EVOLUTION OF RELIGIOUS CAPACITY IN THE GENUS HOMO: TRAIT COMPLEXITY IN ACTION THROUGH COMPASSION

In this third and last article on the evolution of religious capacity, the authors focus on compassion, one of religious expression's common companions. They explore the various meanings of compassion, using Biblical and early related documents, and derive general cognitive components before an evolutionary analysis of compassion using their model. Then, in taking on neural reuse theory, they adapt a model from linguistics theory to understand how neural reuse could have operated to fix religious capacity in the human genome. They present a teaching tool on “Religious Capacity in Action,” and develop an example of compassionate decision making in very early Homo sapiens in North Africa. They round out their analysis of compassion by exploring theory in neuroscience on a standard decision‐making model, and investigate what goes on in the human brain when a values‐based decision is made.     

亚威信仰与古代以色列社会——歌德瓦与马克思主义社会学圣经批评

圣经社会学批评是当代影响最大的圣经批评学流派之一,源自现代圣经批评学,但将社会学理论系统地运用到圣经批评中形成圣经社会学批评,则始于上世纪六七十年代。歌德瓦是圣经社会学批评的奠基人之一。他成功地将马克思主义社会学理论引入到圣经批评学之中,重构了以亚威崇拜为中心的古代以色列社会。他从"反抗模式"出发,论述了亚威信仰和崇拜源于受压迫的乡村农牧民,他们平等的社会关系导致了亚威信仰的诞生;亚威崇拜对早期以色列社会的作用不仅产生一套"伦理规范",更是深入社会结构深层的权力象征,在以色列人的社会、经济和文化方面发挥着独特功能,是维系以色列共同体平等的社会关系和抵御外来侵略不可或缺的力量。     

Recent Books in Biblical Studies

Carol R. Fontaine, Smooth Words: Women, Proverbs and Performance in Biblical Wisdom
R.S. Sugirtharajah, Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation
Sarah Nicholson, Three Faces of Saul: An Intertextual Approach to Biblical Tragedy     

Freud, Oedipus and the Hebrew Bible

The current paper examines the question of why Freud employed Greek rather than Hebrew foundation legends, specifically the story of Oedipus, as a basis for psychoanalysis, Freud's choice of Oedipus emanates from his deterministic view of the universe, paralleling the Greek rather that the Biblical story of creation. In the Biblical account God precedes and creates nature with no sign of an Oedipal conflict. In the Greek account, nature precedes the gods and the Oedipal conflict is inherent. Freud's choice has implications for his view of human psychology.     

Myth as Metaphysics: The Christian Saviour and the Hindu Gods

A distinction which is often rehearsed in some strands of Christian writing on the ??Eastern?? religions, especially Hinduism, is that while they are full of ??mythological?? fancies, Biblical faith is based on the solid rock of ??historical?? truth. I argue that the sharp contours of this antithesis are softened when we consider two issues regarding the relation between ??myth?? and ??history??. First, the decades?Clong attempts to separate the ??historical?? facts about Jesus Christ from the interpretive elements in the Biblical narrative highlight the presence of ??mythical?? imagination in Christian thought. Second, a comparative study of the Christian understanding of Jesus Christ as the Incarnate God and the Hindu conception of avat??ras reveals a highly significant set of differences and analogies, and shows how the supposed equivalences between ??historical as real?? and ??mythological as unreal?? need to be reformulated.     

Homosexuality in Biblical Perspective

Homosexuality in Biblical Perspective analyses, in their cultural context, biblical passages on homosexuality. Biblical anthropology did not distinguish between homosexual orientation and behavior. Biblical passages address homosexual behavior of heterosexual persons in cultic contexts, identifying the perpetrators with pagan worship practice, eclipsing their identity as the people of Yahweh. Such behavior is an abomination. The Bible says nothing about the morality of homosexual behavior within a committed and ethical troth relationship such as marriage.     

New Testament Scholarship and the “Jesus Seminar”

This classroom exercise developed out of an effort to make the methodology and practical techniques of our field come alive for students of New Testament at a variety of undergraduate levels. Adapting the controversial “voting” technique of the Westar Institute's “Jesus Seminar,” students vote with colored beads on the authenticity of Jesus' sayings in Matthew's Beatitudes (Matt. 5:3–12). The point of the exercise is not to judge or dismiss Biblical text, but to work actively and thoughtfully with the critical tools and methods of New Testament scholarship, to ponder the implications of academic assessments of “authenticity” when it comes to Biblical text, and to stimulate discussion concerning how we, as professional scholars of the Bible, approach the Gospels.     

