Świadectwo Ojca w czwartej Ewangelii. Studium egzegetyczno-teologiczne

Author(s): Dawid Ledwoń / Language(s): Polish

From among the four canonical Gospels, the Johannine rendering is the one most focused on Jesus’ Father – God. In the Gospel according to John, the basic means of expressing (revealing) the said truth is witness (μαρτυρία) along with, related thereto, the act of bearing witness (μαρτυρέω). The notion of witness contains speaking, arguing for, convincing, and asserting that Jesus was the Son of God sent so that whoever believes in Him shall have eternal life (John 3:15–16).The theme of witness of the Father as a cohesive research subject had gone unnoticed in global biblical studies until the half of the 20th century. Also, it had not been perceived as a crucial element of teaching about God the Father. Only 1950s brought about radical change in biblical theology. What began to be stressed back then was the relationship between Christology, emphasised strongly in the Gospels, and the reflection about presence and the work of the remaining Persons of the Holy Trinity. The Johannine Gospel appears to be an especially valuable subject of research due to the theme of God’s fatherhood – in particular, giving witness to the Son – present therein, which constitutes a structure of the fourth Gospel and remains critical for its interpretation. Another important aspect of the witness indicated in John is: unveiling the internal life of Jesus and the interrelations within the Trinity.This monograph aims at determining features of the witness that God gives about His Son; to subsequently indicate places and manners in which the said witness is actualized in the fourth Gospel, in addition to providing an answer to the question regarding the possibility of the human participation in the witness of the Father and where it eventually finds its fulfillment. The book’s extensive introduction contains a presentation of the current state of research as well as a justification of an assumed research method. A synchronic approach is a basic device of analysing the Gospel according to John in its canonical form. Chapter One of the book contains a study of the witness of the Father in the fourth Gospel against the backdrop of the Old Testament. Two subsequent chapters present a detailed analysis of the pericopes John 5:31–47 and 19:31–37 which follows the same pattern: the text delimitation, the text criticism, the translation and philological remarks, presentation of the text structure, and finally, the analysis thereof in context. The concluding remarks are included in particular summaries. The final, fourth chapter pinpoints, in turn, the places where the witness of the Father occurs in the narratives about Jesus’ resurrection. Due to the extent of research scope into the witness of the Father in John 20 and 21, the translation of the mentioned chapters in their entirety has been abandoned. In this part of the monograph, the analysis concerns the descriptions of the empty tomb and of characters’ reactions and attitudes present in the Gospel narratives; most of all, however, it is focused on the descriptions of the Christophany and Jesus’ speeches. Conclusions of the book present the synthesis of the research findings.

The Somatic Idiomatic “Fear” Concept in the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah

Author(s): Mirela Beatris Munteanu / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

In this article we intend to study lexemes that express emotions produced by fear from the perspective of lexicography and prophetic semantics, the lexem generating, depending on the relationship between the linguistic sense and the literary image, different directions of meaning: direct through constitutive features of the semantics of ascending emotions or indirect, through the syntactic structures in which they integrate. From the perspective of conceptual analysis (studying the meaning of all the words and expressions that are associated with a certain concept and which includes their systematization) we defined the term as a cultural phenomenon accompanied by a specific historical development, corresponding to the keyword of the proposed topic, also having an important presence in the Biblical text.

Direct and Indirect Consequences of the Concept of Kingdom on the Life of the Believers

Author(s): Luca Samuel Leonte / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The concept of “Kingdom” is well-known on the pages of the Bible, especially in the New Testament. God, the Father, and the Son, Jesus, are called and behave as kings of the Universe. Jesus Christ was very interested in speaking about the kingdom and in explaining its concepts to his listeners. Due to their beliefs, according to the concept of kingdom, many times, Christians relate differently to the values vindicated by the majority of people in the society. Their faith guides the believers when speaking about loving, appreciating, approving, or disapproving things and events around them. In this article, the author presents both, what the Bible teaches about the concept of Kingdom and some direct and indirect consequences of the biblical concept in the life of the believers. The biblical concept about the Kingdom influences believers both in terms of personal and community. When it comes to interacting with others, believers' beliefs may conflict with those who struggle with worldly principles.

