Reading the Bible from Below in the Era of Globalization

2020 ◽  
pp. 111-128
Author(s):  
Rainer Kessler
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Asynchronous Development ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
The World ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
Globalized World

It is evident that the world of the Bible is pre-modern and thus distinct from the globalized civilization. This chronological gap challenges readers, whether they are feminist or not. Mainly three attitudes can be observed among scholarly and ordinary readers. For some readers, the Bible is a document of the losers of a historical process of modernization that already began in ancient Israel. For other readers, the Bible is outdated and of no use to confront the challenges of globalization. A third readerly position challenges both of these views. This essay offers four arguments to orient biblical readers in the contemporary globalized world. First, the essay posits that globalization is an asynchronous development. Thus, even today, most people living in the impoverished regions of the world face conditions similar to those dominant in the Bible. Second, the essay asserts that women are the first victims in biblical times and still nowadays. Third, the essay maintains that biblical texts display social relations that still unveil contemporary relations. Fourth, the essay suggests that intercultural Bible readings give hope, as they nurture biblical readings from “below” to strengthen people to overcome the fatal consequences of today’s globalization.

Reading the Bible through Filipino Eyes

1998 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara E. Bowe
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
Filipino Culture ◽  
Western Experience ◽  
The Stranger ◽  
Honor And Shame

This paper presents first a brief introductory reflection on the “stranger as guest”—the strengths and weaknesses of a foreigner's perspective on cultural difference. Part Two presents an analysis of reading the Bible in a Filipino context. Part Three examines the world of the Filipino reader with special attention to three primary characteristics shared by the biblical world and Filipino culture: namely, an emphasis on honor and shame, concern for indebtedness and reciprocity in social relations, and the sense of dyadic personality and corporate consciousness. Part Four employs these insights in some examples of reading the Pauline letters through the eyes of a Filipino. This “reading” demonstrates the richness of cross-cultural (i.e., non-Western) experience as a resource for interpreting biblical texts.

Moral Injury and Biblical Studies: An Early Sampling of Research and Emerging Trends

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-144
Author(s):  
Brad E. Kelle
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Moral Injury ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Emerging Trends ◽  
New Meanings ◽  
The World ◽  
Biblical Texts

Moral injury emerged within clinical psychology and related fields to refer to a non-physical wound (psychological and emotional pain and its effects) that results from the violation (by oneself or others) of a person’s deepest moral beliefs (about oneself, others, or the world). Originally conceived in the context of warfare, the notion has now expanded to include the morally damaging impact of various non-war-related experiences and circumstances. Since its inception, moral injury has been an intersectional and cross-disciplinary term and significant work has appeared in psychology, philosophy, medicine, spiritual/pastoral care, chaplaincy, and theology. Since 2015, biblical scholarship has engaged moral injury along two primary trajectories: 1) creative re-readings of biblical stories and characters informed by insights from moral injury; and 2) explorations of the postwar rituals and symbolic practices found in biblical texts and how they might connect to the felt needs of morally injured persons. These trajectories suggest that the engagement between the Bible and moral injury generates a two-way conversation in which moral injury can serve as a heuristic that brings new meanings out of biblical texts, and the critical study of biblical texts can contribute to the attempts to understand, identify, and heal moral injury.

Marxism, Religion and the Taiping Revolution

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Boer
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Revolutionary Movement ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
Specific Interpretation ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Revolution

This study offers a specific interpretation of the Taiping Revolution in China in the mid-nineteenth century. It was not only the largest revolutionary movement in the world at the time, but also one that was inspired by Christianity. Indeed, it marks the moment when the revolutionary religious tradition arrived in China. My account of the revolution stresses the role of the Bible, its radical reinterpretation by the Taiping revolutionaries, and the role it played in their revolutionary acts and reconstruction of economic and social relations. After providing this account, I raise a number of implications for Marxist approaches to religion. These involve the revolutionary religious tradition, first identified by Engels and established by Karl Kautsky, the question of political ambivalence of a religion like Christianity, and the distinction between ontological and temporal transcendence.

