguments arise to challenge Paul to have used hidden codes and imperial ideology to counter the imperial propaganda of the Roman empire of his day. However, contextual analysis of Paul and his letters suggest otherwise. His pastoral care duties, coupled with a desire to win his natives, namely, the Jews, to accept Jesus Christ as the messiah prophesied in the Old Testament is key in his letters. Proponents …

How Servant Leaders Navigate Conflict: An Analysis Of Acts 15:36–41, Joshua D. Henson, Justin R. Craun

Selected Faculty Publications

Greenleaf’s foundational work on servant leadership has evolved considerably over the past 50 years. Servant leadership has been found to have positive outcomes on group and organisational effectiveness. While servant leadership characteristics and outcomes have been measured, is a need to be better understand how servant leaders navigate when they disagree. Using a social and cultural analysis, the conflict between Paul and Barnabas is explored. Social and cultural analysis allows interpreters to understand what the characters in the narrative ‘see and hear.’ The analysis of Acts 15:36–41 yielded three emerging themes related to how these servant leaders navigated conflict: (1) …

Application Of The Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency Weighting Scheme To The Pauline Corpus, Brandon Van Der Ventel, Richard Newman

Andrews University Seminary Studies (AUSS)

The term frequency--inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) weighting scheme is applied to the text of the thirteen epistles traditionally associated with the Apostle Paul. The data for the analysis is the morphologically tagged text of the Society for Biblical Literature’s Greek New Testament. The TF-IDF scheme is then used to construct the Document Term Matrix (DTM) for a corpus under consideration. The DTM allows each document to be represented by a multi-dimensional document vector. A query document is then chosen and a vector representation of it is constructed. The cosine similarity between the query document and documents in the corpus is …

Creating An Action Plan To Increase Diversity And Inclusion At Northwest Church Of Christ, Kenton Reeves Brown

Doctor of Ministry Theses

This project was designed to meet a need at the Northwest Church of Christ in Oklahoma City to help the church transition from a church that values diversity to one that realizes its vision of being diverse and inclusive. The scope of this project was to create an action plan to increase diversity and inclusion to present to the church leaders for their consideration. The theological foundation for the project comes from Paul’s convictions, expressed in Gal 1–2, that any who are in Christ should not be excluded or treated as a lower-class member of the community based on their …

Election And Israel: Following Paul’S Thought Through Romans 9-11, Colton Lee

Senior Honors Theses

Paul’s dealings with Israel in Romans 9-11 have long been viewed as some of the most theologically controversial teachings in the New Testament. Throughout these three critical chapters located in the middle of his greatest theological treatise, Paul teaches both on the doctrine of individual election and on the future of ethnic Israel. In this paper, the text will be approached using the discipline of biblical theology with the hope of interpreting the text using a literal hermeneutic with the whole of Scripture in mind. The doctrine of unconditional individual election will be affirmed by this research, and both a …

The Heart Of Paul's Spirituality And The Implications For The Church: Becoming Centered In God Through Christ Six Conferences For The New Camaldoli Hermitage [Lecture Notes], Scott Gambrill Sinclair (Retired)

The Scott Sinclair Lecture Notes Collection

No abstract provided.

Parechesis In The Undisputed Pauline Epistles Definition, Identification, And Discovery, Kevin Gingrich

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

Throughout the undisputed Pauline epistles (UPE), the author employs ancient rhetorical figures of soundplay. In particular, this dissertation focuses on a stylistic device known since Homer and named, a century or so after Paul, “parechesis.” Parechesis is sophisticated alliteration and refers to similar sounding words of different lexical roots that lie in some collocation. The device is so pervasive in Paul as to be deemed a defining characteristic of Pauline style.

