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/propera9.htm
Pentecost+4, Proper 9, Ordinary 14
July 6, 2014
- Jarvis, Cynthia A., "Between Text and Sermon, Matthew 11:16-30," Interpretation, 1996.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials
“God's silence in relationship to the machinations of religion is purposeful, according to Matthew's Gospel. The God of gods will not be contained or grasped by any generation and so is in hiding—even from those to whom God is said to have been revealed in the past.”
- Aitken, Kenneth T., "The Wooing of Rebekah: A Study in the Development of the Tradition,"Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 1984.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials
Abstract: “The article questions the view that this story has arisen as a "late connective piece" within the structure of the Patriarchal tradition as a whole. Through examining its narrative structure and comparing that with the structure of other Hebrew and Ugaritic narratives dealing with a marriage, it argues that the story arose and was transmitted orally within the setting of marriage, specifically on the occasion of the transfer of the bride, as the paradigm of the willing bride who joyously departs to her bridegroom's home to enjoy the blessings of marriage with the intention of invoking like joy and blessing upon the bride.”
- Martin, Michael W., "Betrothal Journey Narratives," The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 2008.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials
“The betrothal journey narrative is an archetypal narrative pattern repeatedly employed in biblical literature, often with important innovations, by different writers for different artistic purposes. The narrative always entails a journey by a suitor to and from a foreign land for the purpose of obtaining a bride among relatives and establishing his household. The climactic moment of the narrative is the betrothal "type-scene" identified by Robert Alter, wherein the suitor meets the bride-to-be at a well and a betrothal is arranged. In this article I will describe the larger narrative framework in which the betrothal type-scene is situated and, further, identify a few crucial elements of the type-scene that Alter overlooks. I will then show how this narrative pattern is creatively put to use in various stories from the OT, the Apocrypha, and the NT. First, however, it will be instructive to review Alter's discussion of type-scenes and, specifically, the betrothal type-scene.”
Turner, Mary Donovan, "Rebekah: Ancestor of Faith,"Lexington Theological Quarterly, 1985.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials
Abstract: “The Old Testament narratives are replete with women who came out of a patriarchal system to make an indelible stamp on the world around them. One example is Rebekah. In tempting subtleties the narrator of the Genesis story invites us to consider Rebekah, not Isaac, as the hero who follows Abraham and plays a crucial and distinctive role in carrying on God's promise to future generations. After a literary analysis of the scenes in which Rebekah appears, the author is encouraged to lay aside the exclusive designation of the "patriarchal narratives" and more appropriately refer to them as the story of our ancestors.”
- Redditt, Paul L., "Israel's Shepherds: Hope and Pessimism in Zechariah 9-14," The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 1989.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials
“This diversity makes clear the issue that these groups were facing: who was Israel? Was the real Israel those loyal to the priesthood? To the Davidic family? To the urban elite in Jerusalem? To this or that sectarian group? Perhaps all of these different voices and others were cries that each group belonged to the real Israel. Each group reached to a part of Israel's overall tradition as the basis for its claim that it (and maybe even this or that nation outside Israel) belonged to God's people. Perhaps no one group could speak for all peoples; in pressing their own case, in reading their common history from their own perspective, they inevitably slighted this group, excluded that one. No one of them had the full truth; all saw the truth dimly. Therein lies one of their lessons and warnings today.”
- Chang, Hae-Kyung, "The Christian Life in a Dialectical Tension? Romans 7:7-25 Reconsidered," Novum Testamentum, 2007.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials
“James D.G. Dunn advocates a well-accepted interpretation model that reads Rom. 7:14-25 and 8:1-17 together solely in terms of Paul's own Christian experience characterized by the dialectically reframed eschatological tension (i.e., both 'already' and 'not yet' 'at the same time'). However, Rom. 7:7-25 is not a self-portrait of Paul himself, neither a psychological description of the mature or non-mature Christian life, but a rhetorical discourse in which Paul explicates, from his Christian viewpoint, the negative function of the Mosaic Law as the most delicate issue representing his gospel. Pauline eschatology in Rom. 6, 8, and 7:1-6 puts a decisive weight on the 'already accomplished in Jesus Christ and gives a perspective that Christians prolepttcally experience in the Spirit liberation from the law, the sin, and the flesh, confidently anticipating the final victory.”
- Wasserman, Emma, "The Death of the Soul in Romans 7: Revisiting Paul's Anthropology in Light of Hellenistic Moral Psychology," Journal of Biblical Literature, 2007.
EBSCO ATLASerials, Religion Collection
EBSCO ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials
“In this essay I have argued that an appreciation for certain Platonic assumptions, images, and metaphors allows for a more coherent reading of Romans 7 as depicting reason's defeat at the hands of passions and desires. In making this case I have consciously avoided appeals to borrowings, parallels, backgrounds, or various types of "worldviews" such as Hellenistic, Jewish, Christian, or apocalyptic. Instead, I have understood Paul as having an intellectual repertoire and sought to explain certain aspects of that repertoire of interests and skills. Though the question of Pauls level of skill should remain open, his use of key moral-psychological assumptions and arguments is significant and requires explanation.”
Comments