Adultery, Shame, and Sexual Pollution in Ancient Israel and in Hosea: A Response to Joshua Moon

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-236
Author(s):  
Tchavdar S. Hadjiev
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Recent Proposal ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
The World ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Biblical Texts

The idea that a wife's marital unfaithfulness brought disgrace upon her husband is not clearly attested in the Hebrew Bible. Indeed, as this article shows, the passages dealing with adultery are more interested in the pollution that results from it, rather than in the honour of the cheated husband. Such pollution is the consequence of actions that undermine the order of the world and bring disaster upon the community. It is therefore unwise to read the ‘Mediterranean notion’ of shame and honour into biblical texts. This also applies to J. Moon's recent proposal (in issue 39 of this journal [2015]) about ‘Hosea's marriages’. It is argued in this article that Moon's idea that Israel's adultery in Hosea 1–3 undermines the honour of Yahweh who is thereby portrayed as willingly embracing humiliation cannot stand under closer scrutiny.

scholarly journals The Revelatory Text and the prologue of the Gospel of Luke

2018 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Huub Welzen
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Gospel Of Luke ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Lectio Divina ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
Spiritual Reading

The first print of the book of Sandra Schneiders, The Revelatory Text, appeared more than 25 years ago. With the help of the hermeneutic theories of Gadamer and Ricoeur, she proposes a kind of exegesis that integrates scholarly methods and spiritual reading. In this article we investigate how the model of Sandra Schneiders is congruent with the old intuition of the lectio divina. We compare the model of Schneiders with the systematisation of the lectio divina by Guigo II, the Carthusian. As a result, we see in the text of Guigo the pre-understanding of the Carthusian spiritual life at work. And as a result we also recognise Schneiders’ transformative understanding of the subject matter of the text in the phase of the oratio and the comtemplatio. In the model of Guigo, there is also room for critical analysis in the phase of the meditation. We investigate also if the Bible itself gives indications for the kind of exegesis Schneiders proposes. What Schneiders says about pre-understanding is present in the prologue of the Gospel of Luke. Luke considers the story he tells as a history guided by God. What Luke tells about the genesis of his text belongs to the world behind the text. The world of the text is present as a well-ordered world. Luke speaks also about the transformation of the reader. In this, we recognise what Schneiders says about the world before the text and the transformative understanding of the subject matter of the text. We conclude that the model of Schneiders is innovative in relation of common academic exegesis. It is rooted in the tradition of Christian spiritual reading, and it is present in those biblical texts which indicate how to read.

scholarly journals Relevance Theory as an approach to interpreting the Bible for children: The Lucan version of the Lord�s Prayer as a test case

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette H. Evans
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Cognitive Dissonance ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Relevance Theory ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Pilot Studies ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
Biblical Texts

Recent research has demonstrated that children are sensitive to the underlying causal structureof the world and seek to form new causal representations at a much earlier age than hadpreviously been supposed. Modern scientific understanding of the evolution of life conflictswith the biblical representation of earth as the centre of the world, and of human beings as theimago Dei. Consequently, young children frequently experience cognitive dissonance whenexposed to biblical texts. Two previous pilot studies utilising specifically designed illustratedbooklets demonstrated that children respond more readily to a text that is relevant to their owncultural context. This article tests the possibility of presenting a universally relevant biblicaltext (Lk 11:2b�4) to young children in a form that does not conflict with modern science andtakes aspects of recent research on child psychology into account.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: In our postmodern culturalcontext children tend to experience cognitive dissonance when exposed to biblical texts,and consequently lose interest. This article proposes that by presenting the biblical contentin accordance with Relevance Theory, and in coherence with recent scientific explanatorytheories, the interest of the children may be sustained.

Epilogue

2021 ◽  
pp. 285-302
Author(s):  
James P. Byrd
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil War ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Civil War ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The North ◽  
The World ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
Religious War

This epilogue examines the central themes of the Bible in the Civil War, including confidence in clear analogies between biblical texts and the war; faith in the war’s redemptive outcome, which, for many in the North, charged the United States with a divine mission in the world; and above all, reverence for the sacred sacrifice of the dead, whose blood had “consecrated” the nation. Through all the death and injury, endless debates over slavery, defenses of secession, and patriotism, the Bible was a constant reference. The American Civil War may not have been “a war of religion,” James McPherson wrote, but we should not forget “the degree to which it was a religious war.” In a similar way, the American Civil War was not primarily a war over the Bible, but it was a biblical war for many Americans.

