Theses/Dissertations - Religion

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Theological material : food and clothing, the church, and the freedom of God.
(2024-05) Lysen, Laura M., 1986-; Martens, Paul Henry.
This dissertation engages the Christian church’s ambivalence about the theological value of material, its lingering inclination to turn from “matter” to “spirit” to find the real substance of God’s concerns. Christians who seek this material elsewhere have little cause to find it in their own everyday relationships, even when these devalue and degrade (unmatter) the material lives on which they depend. I consider in particular the food and clothing networks essential to the church’s material life in the United States, outlining the economic, social, and political agreements that incline these networks to serve growth and profit at the cost of sacrificing the poor and the earth. These largely empirical descriptions also press the question of material’s significance within Christian theology, and particularly within a tradition of ecclesial-theological retrieval represented by Stanley Hauerwas. I engage Hauerwas and related discourses (the ecclesial economics of William Cavanaugh and D. Stephen Long and the agrarian theologies of Norman Wirzba and Ellen Davis) to ask how the church might make room for the meaningfulness of material creatures and relationships within its own unapologetic ecclesial speech. Even amid the material commitments of these theologians, I suggest habits that could dispose them to devalue material things: to attend to them in order to discern the “real” theological material (narratives and character formation) that lies beneath, or to absorb concern for the material implications of Christian performances into concern for the formation of Christians themselves. Finally, this dissertation identifies theological and practical resources that can help the church orient itself according to the material commitments of the Triune God. I outline a Christian theological materiality in conversation with Gustavo Gutiérrez, whose theology of God’s option for the poor invites the church into deep communion in the divine life, and thus into free and loving accompaniment of the devalued neighbor. I suggest practical directions for the church’s discipleship amid food and clothing networks, describing the deepening of its roots in the company of the Lord and its resilient neighbors and the widening of its witness to the God who redeems the poor and all creation from death.
Legislating loyalty : adê agreements as a basis for Deuteronomic legal innovation.
(2024-05) Smith, H. Clay, 1991-; Burnett, Joel S., 1968-
A basic deficiency in current Deuteronomy scholarship is a lack of consideration for the purpose and significance of the work’s integration of legal and adê traditions. The objective of the present study is to address this deficiency by reconsidering the relationship between adê material and legal material in the Deuteronomic composition. Three specific considerations set parameters for the analysis: adê rituals, adê outcomes, and adê enforcement. These considerations form the basis for an innovative historical exegesis of Deuteronomy’s stipulations because they bring a new collection of evidence to bear upon longstanding issues in Deuteronomy scholarship. This analysis produces results that facilitate a reassessment of three of Deuteronomy’s often-debated legal innovations considering new comparative data: cult centralization, the application of ḥērem warfare upon political insiders, and the elevation of the Levites. This study, therefore, advances new conclusions regarding the meaning and purpose of these specific Deuteronomic legal innovations, but the overarching thesis of this analysis is that by adapting and integrating adê traditions into their own “legal” project, Deuteronomy’s tradents employ a form that provides both an authoritative and conceptual basis for their innovative reforms.
Ritualization in the book of Jonah.
(2024-05) Bodeau, Abigail, 1995-; Nogalski, James.
This project analyzes how the book of Jonah uses ritualized practices to construct its broader message, using Catherine Bell’s framework of ritualization. For Bell, ritualization is the act of making certain actions sacred, setting them apart from profane actions. Ritualized practices permeate the book of Jonah. These practices contribute to how the book of Jonah negotiates God’s justice and mercy. In Jonah 1–3, all characters engage in ritualized practices that construct a hierarchical relationship between humans and God. The sailors’ and Ninevites’ practices are noteworthy. Both groups engage in ritualized practices that are seen not only among Yahwists, but also throughout the ancient Near East. However, the narrator describes these practices using Yahwistic language. While the sailors and Ninevites remain foreigners, the narrator casts them in a Yahwistic light. This portrayal, in part, establishes YHWH’s supremacy over and against the empire. For people to worship YHWH throughout the known world demonstrates that YHWH is a universal god, and not the empire’s deities. For regular people, like the sailors and the people of Nineveh, to come to worship Jonah’s god further demonstrates that YHWH does not need the empire’s support to enact his power, which further undercuts an empire’s claims to power. Jonah 4 depicts the titular prophet arguing with YHWH. This chapter deconstructs the hierarchal relationship Jonah 1–3 creates. The book does not conclude with a singular answer about how humans should interact with God’s mercy and justice. Instead, the book of Jonah asks the audience to consider complex ideas of how humanity ought to relate to a deity to whom they owe obedience, but whose justice and mercy prove unknowable.