An Exegetical Approach to the Lord’s Prayer Matthew 6: 9-13

Author(s): Luca Samuel Leonte / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The Lord’s Prayer as the most known prayer among Christians generates many questions and even debates. In these days, prayer and especially the Lord’s Prayer, has a strong tendency to navigate from rational activity to stereotypy. Many people use to pray without having a good understanding of what the Lord intended by those words included in his example of prayer. The custom of praying is vitally important for any believer but even more important is a good understanding of the principles of prayer inserted in the Lord’s Prayer. In order to help the reader to be conscious of the importance of the words used in prayer, the author makes an exegetical exercise on Mathew 6:9-13 trying to find an answer to the most common issues related to the understanding, usage and meaning of the proposed prayer: how to hollow the name of the Lord, how to understand the coming the Kingdom, what is the meaning of our daily bread, who are one’s debtors` or what is the meaning of the leading into temptation.

The Moral Value of the Patriarchs’ Testament

Author(s): Ioan-Gheorghe Rotaru / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The blessing of the patriarchs was not a gift from them to their descendants, was not sharing their wealth to their descendants, but the patriarchal blessing represented the gift of God, namely, what God the Creator was transmitting to those children through their father, the patriarch. Thus, the patriarchs, through the blessings offered to their children, look beyond the reality of the nearest timeline, in the future, thus having a future projection over their descendants regarding a place where they would live and a way of life that they would have. Another aspect of patriarchal blessing was the Creator's intention that through the blessing given to Jacob's children, everyone would eventually benefit from these blessings. The patriarchal blessings remained for posterity placed in the book of Christianity, the Holy Scripture, blessings that include a moral ethic, and as long as these precepts were respected, they were generators of peace, tranquility, harmony, happiness and prosperity. Patriarchal blessings also refer to a lifestyle. As long as the mentioned sanitary rules were respected, the people were exempted from a lot of diseases and they were happy. The purpose of the patriarchal blessings, as promised to Abraham, was that in the end the blessings would reverse over the entire world. Abraham was told: "And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed" (Genesis 26: 4).

Features of Karl Barth’s Theology of the Word of God

Author(s): Daniel G. Oprean / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The aim of this article is that of exploring the features of Karl Barth’s theology of the Word of God. Starting with the way Barth sees the forms of the Word of God and their indissoluble unity and continuing with way Barth sees the nature of the Word of God, the analysis will show the features of Barth’s thought about the Word of God as a witness to the revelation of God, as constitutive for the life of the Church and as paramount for the proclamation of the Church. Moreover, the analysis will reveal the way in which argues the fact that the Word of God is the medium in which the knowledge of God, is possible to the believer as an individual and for the Christian community as well.

Hate - Between Good and Evil

Author(s): Virgil GURALIVU / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Is hate bad? Can hatred have good values for man and society? When it is born from deep, religious beliefs, is society entitled to question the source of this hatred, even if it is a religious system of any kind? Is Christianity a promoter of hatred? What does the Bible say and what did history say? How to harmonize the commandments that promote love, the care for ones neighbour with those that promote the opposite, namely hatred. Hate as well as love is not only a simple human feeling but also a choice that can become a way of life, that can shape destinies. Man is a sociable being, through his own construction he becomes a vector of feelings and decisions for those around him. For this reason, society can be loaded with love or hate and in the end, can be characterized by one of them. But for the current analysis, the question is: can hatred be good?