‘A woman should learn in quietness and full submission’ (1 Timothy 2: 11): Empowering Women in the Fight against Masculine Readings of Biblical Texts and a Chauvinistic African Culture in the Face of HIV and AIDS

2013 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 233-251
Author(s):  
Francis Machingura
Keyword(s):  
Hiv And Aids ◽  
1 Corinthians ◽  
African Culture ◽  
1 Peter ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
Timothy 2 ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Face ◽  
Biblical Texts

The status of women has generally become a human rights issue the world over, and Zimbabwe has not been left behind in that debate. Unfortunately, some men and women still believe that for women to occupy influential positions in society is testimony to the coming of the end of the world. As a way of buttressing men's patriarchal or chauvinistic views, the bible is invoked to remind women about their place and role in society. Using a random sampling method, interviews were conducted with twenty-five men and twenty-five women in Harare, Zimbabwe, on their perspective on 1 Timothy 2: 11 in the light of the empowerment of women in Zimbabwean society. This paper seeks to prove that negative perceptions against women are unhelpful and retrogressive and go against millennium development goals, particularly when biblical texts like 1 Timothy 2: 11–12, Ephesians 5: 25, 1 Peter 3: 1–2, 1 Corinthians 7: 4–5 and 1 Corinthians 14: 33b–35 are invoked to fight against the empowerment of women in the face of HIV and AIDS. Biblical texts like 1 Timothy 2: 11–12 can be applied out of context and erroneously used to serve or support patriarchal agendas – a position that this paper dismisses as morally untenable and disadvantageous to the rights of contemporary women. Yet the majority of women, as in the case of Zimbabwe, bear the effects of HIV and AIDS, poverty, unemployment and domestic violence.

scholarly journals Should the Church Love the (God’s) World? A Response to the Cape Town Commitment Point Seven

Kairos ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-71
Author(s):  
Gregory S. Thellman
Keyword(s):  
Cape Town ◽  
Human Relationships ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
The Church

This paper is a response to point seven, sub-points A) and B) of The Cape Town Commitment (TCTC), and attempts to answer the question “is love the proper Christian response to the nonhuman creation, and/or to human nations and culture?” Based on a summary of the concepts of “love” and the “world” in the biblical texts, it is shown that the biblical concept of “love” strongly emphasizes heartfelt and caring commitment for another within human relationships and divine-human relationships. The “world” in scripture can be construed in positive, neutral or negative senses, depending on the term and context, and Christians find themselves both in a fallen creation which awaits liberation and within human nations and cultures in a state of sin and rebellion against God. While the Bible never commands believers to love the nonhuman creation or collective human entities like nations and cultures, Christians may yet appropriate love for God and neighbor through their attentive care of creation and through their contribution to culture in a way that glorifies God. In these ways, Christians may “love” creation and culture, but only in a contingent sense with their foundational love focused on God and neighbor.

scholarly journals Constellation names in Ukrainian translations of the Bible

Movoznavstvo ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 313 (4) ◽  
pp. 51-63
Author(s):  
L. F. Fomina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
Jehovah’S Witnesses ◽  
Jehovah's Witnesses ◽  
Clerical Work ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
The Times ◽  
Xix Century

The article explores the names of The Great Bear, Orion and the star constellation of Pleiades in the eight full translations of the Bible into the Ukrainian language of XIX–XXI c. Besides the Introduction and the Brief summary of the Ukrainian translations history, the article is made up of three sections. In the first section we analyze the ancient Hebrew names, such as Ash, Kima and Kesil, which are found in the translation by Patriarch Philaret (Denysenko) of the Synodic Bible (1876), and also in the New World Translation, made by the religious society “Jehovah’s Witnesses”. The second chapter focuses on the folk Ukrainian names, also typical for the whole Slavic world, such as Viz, Volosozhar, Kvochka, Kosari, used in the first full translation of the Bible into Ukrainian — Kulish᾽s Bible, which, by its authority, has created a certain tradition, proclaiming the authenticity and comprehensiveness of the Ukrainian language, and has become the standard, later followed by Ivan Ogiyenko and Ivan Khomenko. The third section is dedicated to such Graecisms as Pleiads, Orion, Arcturus, being equivalents for the nominations, presented in the protograph Septuaginta, found in the translation by Father Raphael. The author comes to the conclusion that all the translators in their clerical work aimed to make the astronomic names available and understandable to the orthodox reader of the biblical texts, but for each period of time this aim was achieved differently: if for the XIX century such understandable ones were folk names, in XX and XXI centuries they have been forgotten and replaced by the more familiar Greek-originated and common The Great Bear, Orion and Pleiads. This concerns also the translation of the Ostrog Bible, whose astronomic names had been formed in the times of the first Slavic enlighteners Cyril and Methodius and have become too archaic for our times. The author states that different ethno-cultures have been reflected in the astronomical names: Judaic cosmonymy is more of the anthropomorphic character, while Slavic, including the Ukrainian one, reflects the villatic view to the world and the sky of stars.

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