The divine voice in Paul’s letters : the use of Scripture as Theopoiēsis and Paul’s characterization of God.
(2024-05) Barnhill, Greg M., 1986-; Gaventa, Beverly Roberts.
This project discusses the theological significance of the many instances in Paul’s letters in which he quotes first-person divine speech from the Scriptures. Although this phenomenon has been observed previously by interpreters of Paul, God’s scriptural speeches have not been systematically analyzed and considered for their rhetorical and theological implications, a gap that this project seeks to fill. In order to interpret Paul’s use of first-person speech quotations within his historical context, the project draws upon the rhetorical practice of “speech-in-character” (prosopopoeia), a concept of poetic persuasion that emphasizes the pathos of such speeches, and the hermeneutical technique of segmentation as developed by scholars of Jewish exegetical practices. In view of these comparisons, this study proposes the term theopoiēsis as a suitable shorthand for Paul’s use of the divine voice through Scripture quotations, defining it as Paul’s creative use of scriptural words in the new context of his letters to characterize God and to invoke God’s presence through speech so that Paul’s audiences would both understand and encounter God as they listened to Paul’s letters. Additionally, this project connects these uses of God’s speeches to the question of Paul’s understanding of God. The study argues that God’s speeches provide an abundance of evidence that Paul has understood God in new ways under the influence of the apocalyptic Christ-event, an event that has given Paul a new theological epistemology. The study proceeds through a detailed analysis of each of the twenty-eight theopoiēsis quotations in six chapters, demonstrating that Paul draws upon traditional Jewish concepts of God and upon the Scriptures while simultaneously transforming them in the epistemological light of the Christ-event. Thus, the implications of the consideration of the divine voice in Paul’s letters touch on the matters of Paul’s understanding of God, on Paul as an apocalyptic interpreter of Scripture, and on Paul’s apocalyptic theological epistemology.
Sainteté, humilité, fraternité : Matthew’s social vision in a world of Greco Roman associations.
(2023-08) Kilgore, Rodney A., 1983-; Longenecker, Bruce W.
Since the emergence of social-scientific criticism within biblical studies and the field’s increasing interest in social history, beginning largely in the 1970’s, scholars have increasingly recognized the value of using Greco Roman associations and their inscriptions to help reveal the social realities behind the texts of the New Testament. In particular, significant work has been done analyzing the Pauline epistles through the lens of associations and associational research. However, less work has been applied to studying the canonical Gospels in light of potentially salient associational data. This dissertation is intended to assist in filling this lacuna by analyzing the Gospel of Matthew’s social vision in light of those social visions presented within the diversity (and sometimes unity) of associational texts. Specifically, this study analyzes three social motifs germane to both Matthew’s Gospel and associational texts: 1) honor, status, and hierarchy; 2) experience and interaction with the divine; and 3) behavioral expectations. In studying these motifs, the dissertation brings to light points of similarity and difference, noting the various ways in which Matthew’s Gospel may have challenged, comforted, repelled, attracted, befuddled, resonated with or otherwise affected those of Matthew’s earliest audiences, many of whom likely came from backgrounds deeply influenced by associational life.
Women patrons and mothers in Greco-Roman associations and the New Testament.
