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GLOBAL INTERPRETATIONS OF CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES

GLOBAL INTERPRETATIONS OF CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES. RLST 206 AND DIV 3845 Feb 15, 2010. Today. 3:10 Contemporary Models for the Interpretation of Scriptures: SACRAMENTAL-LITURGICAL HERMENEUTICS 4:05-4:55 Group Discussions: Group 1: JOHN Petros Vassiliadis,

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GLOBAL INTERPRETATIONS OF CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES

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  1. GLOBAL INTERPRETATIONS OF CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES RLST 206 AND DIV 3845 Feb 15, 2010

  2. Today • 3:10 Contemporary Models for the Interpretation of Scriptures: SACRAMENTAL-LITURGICAL HERMENEUTICS • 4:05-4:55Group Discussions: • Group 1: JOHN Petros Vassiliadis, • Group 2: HEBREWS Stelian Tofanâ, • 5:00 Lecture: Classical Models of Interpretations of Scriptures

  3. John (Petros Vassiliadis, Greece) • Presenter Taylor Schomp, • Leader Anna Leigh Keith • ____Matthew Calderwood__ • ____Annie Wong • ____Mark Wells • ____Wendy Aluoh • ____Arlonzo Williams • _____Basye Holland

  4. Hebrews (Stelian Tofana, Romania) • Presenter Anna McReynolds • Leader: Jordan Nelson • _____Chance Dillon • _____Erin Higgins • _____Lakendra Scott • _____Iris Ankrom • _____Adesewa Adelekun • _____Ben Pflederer

  5. Choosing Your Biblical Text For The Paper DUE Feb 21 by 10am • Give me 3 ranked choices of biblical texts, not previously discussed in class • For each choice, tell me in two (2) to three (3) lines why (the contextual reasons; the issue, the problem, the concern; Singular; 1 specific context!) you chose each given text. Why is it significant for you? Why is it more significant for you than other texts of the Bible? • You may use the same context for the 3 texts • In your paper proposal, you will explain in detail what you intend to do with it • I will tell you by class time what text was assigned to you (obviously, hopefully your first choice)

  6. Three weeks ago: Contextual studies may be focused on Inculturation • all interpretations are “inculturated” = influenced by the (cultural) context from which we read. This means that our • Textual Choices are viewed as LEGITIMATE, = grounded in the text, according to our culture • Theological/hermeneutical choices areviewed as PLAUSIBLEaccording to our culture • Contextual Choices are viewed asVALID (= valuable) according to our culture

  7. Two weeks Ago: Contextual studies may be focused on Liberation • Focused on Interpretive Contextual Choices • Ethical/moral test: Loving Neighbor • How is this text helpful in a specific life-context? • Involves a particular Theological-hermeneutical choices: • Scripture as corrective lenses

  8. Last Week: Inter(con)textual Character of Interpretations • Contextual studies may be focused on the Inter(con)textual Character of Interpretations • Focused on Interpretive Theological /Hermeneutical Choices • How to make sense of the biblical text? • Issue: PLAUSIBILITY of the text and what it says about human life. • The Biblical Text Makes Sense if, and if only, we read it in terms of other texts of our lives and cultures.

  9. Bible as Scripture read in Worship, Sacramental-Liturgical Contexts • Scripture is read by believers • in Sacramental-LiturgicalContext • Community Worship Context in which “liturgy” is rejected for a more informal worship service (another form of liturgy!) • Personal worship related to individual religious experience! • Each case includes: “Religious experiences” and “Rituals” as realities no human (including no agnostic & no atheist) can escape • Without a vision of life that frames our lives we cannot live (and commit suicide when we lose it) • Without rituals this vision of life crumbles

  10. Ritual Theory • Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Lewis Morgan Lectures) (1969) • Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (Oxford University Press, 1997). Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions. Revised edition. (Oxford University Press, 2009)

  11. Turner’s view of Ritual • threefold structure of rituals (e.g. rites of passage): • a pre-liminal phase (separation), • a liminal phase (transition), and • a post-liminal phase (reincorporation). • Turner: in liminality, individuals are "betwixt and between": a limbo, an ambiguous period characterized by humility, seclusion, tests, sexual ambiguity, and communitas (an unstructured community where all members are equal); • A stage where one’s autonomy as individual is suspended (heteronomy) and • where rules of society (relationality) are suspended (so the ‘communitas’ of heteronomy):……. enough theory!