The Ecclesial Hermeneutic of Raymond E. Brown

Against the background of some positions taken up in a recent document of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, the article studies Raymond Brown's attempt to combine mainstream historical-critical exegesis of the Bible with a Roman Catholic theological pre-understanding. Particular reference is made to his handling of issues connected with the virginal conception of Jesus. Some of his religious presuppositions such as those concerning the relation between faith and reason, and the development of doctrine, are presented. Biblical criticism in Brown's understanding is an essentially historical discipline which has as its principal object the literal sense of the text, that is, what the text meant when it was written. His religious presuppositions make the practice of the discipline ineliminable in an integral hermeneutic. From an analysis of his treatment of the virginal conception, it is argued that Catholic pre-understanding and historical criticism, when combined, inevitably result in a two-stage hermeneutic. In a first stage appeal is made to presuppostions common to all practitioners of historical criticism. In a second stage religious presuppostions come into play. The distinction between these two stages is seen as more fundamental than Brown's better known distinction between the literal and more-than-literal senses of the text. It is argued that the relation between the two stages is to be understood in chalcedonian terms as exemplifying the dialectic of faith and reason: they must be distinguished, but cannot be separated. Brown's grasp of an incarnational economy of salvation is presented in terms of David H. Kelsy's concept of a discrimen, and emerges as fundamental for an ecclesial hermeneutic of the Bible. Questions about the place of the historical-critical method, the promise of alternative approaches and the role of hermeneutical theory can only be adequately addressed in terms of it.     

Rethinking the Human Being in Light of Evolutionary Biology

Abstract : For the sake of its own enrichment and relevance, Christian anthropology today must be informed by what we are learning from the biosciences, including the theory of biological evolution. The two quite different paradigms of theology and biology should be seen as complementary to each other, with theology recognizing the biological foundation of human nature. This necessitates a repudiation of the traditional body/soul dualism and re‐conceptualizing the concept of soul as a metaphorical expression rather than a spiritual entity. It affirms the spiritual dimension of human life that relates us to God and neighbor. Biblical scholarship affirms this psychosomatic, holistic view of the human being.     

THE TORAH OF LEVINASIAN TIME

The topic of time is central to Levinas's philosophy. By examining aspects of the Biblical stories of Abraham and Moses compared with Greek myths, mainly that of Cronos devouring his children, this paper aims to show that Levinas's view of time, though certainly indebted to the Greek (i.e. philosophical) tradition, contains traces of Biblical experiences. Moreover, Levinas's interpretation of time will serve as a concrete demonstration of the way the Jewish experience enables Levinas to express his criticism of the philosophical‐Greek tradition.     

Biblical narratives for positive psychology and suicide prevention: an evidence supported approach

Suicide is the ultimate outcome of a tragic view of life that is prevalent in ancient Greek writings. Indeed, over 16 suicides and self-mutilations can be found in the 26 surviving tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides. In contrast, only six suicides can be found in the Hebrew Scriptures, and only one suicide in the Christian Scriptures. In addition, the Hebrew Scriptures present numerous suicide-prevention narratives that are psychologically instructive. This paper examines evidence regarding seven risk factors for suicide and contrasts Greek and Biblical narratives to underscore the clinical and theoretical utility of the Biblical approach: (1) Feeling isolated and ignored; (2) Feeling one’s life is meaningless; (3) Feeling exiled from one’s home or homeland; (4) Feeling unable to be oneself with others; (5) Feeling alone in one’s life mission; (6) Feeling abandoned by one’s child; and (7) Feeling doomed by a dysfunctional family of origin.     

Israelis' attitudes toward the disengagement plan, perceived risk, and knowledge of Biblical events

A sample of 73 Israeli students perceived current risks related to the disengagement plan but showed low awareness of Biblical civil wars and political assassinations. Attitude toward disengagement did not correlate with current perceived risks or awareness of Biblical violence. Left-leaning subjects were more supportive of disengagement and perceived greater risk of political assassination in its wake.     