(2023-08) Benton, Susan E., 1980-; Parsons, Mikeal C. (Mikeal Carl), 1957-
Associational research in New Testament fosters interdisciplinary study at the intersection of epigraphy, Greco-Roman history, and biblical scholarship. Where records about the operations of early Christ groups lack detail about regular activities and leaders’ roles, associational research allows for comparative work to suggest what was likely in the ancient Mediterranean context. Women patrons and mothers are attested in associational inscriptions as figures distinct in status, role, and involvement in their groups. By examining patterns of women patrons and mothers in the Latin West and the Greek East in chapters two and three, I consider two patterns available for comparison to women in early Christ groups. Two valuable models result. Women patrons of associations provide a unique source for seeking to understand Phoebe, the only New Testament person called a προστατις. The mother model then becomes the pattern to understand how women leaders, often known as “house church leaders,” functioned in early Christ groups. The fourth chapter looks at Phoebe in her multiple roles, and the fifth chapter examines Prisca as a leader in local ἐκκλησίαι. In each, the examples of women patrons and mothers suggest how Phoebe, Prisca, and the other women of the Pauline ἐκκλησίαι likely engaged in their groups, sharing their resources, and shaping the lives of their communities. Ultimately, the study suggests how women patrons and mothers might continue to inform other areas of New Testament scholarship.
The preferential option : a diachronic analysis of the meaning of 'liberation' and the use of Marx in Gustavo Gutiérrez.
(2023-08) Stuebben, Gerhard, 1990-; Cardoza-Orlandi, Carlos F., 1961-
This dissertation both corrects an error and fills a lacuna in contemporary secondary literature on Gustavo Gutiérrez. Against a substantial trend in recent studies on the theologian, I argue that Gutiérrez was much more dependent on Marxist analysis in his early work than is today often recognized or, in some cases, admitted. I propose, as well, a novel thesis for Gutiérrez’s development on the topic of Marxist analysis that explains seeming contradictions within his work that have given rise to these errors. I argue that Gutiérrez’s pre-1989 work should be divided into an “Early” and a “Late” era, separated by the third meeting of the Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano y Caribeño (CELAM). The conference was organized by anti-liberationist elements within the Church hierarchy in order to strangle the upstart Liberation Theology movement, but creative interference by Gutiérrez, other Liberation Theologians, and a cadre of sympathetic bishops forced the anti-liberationist faction of the conference into a compromise. The official proceedings of Puebla condemned the theory of Marxist analysis but affirmed Gutiérrez’s basic ethical vision, which it formalized as the “preferential option for the poor.” After Puebla Gutiérrez’s public self-presentation on the topic of Marxist analysis changed drastically and consistently along precisely these lines. In his work immediately after the conference and consistently until his revision of Teología de la liberación, Gutiérrez began writing about Marxist analysis in a way that would fit within the “Puebla Compromise,” both keeping him within the good graces of the Church and simultaneously allowing his advocacy for the poor to retain the Church’s imprimatur rather than coming under its censure.
The persistence of penance : evangelical alternatives for the sacrament of penance.
(May 2023) Prather, Scott T., 1977-; Whitford, David M. (David Mark)
This dissertation explores the formation of Lutheran, Reformed, and Anabaptist alternatives for the functions of the sacrament of penance. It makes use of normative documents that guided the medieval practice of penance, the theological writings of Protestant reformers, and legislation that governed church–state institutions of discipline. It follows the evolution of penance through the Middle Ages from its inception in Celtic Monasteries to the late medieval period when it became a mandatory religious practice for all believers. During that development, penance became a significant aspect of European social and religious life that played important sociological roles in regulating norms of behavior and belief. This work focuses on the roles of disciplining and controlling behavior and consoling anxious consciences. Each stream of Protestantism rejected the sacrament of penance but established alternatives that carried out its functions in ways unique to their respective contexts. They also differentiated those functions and created specialized alternatives to carry out the functions they found most important. Luther highly prized the consoling function of penance and developed a form of confession bereft of disciplining features so that it could be used solely to console anxious individuals. Magisterial reformers in the Lutheran and Reformed churches worked with the state to establish and operate controlling institutions that interrogated, corrected, educated, and punished those who transgressed normative bounds. By cooperating with the state, the magisterial churches enjoyed stability and longevity, and their alternatives had access to state powers, increasing their efficacy. Anabaptists, however, evolved into a movement that eventually rejected church–state cooperation. They created alternatives for discipline in which the entire congregation was required to participate. Their choice to reject cooperation with the state and to accept pacifist separation meant they rarely enjoyed the stability and longevity of magisterial reformers. The alternatives maintained the functions penance had served for a millennium. These institutions and rituals were shaped by changes in their respective contexts, including existing church–state relationships, impulses to democratize power, early modern impulses to concentrate power in the hands of secular elites, and competing goals for the proper use of the power to discipline and console.