Revisiting the Concept of Koinonia

Author(s): Daniel G. Oprean / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

It is the aim of this article to sketch the dimensions of Pauline theology of koinonia. The Christian life is lived in the reality of participation in Christ’s death, resurrection and suffering. And these are the elements of what could be called the vertical dimension of koinonia with Christ, at the individual and communal level. There is also a horizontal dimension of koinonia with Christ, namely the communion of believers in the Body of Christ, the Church. Any individual believer is to acknowledge his participation in the community of Christ. This is actually reminded anytime when the believers share the Eucharist. The common element that connects the two dimensions, vertical and horizontal, of koinonia with Christ, is His example, expressed powerfully in his kenosis. The church mirrors Christ’s kenosis in every member’s attitude towards each other, in the embrace of the other in the same way in which, lovingly and sacrificially, Christ embraced humanity, in his body, transforming it from within.

Odkrywanie tajemnic polszczyzny biblijnej. Wybór łódzkich prac językoznawczych (1981–2021)

Author(s): / Language(s): Polish

Introduction

Author(s): Elżbieta Umińska-Tytoń / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

O przeobrażeniach polskiego stylu biblijnego

Author(s): Danuta Bieńkowska / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

Several selected linguistic phenomena in the field of syntax, phraseology and metaphorics, classified as determinants of the biblical style shaped by medieval and Renaissance translations, show the changes taking place in the Polish language of contemporary translations of the Gospel texts.

Job's Life: Moral Issues in the Discourses of the Book of Job

Author(s): Nicolae Creţu / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

This ethico-theological study analyzes aspects of moral issues from the accounts found in the book of Job. As described at the beginning of the book, the beautiful life that Job had is lost by him through a series of successive acts aimed at his mental destabilization. An apparent understanding between divinity, such as the one who blessed Job, and Satan, the one who wants to destroy Job, leads to the righteous Job losing everything he had in family and wealth, leaving only his wife, who seems to be he began to delirium mentally. This study is divided into seven essential parts for finalizing the aspects of moral issues. In the first part, we will deal with Job as a natural and historical person. Then we will focus on the moral issues that arise from the discourses found in the book of Job. In this part we will dwell on some ideas launched in the public space, such as Job as an experiment, the reasoning of Job's friends and their theological thinking, and then apply the filter of Kantian morality to this issue, ending with the suspension of normality in the book of Job and with the presentation of Job as a New Testament person.

The Prophet Zechariah and the Vision of the Restoration

Author(s): Ioan-Gheorghe Rotaru / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Zechariah is the most frequently quoted prophet in the New Testament, and his prophecies are widely read, discussed, commented on, including today, because they have many Messianic prophecies in mind. The name of this prophet means God remembers. The activity of the prophet Zechariah overlapped with the activity of the prophet Haggai. Both the prophets, Zechariah and Haggai, began their work in 520 BC. Haggai is active for only one year, while Zechariah will continue until 515 BC, when concrete dates are given, but he may have been active even later. Zacharias lived during the first period of the restoration, when the first stones of reconstruction were laid, and he came with a great, beautiful vision, with great plans for restoration, and in such a situation he had no idea of any subsequent disappointments. It is true that his people managed to return from Babylon, they managed to rebuild the Temple, they managed to rebuild a small country called Judah, which was always a province in the great empires, but they failed to become a a mighty nation, to be the head of all nations, as the prophets of restoration saw and presented it. The explanation why they failed will be given by the prophet Malachi, which we will address in another study.

Christianity during the Worst Year in Human History - 536 CE

Author(s): Amiel Drimbe / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Modern scholars consider that the worst year in the history of humankind was 536 CE. Since there was no separation between the Church and the State in the Byzantine Empire, the predominantly Christian population who had endured the calamities of the year was let down by both religious and political central institutions. When centralized institutions fail, local chaos often ensues. As is most often the case, the first to suffer are those most vulnerable – the poor and the lowly. Moreover, in the vacuum created by the disregard of the Church, masses of people looked for answers in religious superstition, while showing a disinclination to trust the science of the day. Others developed a sense of hatred and suspicion towards foreigners, whom they blamed for the ongoing calamities. The safety measures that saved the lives of many came from the local administrators or the people themselves, not from the central institutions.