  12. Religious Experience and Ritual • “I Love You” … most powerful three words in the English language. (This is Valentine’s Day!) • Express a “feeling” … a strong feeling regarding • One’s relationship [“I”] to someone else [“you”] • “love” : An intimate relationship that so totally frames who “I” am, and who “you” are that “we” have a new life together as “us”. • This “feeling” is for “us” a reality = Being in Love • The really real -- the most real reality • A reality that “happens” in an encounter, a powerful encounter (“seeing him”; “seeing her” for the first time; “falling in love”) that transforms our lives • And is reenacted, maintained, and strengthened through rituals of love.

  13. We Necessarily Have 3 modes of Existence Our individual life: Autonomy Our life in relation with others in social networks & community: Relationality Our religious, mystical, “in love,” proprioceptive experience(s) (ranging from infant-mother to mystical experience) Heteronomy Autonomy-Relationality-Heteronomy: 3 modes of existence

  14. Autonomy-Relationality-Heteronomy: • Coakley, Sarah. “Kenosis and subversion,” pp. 82-111 in Daphne Hampson, ed. Swallowing a Fishbone? Feminist Theologians Debate Christianity. London: SPCK, 1996. • Grenholm, Cristina, Motherhood and Love: Finding Space for Thought Beyond the Gendered Stereotypes of Theology. Grand Rapids, Mi: Eerdsman, 2011 • Hampson, Daphne. “On Autonomy and Heteronomy” pp. 1-16 in Daphne Hampson, ed. Swallowing a Fishbone? Feminist Theologians Debate Christianity. London: SPCK, 1996.

  15. Three modes of existence; each can be the center • Autonomy-Centered = Individual-Centered Life = “I” am in control • Relational Life and Heteronomous Life are shaped and defined by individuals • Relationality-Centered = Community/Society CenteredLife = “the community” is in control • Individual Life and Heteronomous Life are shaped and defined by Community/Society • Heteronomy-Centered = Religious Experience Centered Life • Individual Life and Relational Life are shaped and defined by Religious Experience (including Absence of & Negative Religious Experience)

  16. 1. Autonomy-[= Individual]-Centered • “I” as a “self” have an identity defined by what “I” choose to do and not to do; “I” am an “agent”; autonomy-centered life. knowledge, will, ability • “I” as an “agent” control and shape the networks of relations in which “I” am involved: = “I” am responsible for the RELATIONAL networks in which I participate • “I” am responsible for my religious experience, and thus control “my” HETERONOMOUS experiences = e.g., “I” decided to give my life to Christ;“I” fell in love

  17. 2. Relationality-Centered life • “We” as a group have an identity defined by the network of relations which characterizes our group; relationality-centered life • “We” are individuals with identities defined by our place and role in and for our group; autonomous experiences. • “We” share religious experiences that shape our life and vocation as a group; communal heteronomous experiences. “We” (you and I) fell in love, // to We participate in our community’s vocation … and community rituals.

  18. 3. Heteronomy-Centered life • True religious experience is abandoning or losing oneself, as individuals and as community, into the OTHER, and thus submitting to the Other. heteronomy-centered life. • Our identity as a community, its ideology, and its relational networks are shaped by our collective heteronomous experience in rituals, sacraments. • “My” identity as a “self” and “agent,” “my” autonomy is shaped by my heteronomous experience in religious experience.