Debt in the divine economy.
(May 2023) Sutherland, Andrew W., 1991-; Harvey, Barry, 1954-
Analyses of the conceptual relations between Christianity and capitalism have typically viewed the language of debt in Christian soteriology critically. Concepts of debt in God’s economy of salvation, several scholars have argued, resonate with concepts of debt under contemporary capitalism that serve extractive and oppressive purposes. As a result, these soteriological concepts of debt allegedly undermine Christian theology’s ability to challenge the deleterious debts of contemporary capitalism—or worse, the former provide moral and theological reinforcement for the latter. In this dissertation I offer a more expansive, nuanced account of how the language of debt is used in depictions of the divine economy by analyzing this usage in three seminal models of atonement theology: ransom, satisfaction, and penal substitution. In so doing, I draw out the diversity and complexity of ways in which “debt” in these models of the divine economy relates conceptually to debt under contemporary capitalism, highlighting points of both resonance and resistance. I also analyze how specific theological factors—beyond the mere idea of Christ’s paying a debt to save sinners—influence these various patterns of resonance and resistance. Ultimately, I submit that the more theologies of salvation abstract “debt” from considerations of humanity’s created nature and ends, the more these theologies risk legitimizing oppressive and extractive uses of debt that trade on similar patterns of abstraction. For many influential soteriologies, however, what debt is, and what it does in the divine economy, is primarily shaped by concepts such as the ontological distinction between creatures and their Creator, the ends for which God created humans and creation as a whole, and the good order with which this creation was made. In these cases, debt becomes a feature of creaturely life oriented to the good of debtors, giving these soteriologies strong grounds for critiquing oppressive and extractive uses of debt. The extent to which depictions of debt in the divine economy reinforce or resist contemporary capitalism’s uses of debt therefore depends in part on how the divine economy depicted is (or is not) accountable to a robust doctrine of creation.
Nostalgia in the book of Psalms : a postcolonial reading of “I” through Korean resistance poetry.
(May 2023) Kim, Chwi-Woom, 1981-; Bellinger, W. H. (William H.), Jr., 1949-
Challenging the western notion of autonomous subjectivity and the de-politicized imagination of social position in Psalms scholarship, this dissertation provides an alternative understanding of the subjugated subject through a transdisciplinary study of nostalgia. Examining nostalgia as an affective and political motif that intersects the individual and collective yearnings for a sense of home in defiance of colonial power, I connect insights from disparate disciplines, such as political literary theory, psychoanalysis, and nostalgia studies under the framework of postcolonialism. To illustrate this combined recognition, I employ Korean resistance poetry as an intercultural vantage point for the multifaceted interiority of the nostalgic self under oppression. In light of the multidisciplinary and intercultural analysis of nostalgia, I identify three manifestations of nostalgia in Psalms under the cultural hegemony of Persian colonial rule: an allegorical individualization of ancient Israel’s national enemies, a paradoxical simultaneity of Israel’s mourning and unmourning over collective losses, and a dialectical reconstruction of a new home through the retrieval and critique of indigenous cultural memories of God. Engaging comparative non-western literature in an interdisciplinary approach to Psalms not only challenges the western epistemological grounds for subjectivity but also sheds light on the multilayered yearnings for home ingrained in the ancient discourse of Psalms.
Affective theology : Dalits, shame, and salvation.
(May 2023) Ronnevik, Andrew C., 1979-; Carnes, Natalie.
