The Fatherhood Of God From Origen To Athanasius

The fatherhood of God has has a central, if increasingly controversial place in Christian thinking about God. Looking at the genesis of Athanasius' understanding of divine fatherhood against the background of the Alexandrian tradition, Dr. Widdicombe demonstrates how the concept of the fatherhood of God came to occupy such a prominent place in Christian theology.

’Did Matthew ”twist” the Scriptures?’ ’Where did Satan come from?’ ’My Reading? Your Reading? Author (-ity) and Postmodern Hermeneutics.’ ’Paul and Moses: Hermeneutics from the Top Down.’ Learning from Ellen White’s Perception and Use of Scripture: Toward An Adventist Hermeneutic For The Twenty-First Century. Questions and issues like these are presented in this selection of papers and presentations from a Bible conference at Avondale College on the broad topic of intertextuality. More than 100 scholars and administrators convened and shared their research as well as their personal perspectives on how to read and apply holy Scripture in the 21st century. This anthology contains a representative sample of their studies and reflections.

It has often been observed that Jesus’ filial obedience is an important Matthean theme. In this work the author argues that the articulation of Jesus as Son of God in Matthew is significantly influenced by the Deuteronomic concept of obedient sonship. After noting the complexities of Matthew’s use of Scripture – including the subtle ways he engages texts – Deuteronomy’s pervasive influence in ancient Judaism and Christianity is considered. It is argued that the requirement of Israel’s covenantal obedience as God’s son(s) is a major concern in Deuteronomy, as well as in other Jewish and Christian texts that appear to echo Deuteronomy. Indeed, it is argued that a pattern can be detected in which the sonship of Israel is invoked either to summon Israel to obedience, or to rebuke the nation for disobedience. The author concludes that the necessity of Israel’s obedient sonship is an important part of Matthew’s interpretive milieu that derives ultimately from Deuteronomy, and our understanding of Matthean Christology is greatly enhanced when viewed in this context. This study may further help us understand why Matthew’s concern with obedient sonship applies not only to Jesus uniquely, but also to the early Christian community.

This book explores the Christian religious experience of the pneuma given in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14. The experience Paul mentions in these texts, as well as the mention of "spirits" in three different places, suggest that Paul was actually writing about communicating with the spirit world.

Scholarship in early Christianity has long focused on themes of theological doctrine on the one hand, and anthropology on the other. Doctrinal study has generally concentrated on the rise of Trinitarian language and Christological questions, while anthropological studies explore early perceptions of human nature, sin and redemption. This has produced standard chronologies of doctrine, dividing early Christian history into distinct, if interrelated periods of history in the development of these views. Building on current scholarship, this volume re-assesses such an approach to early patristic study through a sustained investigation of anthropology and theology as a single project in the fathers. Taking Irenaeus of Lyons, Tertullian of Carthage, Cyril of Jerusalem and Athanasius of Alexandria as chief examples of the period, it explores how concentration on the human provides the context and lens through which doctrinal questions are articulated. Assessing theology as anthropology-as the approach to doctrines of God through understandings of the human-creative insight is gleaned into refined developments of trinitiarian thought far earlier than Nicaea, and advanced reflections on the divinity of the Holy Spirit long before Constantinople. The nature of humanity as 'in the image of God' takes on a fresh potency when it is approached not only as a window on the human, but the means by which the human reveals the nature of God.

This book is the second of two volumes collecting together Michael C. Rea's most substantial work in analytic theology. The first volume contains essays focused on the nature of God; this second volume contains essays focused more on doctrines about humanity, the human condition, and how human beings relate to God.