  19. Identity “If you are the Son of God” = 3 Rootproblems: in each case, “I” is not based on Heteronomy/worshiping God • AUTONOMY=“I”with an identify= will; knowing what I want • “Matt 4:2-3 Jesus “was famished… command these stones to become loaves of bread.“ = this is what your WILL should be • = yourself-centered willis wrong; • Matthew 4:4 4 But he answered, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.‘” = living by word from God.'“ = Heteronomy = Will shaped by one’s experience of God • RELATIONALITY: “I” withideology • Matt 4:6 throw yourself down; for it is written, God will save you; • wrong IDEOLOGY: God is at our service (as other people are) • Matthew 4:7 7 Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'“ • not tempting/testing God = submitting to God . = Heteronomy

  20. Identity “If you are the Son of God” = 3 Rootproblems: in each case, “I” is not based on Heteronomy/worshiping God • RELATIONALITY:“I” withpower and authority over others • Matthew 4:8-9 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; 9 and he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.“ • Wrong “Power” “authority” over othersgained through relationality = worshiping idols • Matthew 4:10 Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! for it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'“ • worshiping God alone “falling before God” alone = Heteronomy

  21. Love and God’s Love: Kenosis = Heteronomy • Philippians 2:5-8 Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, 7 but emptied [ekenôsen] himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, 8 he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-- even death on a cross.

  22. Bible as Scripture read in Worship, Sacramental-Liturgical Contexts • Sacramental-Liturgical Context in which Scripture is read by believers: • Discerning Problems in THIS context • Offering Solutions in THIS context • Is this Liturgy-Sacrament-Religious Experience: • Helpful? Constructive? life-giving? Life-giving? • Or Deadly? Death-giving? Destructive? Oppressive? • Do not brush aside religious experience and rituals! • Religious experiences and Rituals are realities no human (also no agnostic & no atheist) can escape • Without a vision of life that frames our lives we cannot live (and commit suicide when we lose it) • Without rituals this vision of life cannot be maintained and crumbles

  23. Sacramental-Liturgical Context:Root-Problem • Root-Problem: NOT a lack of understanding /lack of knowledge, or wrong knowledge • A liturgy does NOT presuppose that “People need to understand, in order that they may believe properly” • Root-Problem IS a lack of faith/vision, or wrong faith/vision, or inappropriate faith/vision • A liturgy presupposeS that “People need first to believe, to have faith, before seeking to understand.” • Solution: having a (good, valid)religious experienceencountering the Divine; God; the Lord; as a mystery

  24. Sacramental-Liturgical Context:Religious Experience as Solution • Experience of the Mystery • Experience of a mysterious reality which has power upon me/us = Heteronomy • Being “in Love” = acknowledging the mystery of the beloved… always beyond what I can know about her/him… can never be taken for granted; reduced to something can tell about her [[Valentine’s Day!!!]] • I-Thou relationship = being lost in the other, the beloved, God • Being “in Love” = completely shape one’s existence, one’s life, all aspect of one’s life – being under the spell of the loved one – beyond understanding

  25. Sacramental-Liturgical Context:Understanding Religious Experience • Understanding this Experience of the Mystery • NOT explaining away this mystery (this is • destroying the mystery = denying this mystery • Denying/ betraying this love relationship; • Denying/betraying the I-Thou relationship • Understanding this Experience of the Mystery • Fides quaerens intellectum • Anselm of Canterbury (c1033-1109), • Faith seeking understanding • = Acknowledging this experience; Claiming this experience and its implications; [[not all religious experience is good]] • “I do” • “Credo” = ‘I” believe • Explaining this experience to others

  26. Sacramental-Liturgical Context:Nigeria: Chukwuma Okoye • Book of Revelation and Worship: Problem: Is Worship Helpful? Constructive? Life-giving? Or Deadly? Death-giving? Destructive? Oppressive? • Root-problem: wrong faith/vision (from the perspective of the biblical text) • “What we see depends on where we stand” (112) • Worship ministering to death (112-120) • following the model of worship on earthly Sphere (worship of the Beast, of the Roman State) • Worship ministering to life(120-124) • following the model of worship in the Heavenly Sphere (throne liturgy in heaven Rev chaps 4-5)

  27. Sacramental-Liturgical Context:Nigeria: Chukwuma Okoye • Reading the book of Revelation in a Liturgical Context • Revelation-based Worship ministering to death • as a glorification of martyrdom • = cult of victimhood (passive acceptance of our economic and political plight as colonized and oppressed) (113-115) • As total rejection of State: • African Traditional political leaders are/were not demonic; but “personified the order of the world and harmony… for the benefit of humankind’ (115)