In this dissertation, I argue that Dalit theology and affect theory advance full-bodied accounts of shame, dignity, and communion which should inform broader Christian understandings of sin and salvation. I show how shame vitally animates the experience of sin and suffering, and how salvation possesses a crucial affective dimension involving the overturning of shame through dignity and communion. My dialogue with Dalit theology and affect theory offers thicker descriptions of shame, dignity, and communion than are prevalent in Western theologies, and it makes these affective themes central to soteriology. At a constructive and methodological level, my project demonstrates how Western theology can be more robust when its practitioners learn from and respond to the perspectives of affectivity scholars and South Asian subalterns. I develop this affective and cross-cultural theology over the course of six chapters. Chapter One frames my project as theological accompaniment, a Western attempt to follow and support Dalit theology through attention to shared and distinct affects. Chapter Two describes Dalit contexts by examining caste in Indian society, Christianity, and theology. It also lays out the initial terms for an affective reading of Dalit theology. The third chapter addresses several approaches for understanding the affects and highlights contemporary affect theory as a useful tool for engaging with Dalit and theological concerns. In Chapter Four, I analyze shame from numerous perspectives, showing how it relates to the pathos of Dalit experience and to sin and suffering more broadly. Shame is resisted and overcome through dynamics I consider in the next chapters. Chapter Five highlights human dignity in affective terms, illustrating how dignity is a God-given source of selfhood, confidence, and self-respect. Chapter Six examines communion, understood as relationships of mutual interest and enjoyment that counteract shame and deepen dignity. To conclude, I offer a brief epilogue, noting the polyphony of affects. In affective, Dalit, and Christian life, positive and negative emotions intertwine as people strive and rest in hope.
“The world will see me no longer” : themes of divine presence and absence in the Fourth Gospel.
(December 2022) Hall, Josiah D., 1987-; Longenecker, Bruce W.
John’s Gospel exhibits distinctive emphases on Jesus’s relationship to God’s presence and Jesus’s impending (from the narrative’s perspective) absence. This dissertation offers a new perspective on the integral role these foci play in John’s narrative. While some contend that John characterizes Jesus through allusions to various figures who represented YHWH’s presence, I argue John presents Jesus not merely as a divine emissary but as the enfleshed divine presence and that this depiction has important implications that have been neglected in contemporary scholarship. Consequently, the authorial audience would have understood Jesus’s absence as divine absence, with corresponding theological implications. A seemingly inaccessible deity compounded the challenges of maintaining belief in that deity in the face of social opposition and the reality of human fragility and mortality. John responds to these challenges in two ways that echo motifs prevalent in the authorial audience’s symbolic world. First, a common way to explain the destruction of a deity’s temple or idol was to emphasize the deity’s agency and contend the deity departed in judgment on impious worshipers. Similarly, John characterizes Jesus’s departure as divine judgment on unbelief. Simultaneously, John leverages precedents for one party to retain access to the divine presence even as another was abandoned, enabling John to depict the Spirit-Paraclete as the provision of divine presence for believers. Throughout the narrative, the more John accents Jesus’s significance as the enfleshed divine presence, the more consequential Jesus’s absence becomes for the authorial audience. John employs a tension between these two emphases for two rhetorical purposes: (1) to move those considering the Gospel’s claims toward belief and (2) to encourage believers struggling with the reality of Jesus’s apparent absence in their current sufferings. The dissertation makes two important contributions to Johannine scholarship. First, it shows how two foci of the Johannine narrative which are often considered separately (i.e., Jesus’s divinity and physical absence) would have functioned together in a way that met early audiences’ rhetorical needs and expectations. Second, the dissertation provides a new outlook on familiar concerns in Johannine scholarship, including the “temple motif,” John’s (alleged) “anti-Jewish” character, the Spirit-Paraclete, and Johannine eschatology.
“Indeed, there was some good in Judah” : the movement of time in 2 Chronicles 10–36.
(December 2022) Hayashi, Kazuyuki, 1988-; Fulton, Deirdre N.; Nogalski, James D
The concept of time in Chronicles has largely been ignored. From the 19th through the 20th century, most studies on the notion of time in the Hebrew Bible concern lexical studies, and thus treat Chronicles only in passing. Nevertheless, since the turn of the 21st century, the studies of Ehud Ben Zvi, Gary Knoppers, Kenneth Ristau, and Deirdre Fulton began to identify the complex multifaceted nature of time in Chronicles. This study offers the first monograph-length analysis of how the concept of time contributes to the literary structure and rhetoric of Chronicles. I apply a literary-comparative analysis to the history of Judah in Chronicles (2 Chr 10–36). I identify Jean Jacques-Glassner’s sinusoidal model of time as helpful in discussing how cultures in the ancient Near East perceived time both in linear and cyclical movements. I contend that 2 Chronicles 10–36 reflects a sinusoidal model of time, which combines a linear succession of kings, and a cyclical pattern that alternates between war and cult narratives. While negative kings follow a war-cult narrative sequence, positive kings have a cult-war pattern. I identify six kings who begin their reigns with an account of cultic faithfulness as “reforming kings.” Moreover, these “reforming kings” divide the history of Judah into seven sections. I offer a case study of the first and last cycles.