Reviews

Books reviewed:
Daniel Boyarin Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism
Gordon E. Michalson, Jr. Kant and the Problem of God
Reinhard Hütter Suffering Divine Things: Theology as Church Practice
Boris Bobrinskoy The Mystery of the Trinity: Trinitarian Experience and Vision in the Biblical and Patristic Tradition
Tod Linafelt Surviving Lamentations: Catastrophe, Lament and Protest in the Afterlife of a Biblical Book
F. Samuel Brainard Reality and Mystical Experience
Sandra Lee Dixon Augustine: The Scattered and Gathered Self
Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza Rhetoric and Ethic: The Politics of Biblical Studies
Vladimir Wozniuk (Ed.) Politics, Law, and Morality: Essays by V. S. Soloviev
Rowan Williams Lost Icons: Reflections on Cultural Bereavement     

舍斯托夫对哲学定义的理解

哲学是什么？胡塞尔认为哲学是反思,俄罗斯宗教哲学家舍斯托夫却认为哲学是一种斗争。实际上,这是理性哲学思维和圣经思维的对立。理性哲学思维基于人是“理性的人”的认识,通过“逻辑”的手段来寻找事物背后的根据,哲学是“爱智慧”。圣经思维却从人是“神性的人”出发,把“雷霆和闪电”作为自己的“逻辑”,把哲学当作“生死事业”,因而哲学是斗争。舍斯托夫对理性哲学思维进行了抨击,他对哲学定义的理解是基于俄罗斯宗教存在哲学的立场。     

Can Communicative Methods Enhance Ancient Language Acquisition?

Abstract. For several years the field of Second Language Acquisition has benefited from methods associated with communicative language learning. However, these benefits have largely been overlooked when teaching ancient languages, likely because the objective for ancient languages is literacy, not oral fluency. This article outlines an experiment that capitalized on communicative language methods to accelerate literacy for beginning students of Biblical Hebrew. (Digital images associated with this essay may be found at:〈 http://www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu/journal/overland.html 〉     

Religion, Psychotherapy and the Body-Soul Relationship

The split between body and soul in modern psychology and psychotherapy has Greek origins. The opposition of psyche and soma is Greek, as is the central myth of Oedipus. The present paper offers a Biblical integration of body and soul, focusing on the Hebrew concept of nefesh and the Biblical narrative of the Akedah (i.e., the “binding” of Isaac).     

Is Isaac without Ishmael complete? A nineteenth‐century debate re‐visited

Biblical passages which Christians have traditionally applied to Islam, predicting the rise of false prophets and of false Christs, inform negative judgements. The theory of one nineteenth‐century writer, Charles Forster (1787–1871) is examined as possibly offering a sympathetic Biblical‐key in its interpretation of God's promise to Abraham that he would bless Ishmael and make him father of a great nation. Islam, Forster argued, fulfilled this promise: permitted to exist by God, Islam's eventual “bringing in” to the Kingdom would be by divine not human action. This raises questions about the propriety of proselytizing Muslims and suggests that theological disputation might yield to mutual striving to “do good works” or to obey God's will (Q.5:48; Matt 7:21).     

Reviews

Books reviewed in this article:
Theology for a Nuclear Age By G ordon D. K aufman .
Metaphoric Process: The Creation of Scientific and Religious Understanding. By M ary G erhart and A llan M elvin R ussell .
Biblical Faith: An Evolutionary Approach By G erd T heissen . Translated by John Bowden.
Biblical Faith: An Evolutionary Approach By G erd T heissen . Translated by John Bowden.     

Soul and Psyche: A Critical Assessment

Wayne G. Rollins has been the key organizer of the Psychology and Biblical Studies program unit of the Society of Biblical Literature, where on numerous occasions I have observed the gentle kindness and buoyant enthusiasm with which he has hosted and moderated the meetings. I have also benefitted from personal and professional conversations with him. Consequently, it is an honor, and more than a little daunting, to respond to his book. Rollins has three goals for this volume: to provide a history of the discipline he calls psychological biblical criticism, to define this academic field, and to propose an agenda for this field as applied to biblical exegesis and hermeneutics. Rollins hopes for a rapprochement between the historical and psychological approaches to biblical studies.