  28. Sacramental-Liturgical Context:Nigeria: Chukwuma Okoye • Revelation-based Worship ministering to death • As separating faith and culture: • African traditional Culture as a whole is not evil, pagan; must discern which traditional practices and symbols are contrary to the gospel and which are compatible (116-118) • As fostering violence against heretics and non-believers; • symbolic, metaphorical violence (in liturgy, in worship is always very powerful) (118-120)

  29. Sacramental-Liturgical Context:The Power of Liturgy, Ritual • Liturgy, ritual, and Scripture have power • Because they convey CONVICTIONS to believers • Convictions as based on experience of mystery • Convictions = self-evident truth • Not demonstrated truth, not ideas that we accept because they are backed by evidence • Convictions have power upon us, because • they impose themselves upon us • Define what is good/euphoric and bad/dysphoric • They drive us to do the most sublime things… or the most evil things • Symbolic/metaphorical violence = actual violence • Violence in the name of our faith; religious wars; crusades, Shoah/Holocaust

  30. Sacramental-Liturgical Context:Nigeria: Chukwuma Okoye • Revelation-based Worship ministering to Life: A liturgy that establishes for believers • the interrelation of spiritual, metaphysical sphere/level and the human, political sphere/level (120-122) • Confirms that struggle against evil is taking place also at the spiritual level • & that “the present victory of God will usher in the universal and manifest reign of God to be revealed in the future. • Christ as the conqueror of all visible and invisible forces = Christus Victor ( 1931 Gustaf Aulén) (122-123): • “The greatest need among African is to see, to know, and to experience Jesus Christ as the victor over the powers and forces from which Africa knows no means of deliverance” (Mbiti, 123) • “The death of Christ has to do with much more than just the spiritual salvation of the soul” (123)

  31. Sacramental-Liturgical Context:Nigeria: Chukwuma Okoye • Revelation-based Worship ministering to Life: A liturgy that establishes for believers • A holistic vision of all of life (122): • “the African person is not an individual, for personality is defined by relationship” (122) • Seeing oneself as having an intrinsic relation to other humans, to sky, to earth,; • “I am because we are; and because we are, I am”

  32. Sacramental-Liturgical Context:Nigeria: Chukwuma Okoye • A liturgy that establishes for believers that • “Human beings cannot be fully saved’ • Saved from evil powers of all kinds • unless the co-determinates of authentic human life are simultaneously saved.” (122) • I am saved if, and if only, other people and the creation are also saved • see Rom 8:21 “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God”

  33. Liturgical Hermeneutics:Nigeria: Chukwuma Okoye • Revelation-based Worship as Liturgy in the Presence of GodA liturgy that is • A worship of a living God, a world who still acts in this world and in the present • “Hence, miracles are nothing extraordinary” (123) • the African sense of cosmic oneness, which includes God as the origin of the life force (124)

  34. Liturgical Hermeneutics:Nigeria: Chukwuma Okoye • Revelation based Worship as Liturgy in the Presence of God A liturgy that is • A worship of a living God, “who lowers God’s self to human, and a renewed earth becomes the Holy of Holies” (124) • “”Worship transmutes into the beatific vision” • Beatific vision in the Present: the immediate apprehension of God's self = entering into the very embrace of God • not after death as In Western medieval theology • In the present worship…. In the liturgy

  35. Petros Vassiliadis, Greek Orthodox Church • I will interpret John’s Gospel from the life-context of both post-modernity and Eastern Christianity. • Post-modernity has challenged the priority of the texts over experience, • in the context of Eastern Christianity, post-modernity has even challenged the priority of faithover the eucharistic communion experience of the Kingdom of God. • A eschatological-eucharistic communion experience

  36. Petros Vassiliadis • The ritual (be it in a social setting or in an actual liturgical setting) gave rise to the story [the Gospel of John; other Gospels] • Rather than the opposite. • Christianity started around a table, a normal messianic Jewish banquet, meant as a foretaste of the coming Kingdom of God,