The signs of the times and the critique of the crowds in Matthew 13.
(August 2022) Genter, John N., 1982-; Novakovic, Lidija.
This dissertation investigates the parable discourse in Matthew 13:1–52 as an integral component of the Matthean narrative. It argues that apocalyptic concepts and conventions provide the necessary framework for interpreting the discourse, its function in the narrative, and its treatment of the Jewish crowds. The latter feature of the discourse has struck interpreters as unprecedentedly harsh and transparent to a fraught relationship between church and synagogue at the time of the evangelist. This study identifies several problems with traditional approaches to Matthew’s “parable theory” (13:10–18) and proposes that the discourse is working with apocalyptic tropes that have not been adequately explored and brought to bear on exegesis. After conducting a thorough exploration of revelatory parables and mysteries in early Judaism and Christianity, the dissertation offers a fresh approach to 13:10–18 and, ultimately, to the entire discourse, its place in the narrative, and its treatment of the crowds. In Matthew 13, Jesus addresses the crowds as an angelus revelator figure, uttering hidden revelation to them regarding the economy of salvation ordained by God at the beginning of time (13:35). The disciples stand here in the conventional role of apocalyptic scribes. They are charged to steward this revealed wisdom on behalf of the larger household (13:52), which includes the crowds whom Jesus himself has called them to serve. Although the crowds are the intended recipients of apocalyptic parables in the first half of the discourse (13:1–35), they do not presently benefit from the revelation that is addressed to them. Conventionally, apocalyptic parables require the additional gift of revealed interpretations to make their content accessible to human understanding. In Matthew 13, those interpretations are granted to the disciples alone. The crowds get only parables. They are left at stage one of what is, typically, a two-stage process because they have not fully understood that God’s reign is dawning now in the ministry of Jesus. While they lose out on a great privilege here, Jesus’s speech to the crowds in parables does not constitute a significant shift away from his compassionate ministry to them as recounted in the preceding chapters.
Demons, delinquents, or the divine? Delimiting the natural and supernatural in accounts of the Anabaptist Kingdom of Münster.
(August 2022) Smith, Joshua Caleb, 1984-; Whitford, David M. (David Mark)
This dissertation examines the three major sixteenth-century accounts of the Anabaptist Kingdom of Münster: Hermann of Kerssenbrock’s Narrative of the Anabaptist Madness, Heinrich Gresbeck’s False Prophets and Preachers, and Anton Corvinus’ True History, which he wrote under the pseudonym Heinrich Dorpius. I examine how the authors’ beliefs about the supernatural function in their narrations of the story. I conclude that the authors made liminal decisions, taking up or setting aside supernatural explanations in service to their personal biases and polemical needs. As they wrote, they came upon stories which they could recount with or without reference to supernatural/spiritual forces. If doing so fit their goals, they explained the stories as the work of God or the machinations of the devil. These explanations differ between the accounts—events that one considered the work of God or a devil, another depicted as a human lie meant to trick the people of Münster. Their compositions each drew the line between what God/the devil/people did differently depending on the author’s background and polemical purposes. I argue this conclusion is significant for the discussion of disenchantment in relation to the Protestant Reformation and early modern Europe because it shows how polemicized stories are ultimately part of the mechanism of disenchantment. By offering different versions of the same event, the various confessional parties created alternate versions of reality, where the events are fundamentally different from each other. These alternate realities, created by the authors’ liminal decisions, generated societal cognitive dissonance by offering conflicting understandings of the world.
The medieval miles Christi and the Anabaptist knight : chivalric imagination in the Radical Reformation.