Malaria Risk On Ancient Roman Roads: A Study And Application To Assessing Travel Decisions In Asia Minor By The Apostle Paul, Daniel C. Browning Jr

Master's Theses

This study models malaria risks for travelers on ancient Roman roads with the goal of providing a tool for historical assessment of travel accounts from antiquity. The project includes: identification of malaria risk factors and associated spatial datasets, malaria risk model construction, verification and validation against available pre-eradication data, overlay of ancient Roman road data, and an initial case-study application to the journeys of the Apostle Paul, as narrated in the New Testament book, Acts of the Apostles (Acts). The project is intentionally cross-disciplinary in bringing the technical capabilities of GIS to the task of evaluating nuanced textual sources for …

Cultivating Virtue: Developing A Guiding Document For Youth Ministry At Cookeville First United Methodist Church, Adam Daniels

Doctor of Ministry Theses

The purpose of this project was to produce a guiding document of virtues that represented the type of Christ-like character qualities desired in youth at Cookeville First United Methodist Church. The six virtues chosen in the document represent a comprehensive vision for character growth over the course of students’ time in the program. To provide a theological foundation for this project, I examined the idea that virtue has a narrative shape where words find their meaning in a story. For our purposes, this story is generally stated as the story of Jesus at first but is then seen as best …

An Abundance Of Good Things : Paul Ricoeur's Cultural Imagination And A Phenomenology Of Deuteronomism, Tad C. Blacketer

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Genesis 10 & 11: A Theological And Geographical Framework For The Mission Of Paul, Jackson Scott Richardson

Masters Theses

The aim of this thesis is to offer a holistic solution to the purpose problem. Current scholarship has yet to provide a perspective that accounts for both the theological perspectives of Paul’s missional work and geographical plans of Paul’s missionary journeys. By establishing the Table of Nations and the Tower of Babel as a common factor from which Paul’s theological perspectives and geographical decision making derive, this study will build a foundation from which future work can gain insight into Pauline thought and encourage a renewed emphasis on understanding Genesis 10 and 11 when considering biblical study of the New …

The Slave Woman And The Free: The Role Of Hagar And Sarah In Paul’S Galatians 4:21-5:1 Allegory, Amanda Michelle Bryant

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Studying The Bible: The Tanakh And Early Christian Writings, Gregory Eiselein, Anna Goins, Naomi J. Wood

NPP eBooks

Studying the Bible: The Tanakh and Early Christian Writings is a university-level, textbook introduction to the study of the Bible, its literary forms, and historical and cultural contexts. This textbook is a companion to the Bible courses taught in the English Department at Kansas State University, in particular ENGL 470 The Bible, though it is available for use in other courses and contexts. This textbook examines the Hebrew Bible (also known as the Tanakh) and the early Christian writings of the New Testament. It is an introduction to the analysis of biblical texts, their histories, and their interpretations. The emphasis …

Contrasting Paul And Christ, Harold Willmington

Fifteen Contrasts and Comparisons of Biblical Characters

No abstract provided.

Contrasting Samson And Paul, Harold Willmington

Fifteen Contrasts and Comparisons of Biblical Characters

No abstract provided.

Contrasting Peter And Paul, Scholarly Communication, Harold Willmington

Fifteen Contrasts and Comparisons of Biblical Characters

No abstract provided.

A Biographical Study Of Paul, Harold Willmington

New Testament Biographies

No abstract provided.

Paul In Context: A Reinterpretation Of Paul And Empire, Najeeb Turki Haddad

Dissertations

Within the last few decades, there has been a new surge of interest in Paul’s relationship to the Roman Empire. This interest has resulted in several postcolonial studies on Paul’s relationship with the Roman Empire. Some political interpreters of Paul argue that Paul rejected the Roman Empire in many ways and even sought to subvert it. This dissertation argues, through a rhetorical, sociohistorical, and theological examination of Paul’s undisputed letters, that Paul did not directly support or directly condemn the Roman Empire. His dealings with the empire are more nuanced than what others have claimed. Paul is relativizing the relationship …

Who Are The Apistoi? Symbolic Boundaries And Anthropological Language In 2 Cor 6:14-7:1, Nii Addo Kobina Abrahams

