| The Aramaic portions of Daniel depict a complex interaction between human and divine agency. One way to explore this is by examining the trajectory of the Aramaic verb & scaron;nh (to change), which acts as a recurring motif, encouraging theo logical reflection on who has the authority to bring about meaningful change. God and His people are the grammatical subjects of transitive forms of this verb, while pagan kings are subjects of intransitive forms. This suggests that lasting and positive change is rooted in divine agency. Kathryn Tanner's discussion of God's "non-contrastive tran scendence" offers a helpful reference point, showing that God's sovereignty does not prevent humans from being agents of change. Instead, God's ability to effect change extends to humans, enabling them to resist both external threats, such as persecution, and internal threats, such as their own pride.--
When read through an apocalyptic lens, the letter to the Romans contains many pairs of antitheses: the law versus pi iota a tau iota s Chi rho iota a tau omicron upsilon, Adam versus Christ, death versus life. This article proposes an additional pair: Where circumcision is presented as bodily imagery of the law that brings death, the child-bearing womb is presented as imagery of the God of life. Investigating four pericopes where Paul specifically makes reference to female fertility, and one place where he conspicuously does not, I intend to show that Paul uses imagery of the womb to highlight the lifegiving character of God.
| To interpret the role and importance of the Lord's Supper accounts in the Synoptic Gospels well, it is necessary to understand the role and importance of the covenant sacrifice ceremony in the Exodus narrative (Exod 24:1-11). While Jesus's echo of Moses's words of institution from the scene is well-known, the importance of the Exo dus scene for the gospels scene extends beyond these words. There are multiple intrigu ing parallels between the two stories-in their placement in their respective narratives, in a significant number of plot details, and in their importance both for the original participants and for later readers. Just as Moses's covenant ceremony is a climax of the Exodus narrative, the Lord's Supper scene opens the climactic sequence in the synoptic narratives. All of these parallels work to show that the Lord's Supper scene provides the central interpretation of the meaning of Jesus's death in the Synoptics, the covenant sacrifice for the community of Jesus's followers. Individual features of each of the gospel accounts integrate the connections between the parallel scenes with larger thematic elements of the gospel narratives.--
| This article revisits the translation and exegesis of 1 Tim 4:8, a verse that may be said to contain the single explicit comment on the value of athletics in the New Testament. With an eye on the practical theological horizon of sport in the contempo rary Christian life, the article particularly asks whether or not the verse-as is often suggested-takes a critical, polemical, or dismissive stance toward bodily training. clarifying the translation of the Greek text and then attending to ancient hygienic assumptions about yuiivaaia (i.e., bodily training), an alternative reading of the verse is suggested. Rather than an obstacle for practitioners integrating Christianity and sport, 1 Tim 4:8 emerges as a text which offers potential biblical grounding for this nexus.