(August 2022) Randolph, Jacob R., 1988-; Whitford, David M. (David Mark)
This dissertation examines the use of chivalric language and ideas in the Reformation in Central Europe, paying particular attention to Anabaptist communities from 1525-1560. I argue that the exploration of the influence of chivalry in Anabaptism acts as a lens by which to see the way that religious imagination spurred creative ways of conceptualizing religious ideas and identities, as well as displaying how key theological distinctives were brought to life through culturally circumscribed metaphors and images. Beginning in the monastic setting of the Middle Ages, I trace out the contours of the knighthood motif as it arose and grew in popularity among clerical writers. This study asserts that the constellation of ideas that typified the ideal knight translated quite naturally to ministerial self-constructions, as the assertion of spiritual nobility, the utility of knightly virtues, and the necessity of a militant spirit characterized much monastic writing. This translation expanded into the early modern era, as humanist emphases on lay devotion gave everyday Christians fresh access to the spiritual knightly identity. The popularization of the religious knighthood motif made inroads into Reformation texts, particularly texts that focused on devotion and nurturing loyalty to new systems of belief and practice. The second half of the study looks specifically at Anabaptists across Germany and the Low Countries. Special emphasis is given to the role of baptism and martyrdom among the Swiss and South German Anabaptists, especially in their musical traditions. The self-fashioning of Jan of Leiden, the Anabaptist king of Münster, reveals the pliability of chivalric ideals in the burgeoning Anabaptist phenomenon, and the responses of key leaders after the failure of Jan of Leiden reveals that the metaphor retained its resonance, even as individuals were forced to alter their associations and address new concerns. By touching on influential leaders and characteristic aspects of Anabaptist culture, this study demonstrates that chivalry was a prominent conceptual reservoir for envisioning Christian life and cultivating devotion in religious contexts from the Middle Ages up through the first generation of Anabaptist reformers.
Absent priests and the Day of the Locusts : inner-biblical interpretation and the scribal prophet’s priestly critique in Joel 1:1–2:17.
(2022-04-25) Scott, Kevin, 1987-; Nogalski, James.
Most who study Joel recognize the text’s emphasis on priests and priestly intercession in Joel 1:1–2:17. Despite this consensus, those who study Joel interpret the relationship between the book’s construction of priests and the prophetic figure who critiques those priests in a variety of ways. Previous interpretations of priests in Joel 1:1–2:17 have not adequately accounted for two essential characteristics of Joel: (1) its literary construction as scribal prophecy, written by the scribal prophet primarily for other cultic elites, and (2) the central role that inner-biblical interpretation plays within the text, especially in the form of quotations, allusions, and the use of allusive language evoking concepts found in earlier textual material likely familiar to the scribal prophet and the book’s earliest audience. This study seeks to understand how the earliest readers and hearers of Joel in the Persian period would make sense of the role of priests as they interacted with the text. The study is an attempt to account for Joel’s nature as scribal prophecy that utilizes inner-biblical interpretation to challenge priests to better serve their communities. An analysis of Joel’s first literary movement (1:1–2:17) demonstrates that the scribal prophet utilizes quotations, allusions, and allusive language that evokes concepts found in earlier texts to challenge priests to perform their duties on behalf of Yahweh’s community. The scribal prophet evokes numerous texts throughout Joel 1:1–2:17 to call priests to urgent action; for the scribal prophet, action by priests is necessary because of the important place the temple occupies within Yahweh’s community. In addition, the scribal prophet’s use of language evoking other texts lends authority to the critique of priestly inaction throughout Joel 1:1–2:17. The scribal prophet’s creative use of allusive language evoking other texts in the Hebrew Bible reinforces the centrality of the temple cult for the audience and subsequent readers. Finally, the extensive use of quotations, allusions, and allusive language evoking other texts in Joel 1:1–2:17 educates and enculturates its readers about how to live as Yahweh’s people in a way that emphasizes the temple as the center of postexilic life.
“All their happiness and consolation hang on the resurrection alone” : John Calvin’s Greek doctrine of the beatific vision.