MSU Graduate Theses

Joseph A. Fitzmyer’s “Qumran and the Interpolated Paragraph in 2 Cor 6:14-7:1,” originally published in 1961, argued that 2 Cor 6:14-7:1 was an interpolation from an undiscovered Qumran text. Fitzmyer’s thesis was the prevailing scholarly opinion for over a decade, and while several counter-arguments have convincingly challenged Fitzmyer’s theory, scholars are still hard-pressed to explain how the passage fits into its context. Not only does 6:14-7:1 seem to lack any organic connection to the verses immediately prior or following, but it also contains unique vocabulary and what seems to be uncharacteristic use of standard Pauline terms. However, all of these …

The Letters Of St. Paul [Lecture Notes], Scott Gambrill Sinclair

The Scott Sinclair Lecture Notes Collection

Course Description
A study of the major themes of Paul's thought through the letters he wrote as responses to problems in the early Christian church.

Student Learning Outcomes
For this course: A knowledge of 1) the literal contents of Paul’s Letters, 2) the cultural and historical situations to which the letters respond, and 3) the enduring theological perspectives that appear in these responses.

Exploring Paul As The Anti-Jonah In Acts, Collin Battaglia

Honors Theses

Biblical authors often employ literary techniques to communicate their messages with enhanced force. They were not, for example, interested in theology or historiography alone, but also in aesthetics. In other words, their focus was not directed solely on simply presenting information, but also on how the material was presented literarily. Authors would utilize many techniques in their writing such as repetition, chiasms, and typology to connect stories, to emphasize themes, and to flesh out nuanced truths. This paper will argue that Luke, in the Book of Acts, implements the aesthetic technique of allusion and typology to enrich his narrative. More …

Philo’S Εὐσέβεια And Paul’S Πνεῦμα: The Appropriation And Alteration Of Hellenistic And Greek Philosophical Traditions In Their Ethical Discourses, Nelida Naveros Cordova

Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Jewish Nature Of The First Century Church, Barry D. Fike

Barry D. Fike

“When men realized that the teaching of God was no heritage that one accepts passively but rather a heritage that has to be won, they began to see this relationship to the Bible as a religious obligation. It became a supreme commandment to “study”, to explore the Scriptures. To explore means to consider the Bible as a challenge rather than a gift…..The duty to “explore” requires further rethinking: each end becomes a new beginning and each solution a new problem…Once Today’s Church is fully aware of the vast importance of learning, it too will realize that it cannot afford to …

"Make My Joy Complete": The Price Of Partnership In The Letter Of Paul To The Philippians, Mark Avery Jennings

Dissertations (1934 -)

My study challenges the consensus that there is no discernable, single purpose that shapes the entire epistle to the Philippians. I argue that Paul writes Philippians with the sole intent of persuading the church to maintain its exclusive partnership with him and his gospel mission. I examine each section of Philippians using standard historical-critical methods, rhetorical criticism, and social-scientific methods. Special attention is given to those passages where the majority of scholars have argued that Paul has changed subjects. The grammatical imperatives (especially those in 1:27; 2:2, 12, 14, 29; 3:17) factor significantly in this analysis. After surveying the scholarship …

Book Review: The Church According To Paul, Jeremy M. Kimble

Biblical and Theological Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Representation Of God In First Corinthians 8-10: Understanding Paul In The Context Of Wisdom, Philo, And Josephus, Trent Alan Rogers

Dissertations

The interpretation of 1 Cor 8-10 is complicated by several factors. Scholars have noted the apparent contradictions in the text (primarily an issue within ch. 8) and also the remarkable changes in Paul's tone (primarily an issue with how 10:1-22 relates to 8:1-13 and 10:23-11:1). I argue that Paul consistently prohibits Christians from eating food sacrificed to idols; by appealing first to their obligation to love other believers and then to their obligation of exclusive faithfulness to Christ. What has largely been overlooked is the way that these arguments are made on the basis on one's understanding of God and …