The Biblical Annals, 2022, Tom 12 (69), Nr 2
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- ItemThe Current Debate on the Relationship between Sin and Sickness in John 5:14(Wydawnictwo KUL, 2022) Kubiś, AdamThe article focuses on the understanding of sin in John 5:14, as well as the relationship between sin and sickness presented in this verse. It provides a thorough status quaestionis on both of these issues. After examining various hypotheses regarding the meaning of sin in John 5:14, the Johannine notion of sin as unbelief is expounded as the most convincing. This sin encompasses the past, present, and future life of the healed man. Thus, contrary to the exegetical opinio communis, the cause-and-effect relationship between sin and sickness does not apply to John 5:14. In light of this explanation, the messages of John 5:14 and 9:2–3 do not contradict each other. Jesus’ words in 5:14, intentionally pronounced in the temple, should be understood as an invitation to follow him in faith.
- ItemChristian Experience and Paul’s Logic of Solidarity: the Spiral Structure of Romans 5–8(Wydawnictwo KUL, 2022) Eastman, SusanThis essay investigates key aspects of the rhetorical structure of Romans 5–8 in relationship to Paul’s depictions of Christian experience. Taking Romans 5:1–5 as a blueprint for a trajectory of hope in chapters 5–8, I discuss three textual “detours” where Paul interrupts that trajectory: a rhetorical performance of life under sin (7:7–25), a depiction of union with all creation in suffering and hope (8:18–27), and a cry of lament (8:26). These rhetorical interruptions evoke Christian experience in solidarity with all creation - a solidarity that in turn displays Christ’s redemptive participation in the depths of all human dereliction, and thereby evokes hope.
- ItemBody, Mind, and Passions in Romans: Paul’s Alternative View within His Philosophical and Religious Context(Wydawnictwo KUL, 2022) Keener, CraigMost ancient thinkers believed that passions corrupted rational thinking, and that reason should control passions; Jewish apologists, however, often chided Gentiles for being ruled by passion, and sometimes offered Jewish law as a way to achieve genuine mastery over passion. Using language familiar to his contemporaries, Paul argues that human passions have corrupted reason’s ability to control them, and even right knowledge of God’s law cannot deliver one from this enslavement. For Paul, however, Christ by the Spirit liberates from bondage to passion, enabling a relationship with and life pleasing to God.
- ItemThe “inner man” – Fundamental Concept of Pauline Anthropology?(Wydawnictwo KUL, 2022) Hecht, StephanThe reader of the Pauline Epistles encounters the metaphor of the “inner man” for the first time in 2 Cor 4:16. Inconspicuous at first glance, this metaphor reveals not only a wide reception history within Christian thought and tradition but also a conceptual depth which brings us close to the origins of our thought on human personality and subjectivity. In this article, I want thus to elaborate on the concept of the “inner man” in Paul. Tracing its origins in Plato, I want to show how this metaphor must be understood on a conceptual level using metaphors as archaeological tools that help to discover concepts that might get lost when only interpreted as linguistic ornaments. Claiming that Plato explicitly expresses the human »self« as a continuous agent in front of changing phenomena of the human soul with his concept of the “inner man,” I will then turn to Paul. Even though it is impossible to trace the exact origins of this metaphor in the writings of the Apostle, it is my thesis that it can be found in 2 Cor 4:16 in substance. Paul thus uses the metaphor of the “inner man” to express the newly redeemed and yet justified Christian »self« that is confronted with opposition and contradiction that waste away the outer man. The exact Greek wording of this metaphor allows to identify the pictorial level of this metaphor in Paul with the temple in Jerusalem. As I will show, Paul thus integrates two anthropological lines that he derives from the creational accounts in the “inner man,” showing interesting parallels to Philo of Alexandria. With the metaphor of the “inner man,” the reader of 2 Cor 4:16 therefore encounters a or even the fundamental concept of Pauline Anthropology.
- ItemBetwixt and Between: The Letter of James and the Human Condition(Wydawnictwo KUL, 2022) Green, Joel B.James’s letter does not concern itself with the nature of humanity in the abstract. His message regarding the trials of Jewish messianists distributed outside the land of the Jews leads him rather to explore the perplexing paradox of the human predicament—called to faithful life patterns, to love of God and neighbor, on the one hand, overwhelmed by craving and sin, on the other hand. This undergirds a profound analysis of the human condition as well as its remedy in God’s true word.