(2022-03-29) Tyra, Steven W., 1985-; Whitford, David M. (David Mark)
This study argues that John Calvin developed “Greek” doctrines of the interim state of souls, resurrection, and beatific vision through his reading of ancient Christian sources like Irenaeus of Lyons. “Greek” had been a technical term in western theology since at least the twelfth century to denote heterodox eschatology. Thomas Aquinas had employed it in that sense, and early modern Catholics like Robert Bellarmine and Pierre Coton in turn applied it to Calvin. The study demonstrates that, in this respect at least, Calvin’s opponents were correct: he was a “Greek.” However, it questions whether that fact should lead modern theologians to dismiss him as a resource for contemporary reflection. Calvin’s deep respect for and continuity with early Christian voices may serve as a positive model for theologians today, particularly in the Reformed tradition. By the same token, Reformed thinkers who seek inspiration from medieval scholasticism may find their relationship to Calvin complicated by the case presented here.
A postcolonial analysis of the Markan discourse of power : an argument for the narrative cohesion of Mark 10:1–45.
(2022-03-24) Peek, Stephanie R., 1986-; Iverson, Kelly R.
This project offers a postcolonial narrative analysis of Mark 10:1–45. It is argued that Mark 10 serves, not only as a teaching discourse on discipleship, but also as a pivotal chapter in the creation of the Markan Jesus’s discourse of power. This discourse takes aim directly at the hegemonic Roman discourse of power as well as the essentialist resistance narrative of the disciples. Responding to the disciples’ continued resistance to the Gentile mission and their desire for positions of power in the coming kingdom of God, the Markan Jesus seeks to reform the disciples’ vision of power. He constructs a catachrestic vision of power to teach the disciples the meaning of power in the kingdom of God, a meaning that stands in contrast to the Roman vision of power. The Roman vision and application of power, while not equal to the activities of Satan in this world, are squarely situated as a visible and active expression of Satan’s reign, the outworking of which has infiltrated even the disciples, necessitating Jesus’s response. The stories of Mark 10 focus on the inclusion of the marginalized and “other” and advocate an alternative political practice that allows for both Gentile inclusion and Roman resistance. Each story in Mark 10:1–45 responds to Roman colonial practices and the nativist traditions of the colonized community. Jesus calls for an alternative means of resistance to Roman colonial authority through an alternative discourse of power that rewrites communal boundary lines and offers an alternative empire to that of Rome. Mark’s Jesus, critiques Roman imperial practices as visible expressions of the powers of evil in the world and advocates for an alternative empire, the empire of God.
In search of the literal sense : Johannes Oecolampadius (1482-1531) and the exegetical tradition on Isaiah.
(2022-03-11) Lundeen, Erik Taylor, 1989-; Whitford, David M. (David Mark)
This dissertation explores the hermeneutical diversity of Reformation-era ‘literal’ exegesis of the prophet Isaiah. Using the 1525 Isaiah commentary of Basel reformer Johannes Oecolampadius as a lens, it compares this work to prior Christian and Jewish commentaries on Isaiah, as well as to the Isaiah commentaries of Oecolampadius’s fellow reformers. The study argues that as the reformers adjudicated differently between key extra-textual contexts, they came to hold different and at times competing understandings of the nature of Scripture’s literal sense. This complicates the idea that the reformers interpreted the Bible ‘literally,’ even as it seeks to add clarity to what such a statement, when indeed true, might actually mean. The study opens by demonstrating the influence of Erasmian biblical humanism upon Oecolampadius. It then compares him to three chronologically distinct sets of interpreters on three different issues. Reading Oecolampadius in conversation with the Church Fathers shows how key differences existed in understanding figures of speech and the relationship of literary metaphor to allegorical interpretation. Medieval Christian commentaries, in turn, acutely raised the questions of the New Testament’s use of the Old and of how to establish authoritative interpretations. Medieval Jewish readings, for their part, raised concerns about prophecy’s coherence and contemporaneity, concerns which Oecolampadius and his fellow reformers grappled with intensely. The study then investigates sixteenth-century disputes over these same issues among the reformers themselves. It closes by looking at a fourth central issue over which disagreements about the nature of the literal sense can be seen—the referential capacity of prophecy. Through examining the diversity of ‘literal’ readings of the prophets, the study clarifies what it means to speak of the reformers reading the Bible ‘literally,’ and asserts the usefulness of the notion of the senses of Scripture for studying early modern exegesis.

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