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03/09/2014

Textweek/ATLAS links Lent 2A, March 16, 2014

Studying lectionary texts? Here are some starting places for study at ATLA this week. If you are the graduate of an accredited U.S. theological school, you may have free access to these articles through your school. Check ATLAS access options. You can find full lists of ATLAS recommended articles for this week at The Text This Week's page for this week's texts:

http://www.textweek.com/yeara/lenta2.htm

Lent 2A
March 16, 2014

Abstract: “This essay considers the way in which Jewish readers of scripture and Christian readers of scripture may move some distance together in the reading of scripture, in an acknowledgement of much that is shared in scripture. It is recognized that the relationship between Judaism and Christianity has been an incommensurate one in which Christianity has been characteristically allied with power and so has read the biblical text hegemonically. That Christian propensity toward the interpretive monopoly of scripture in turn made possible the dismissal of an alternative reading in Judaism. Several biblical texts are cited to indicate that the biblical texts permit no such reading monopoly, because more than one reading is legitimate in distinct faith traditions. While Jews and Christians cannot finally—or cannot yet·—read all the way together, it is agreed that Jews and Christians can read much further together than had been thought or permitted in the longstanding environment of Christian monopolistic reading. The text itself testifies against such monopolistic readings that have been imposed hegemonically on the text.” The section on this text begins on page 391.

“If the covenant model points to the idea that humanity would mature into full responsibility, then the development of modern culture with its concomitant explosion of human capacity should have been the occasion for humanity to take up a higher level of leadership in the covenant. However, religious communities missed the signal because they were frightened by the expanding human freedom; they imagined that autonomy was coming at the expense of God's authority.”

 

“If Genesis is a book that highlights the family and one that shares elements with family literature, it is an especially appropriate place to search for values about families depicted in the Hebrew Bible.”

“Christianity, perhaps alone among the possible grand narratives, is able to narrate the kind of universal story that can appropriately address the relationship of humanity to itself and to the rest of creation. A proper Christian "environmental ethic" will neither lose sight of the important status of humanity nor lose nature to a modern technological conception of "environment." Rather, it will recognize the value of, as well as humanity's place in, the non-human natural world precisely because it is part of a creation that God loves.”

Abstract: “Many features of the Fourth Gospel have hitherto found no source and commentators are confined to imagination. Meanwhile Buddhists' use of Greek, Roman and Jewish materials is established. It turns out, from a close examination of twelve instances, that Buddhist traditions, found in Hïnayâna and Mahäyäna sources, contemporary in essence with St John, offered the latter an opportunity to make his gospel attractive to contemporary targets of Buddhist missions, groups for whom Moses was not a commanding figure. Buddhists would recognise Jesus, already known from "synoptic" or para-synoptic materials, as a Bodhisattva, now a Buddha, who like Gautama promised a Paraclete, strongly resembling Maitreya in character and function.”

“Recognition of the double meaning of anöthen is imperative for understanding fully Nicodemus' misperception of Jesus' words.”

“There is value in referring to this story as one about Jesus' mountaintop experience, which is followed by his return to the valley where he ministered to human need. To such a presentation we can add recitations of mountaintop experiences we have known, followed by exhortations to return to the valley ready to serve. The connections can not only be clear but also encouraging and challenging. However, large pieces of the text remain intact, containing affirmations not about us but about Christ alone. But this, too, is edifying: to stand before a text full of dazzling light, hovering clouds and a heavenly voice, a text that we cannot explain fully or consume homiletically, a text that is simply there night and day, offering disturbing consolation, a text before which we live out our faith in awe and praise.” 

Abstract: “This article traces the theme of royal power through the lectionary readings in Matthew during the seasons of Lent and Easter, culminating in Trinity Sunday. An examination of major turning points in Matthew's story of Jesus—temptation, transfiguration, triumphal entry, passion, resurrection, and farewell—demonstrates Jesus' re-definition of kingship as obedience and service. Matthew characterizes Jesus as the perfect example of true righteousness, consistently obedient to the Father's will. As a result, Jesus possesses absolute and eternal power, and he commands his disciples to draw on that power and his presence as they make other disciples throughout the earth.”

  • Winn, Albert Curry, "Worship As a Healing Experience: An Exposition of Matthew 17:1-9,"Interpretation, 1975.

“The transfiguration reminds us that Christian worship is on the way to the cross. . . . We rise from it to resume the way to the cross in a world full of suffering. But we have seen who Jesus really is and he has shown us that we do not need to be afraid.”

 

“In a sense, the genre of the fantastic allows the description of the fantastic universe and raises the hesitation in the reader regarding the potential to participate in that fantastic universe. In this functional sense, the Transfiguration story belongs to the genre of the fantastic.” 

“’Righteousness’ is normally what one ought to do, and the ‘righteous’ are those who do it. Paul sees the law of Moses as explicating ‘righteousness’ required of all human beings and ‘justification by faith’ as the extraordinary path to ‘righteousness’ offered by God to the unrighteous of all nations.”

 

 

03/09/2014 at 12:49 PM |

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