Our Savior Jesus Christ, the Accomplished Model of Soul Shepherd

Author(s): Vasile Miron / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Our Savior Jesus Christ is not just the model of our moral accomplishment, but the model of soul shepherds, meaning the priests who perform the holy services in the Church, in His name and through His sanctifying power. Just like the Saviors won the sinners’ souls, He forgave them and attracted them to Him through His godly love, in the same way, the priest of our days has to behave towards his believers with undoubted love, kindness, patience and humbleness, in order to make them go back to the right way and get closer to God, with trust and open heart.

Some Considerations Regarding the Importance of Using the Old Testament in Sermons and Teaching

Author(s): Otinel Murza / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

In the light of preaching the Christian doctrines for the Church, the focus is usually on using New Testament texts as the main foundation. This may come out because of the way preachers and teachers were formed in the theological seminaries or just because they copy each other when it comes about transmitting the doctrine to the next generation. That makes the teaching and preaching of the Old Testament a secondary issue. For these people and their local church members seems that by focusing on the New Testament texts the Christians feel more appropriate to the right doctrines because they study the sayings and writings of Jesus and his apostles. But such actions have their outcomes. Therefore, this paper will focus on discovering if there is any importance at all in using Old Testament texts for transmitting doctrine and not just some life examples or faith heroes’ stories and if these are important for the spiritual formation of every Christian and especially for the newly converted ones. The process will start with an analysis of the use and meaning of the Old Testament scriptures for Jesus, his disciples, and the apostle Paul. Then it will continue observing what some other Christian theologians have to say about that, concluding in if it is worthy or not to focus on Old Testament scriptures for doctrine and life changing teachings.

The Holy Apostles, Continuers of the Savior’s Activity, Role Models of Spiritual Shepherds and Pastoral Means Used by Them

Author(s): Vasile Miron / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The Holy Apostles have assimilated the evangelical teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ thoroughly and lived by it, transposing the ideal example of life of their divine Teacher into reality. By the weapon of word, by the power of prayer and the unparalleled example of their clean and holy life, these organs of the Holy Ghost and messengers of the godly teaching have renewed it, bringing it into the light of knowing the true God.

ЭМОТИВНЫЙ КОНЦЕПТ «СТРАХ» И ЕГО ВЕРБАЛИЗАЦИЯ В ТЕКСТЕ СВЯЩЕННОГО ПИСАНИЯ

Author(s): Anna Petrikova / Language(s): Russian Publication Year: 0

The article analyzes the emotional concept of fear and its verbalization in the text of the Holy Scripture-the Bible. The emotive concept reflects the idea of ethnos about the nature of emotions in linguistic units, the study of which will reveal the connection of language with the mentality of the people.

Tou cestou domů: Meditace s obrazy

Author(s): Ivana Noble / Language(s): Czech

In this book, Ivana Noble introduces the reader to the world of biblical stories in the form of her own works of art accompanying texts from the scriptures, from the ancient Western and Eastern Christian traditions, medieval mysticism, and from modern and contemporary theology and spirituality. The more than fifty reproductions of the author’s art include lithographs she created in Petr Korbelář’s workshop in the years 2007–2019, and later oil paintings, including a cycle on Mary’s life. It was created during the time of Covid restrictions and during the author’s time at Mariánské Lázně.

Message of Isaiah 1—27 Then and Now

Author(s): Bohdan Hroboň / Language(s): English

The purpose of the book is threefold. First, it summarizes the results of scholar discussion on the first 27 chapters of the book of Isaiah in a way that understandable to a non-professional, general reader. It attempts to capture the main message of each unit of this text in a nutshell, while preserving the complexity of the text and integrity of modern scholarship. The second goal is to draw parallels between Isaiah 1—27 and the societies and issues of post-communist countries, so the original message and lessons can be relearned and applied to them. Third, the brevity and the actualization are to stimulate the interest of the reader in a more in-depth study of this very influential part of the Scripture.