Monday 23 March 2009

Biblical Interpretation Vol 17 No 1-2, 2009

The latest issue of Biblical Interpretation: A Journal of Contemporary Approaches Vol 17 Nos 1-2 (2009) is now available. This issue focuses on violence, Scripture and textual practices in Early Christianity. There are some interesting articles in this issue.


Violence, Scripture, and Textual Practices in Early Judaism and Christianity pp. 1-11(11) Authors: Boustan, Ra'anan S.; Jassen, Alex P.; Roetzel, Calvin J.

The Dead Sea Scrolls and Violence: Sectarian Formation and Eschatological Imagination pp. 12-44(33) Author: Jassen, Alex P.

The Eschatological Arena: Reinscribing Roman Violence in Fantasies of the End Times pp. 45-76(32) Author: Stratton, Kimberly B.

The Language of War (2 Cor. 10:1-6) and the Language of Weakness (2 Cor. 11:21b-13:10) pp. 77-99(23) Author: Roetzel, Calvin J.

Violence as Sign in the Fourth Gospel pp. 100-117(18) Author: Glancy, Jennifer A.

Clemency as Cruelty: Forgiveness and Force in the Dying Prayers of Jesus and Stephen pp. 118-146(29) Author: Matthews, Shelly

Reconsidering the Book and the Sword: A Rhetoric of Passivity in Rabbinic Hermeneutics pp. 147-176(30) Author: Berkowitz, Beth A.

Christian Martyrdom and the "Dialect of the Holy Scriptures": The Literal, the Allegorical, the Martyrological pp. 177-206(30) Author: Mitchell, Margaret M.

Immolating Emperors: Spectacles of Imperial Suffering and the Making of a Jewish Minority Culture in Late Antiquity pp. 207-238(32) Author: Boustan, Ra'anan S.

Martyrdom, Jesus' Passion and Barbarism pp. 239-264(26) Author: van Henten, Jan Willem

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi sir,

talking about the social scientific approach to NT; neyrey, malina, (patron-client, honor and shame and etc..)

how do you see such approach, contributing to NT exegesis?

I am puzzled, because reading some their stuff, amazed by their method, but just dont feel like their conclusion/exegesis, is significant or insightful, in contrast to what we already knew and concluded, for certain biblical passages..

seek your enlightenment..?

however, the narrative analysis, reader response method, often produce interesting and significant insights..

Unknown said...

with one exception;

that is produced by David Rhoads, who use the purity/defilement model, alluding the dynamics of "crossing the boundary" of Jesus ministry...

This is the only one paper, which impressed me...

Kar Yong said...

Hi Davinci,

I thk social scientific approach does make significant contribution to NT scholarship. E.g., in my opinion, you cant really comprehend 1 Corinthians without applying this approach, as the works of Gerd Theissen, Bruce Winter and David Horrell (amongst others) have demonstrated.

Perhaps you might feel that there is not much insight (such as honour-shame). This is precisely so because we live in such a culture in Asia! I have always said that as an Asian and Malaysian, I think we are much closer to the biblical values and customs than many of our Western counterparts are, and hence, we are able to understand the background of the NT much deeper than those who are not familiar with oriental culture.

Unknown said...

tks sir,

maybe I would try to read into it more...

actually, i only read those stuff relating to Gospel books, not Pauline letters...

maybe they impact more on pauline letter research and also appeal more to westerners...