  37. STELIAN TOFANĂ School of Orthodox Theology, Romania • I write this commentary from a didactic and sacerdotal context… • As an orthodox priest, its [Hebrews’s] content is part of the mystical reality I experience in every holy liturgy, at the altar on which Christ sacrifices himself continuously for each person, being there in a sacrificial state forever. • So I read Hebrews from the liturgical context of a permanent sacerdotal relation with the eternal high priest—Jesus Christ—in his continuous sacrifice for God’s people. This liturgical context encompasses heaven and earth, and thus daily life in society and in the natural world, where Jesus Christ, the high priest, offers his continuous sacrifice.   • = mystery of the incarnation continues

  38. Mystical Reality • The Orthodox Church views the Bible + Ecumenical Councils +liturgy + icons as integral parts of an indivisible whole: Holy Tradition. • Liturgy and iconography are not seen as only teaching tools or ‘decoration’ that can be thrown away. Rather, they are sacramental POINTS OF CONTACT between God and human, • made directly possible through God the Son’s becoming human • An Orthodox church has been described as ‘heaven on earth’, and that is exactly what it is: a place where heaven and earth meet.

  39. Mystical Reality: Bible • Bible = Word of God • NOT the Word of God is the content/teaching of the Bible; • Bible = “Logos,” incarnated Logos: a mystery • Incarnation as “mystery”

  40. Mystical Reality: Bible • Holy Bible = Sacred Book • Book through which one encounters the Divine/God • Remember: Pharisees/Rabbis “Where two or three are gathered and exchange words of Torah, the Shekinah is among them” (see also Matt 18:20 =“For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.“)

  41. Divine Liturgy: St. Athanasius c.295-373 • “You will see the Levites [i.e. deacons] bringing the loaves and a cup of wine, and placing them on the table. So long as the prayers and invocations have not yet been made, it is mere bread and a mere cup.” • “But when the great and wondrous prayers have been recited, then the bread becomes the body and the cup the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ...” • “When the great prayers and holy supplications are sent up, the Word descends on the bread and the cup, and it becomes His body.—Athanasius, from his Sermon to the Newly Baptized PG 26, 1325,

  42. ICON (Iconostasis)

  43. Icon: Theotokos (Russia)

  44. Icon: Theotokos (Russia)

  45. CHURCH for Eastern Orthodox • The Church is NOT a “community” of believers… a gathering of believers • The Church is the BODY OF CHRIST … and thus it manifests (or should) • The presence of God in the world • It is HOLY • Sacramentalization of Society • Sacramentalization of the World

  46. John (Petros Vassiliadis, Greece) • Presenter Taylor Schomp, • Leader Anna Leigh Keith • ____Matthew Calderwood__ • ____Annie Wong • ____Mark Wells • ____Wendy Aluoh • ____Arlonzo Williams • _____Basye Holland

  47. Hebrews (Stelian Tofana, Romania) • Presenter Anna McReynolds • Leader: Jordan Nelson • _____Chance Dillon • _____Erin Higgins • _____Lakendra Scott • _____Iris Ankrom • _____Adesewa Adelekun • _____Ben Pflederer

  48. Pharisees = One Covenant Election: complete = everything has been revealed on Mount Sinai (Oral and Written Torah) Haggadah: Closed sacred history; Liturgy; interpreting Scripture by Scripture (Midrash) Halakah: needs to be reinterpreted again and again (Mishnah, Talmud, constantly interpreted in terms of social, cultural situation) Apocalyptic = New Covenant (people still in bondage) Election: God is electing, choosing a remnant/a new faithful people = new interventions of God Typology; Prophecy are fulfilled Haggadah = Open sacred history, ongoing activity of God , establishing and reestablishing the covenant through choosing/calling a new people, through interventions of power Halakah = Very strict; AS BY PRIEST IN THE TEMPLE Pharisees and Apocalyptic ModelsSee Early Jewish Hermeneutics in Palestine

  49. Deadly Letter of Scripture and Life Giving Spirit of Scripture • 2 Corinthians 3:6-7 [Paul and others are] ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Now if the ministry of death, chiseled in letters on stone tablets… • 3:14-17 But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is still there, since only in Christ is it set aside. 15 Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds; 16 but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

  50. Formula Quotation: fulfilling prophecy: Jesus = the child who was sign of liberation • Matthew 1:22-23 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23 "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us." = Isaiah 7:14 • Isaiah 7:14 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. … 16 For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted. 17 The LORD will bring on you and on your people and on your ancestral house

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