Theology for the Masses

A few Mondays ago we completed our analysis of the two major story arcs in the Acts of Thecla.  Today we’ll take some time to recap the two previous posts.

The first arc of the Acts of Thecla serves to introduce Paul and Thecla and to begin the critique of the opponents of the writer’s community. The ideals of the state, of the family, and of Paul himself are being questioned. The second arc repeats this process and intensifies it, demonstrating the victory of Thecla and what she represents. The interesting thing here is what the Acts of Thecla does with gender roles of the day. Interpreters have often said that Thecla moves into maleness to overcome her opponents, thereby subverting the male under the female. [1]   In reality, something much more subtle is occurring than a mere gender critique.

Acts of Thecla is not equating the feminine with the masculine, nor lifting the one above the other. Instead, the Acts of Thecla is critiquing the very notion of gender itself! Notice that Thecla attacks male dominated society at almost every turn, but also uses the category of feminity to critique Paul. [2]   Paul increasingly become feminized and his feminine passivity is being critiqued! 

By doing so, the Acts of Thecla argues that neither construction of gender categories is adequate. Friday we will conclude this post series on the Thecla tradition by traveling farther back in time and look at what created the ideological hole that Thecla was trying to fill.

1. Ibid., 271. [↩]
2. Ibid., 272. [↩]

Our very own Hank, from Think-Wink, linked to בלשנות (balshanut), which is a biblical linguistics blog, on the topic of loan words in the Hebrew Bible.  There the claim is made that:

Some scholars have argued that Biblical Hebrew was never a fully spoken language, but was an artificial literary language created by post-exilic scribes. For instance, Ullendorff’s paper “Is Biblical Hebrew a Language?” BSOAS 34 (1971): 241-55, Knauf’s “War ‘Biblisch-Hebräisch’ eine Sprache?” ZAH 3 (1990): 11-23, and North’s “Could Hebrew Have Been A Cultic Esperanto?” ZAH 12: 202-17. In this article, Eskhult argues that if BH is an artificial language created only in post-exilic times, then loanwords ought to be fairly equally distributed throughout the various books and genres contained in the Bible… 

[However], the Akkadian, Egyptian, and Persian loanwords seem to follow the pattern of the political history described by the biblical texts. It is difficult to explain such a connection if the language was artificial and late. Further, Perisan loanwords abound within the books that are obviously late, but do not appear at all in the Pentateuch.

For those of you following along at home, this is important because it suggests the tradition behind the biblical text dates to the periods and cultures from which the text itself claims to be writing, compared to being composed entirely as an after-thought. 

Does the BC position ever use anything from Jesus to support their claims?  If not, what does that mean for their theology?

I was thinking about that this morning as I was wondering about the merits of ESF’s claim that Christianity developed from the Jesus movement into the Early Missionary movement and then into a group which gradually patriarcalized it.

While doing so, I could not think of where BC’s use Jesus for their claims, just some Old Testament and the later Pauline tradition (but, then again, not the early stuff, which would further ESF’s claim about the early missionary movement).

Anyone with thoughts?  Am I wrong here?  There are just musings from a person getting ready.

Wink, over at Parableman, has put up and interesting series that I have not had made the time to for fully read through on Annihilationism vs Eternal Conscious Suffering.

Here are the posts up so far:

1. The Annihilationism Debate
2. Infinite Suffering: contra tradition
3. Avoiding the plain meaning
4. Complete Harmony: contra Annihilationism
5. Infinite harm
6. Obligatory Grace
7. Annihilationism and Eternal Conscious Suffering (preview only, not final version)

While we are hawking the material over at Parableman, I’d like to point you all do a cursory discussion about Open Theism and the Hardening of Pharoh’s heart.

The 218th Christian Carnival is up over at Kiwi and an Emu.

218th Christian Carnival

Some highlights:

The Melchizedek Tradition from the Bible Archive

Cherishing Fidelity is an examination of Proverbs 3:3 over at Light Along the Journey

Why are people so anti-1 Corinthians 14:26-33? looks at why we can’t seem to apply what Paul writes here to the church today from carnival hostee Kiwi and an Emu.