Vol 91 (2010)

The article proceeds in three steps. The paradoxes in Mark 8,35; 9,35; 10,43-44 tell in their own way that the mystery of the passion and resurrection of Jesus is to be experienced by the followers of Jesus in daily life. They are not only anticipations but also actualizations of that mystery. These paradoxes cannot be understood without the Christological foundation that God has saved Jesus from the dead. The use of paradoxes is in agreement with Mark’s theology and Christology which as a whole is presented as a paradoxical story.

The motive of joy in suffering for Jesus' sake, makes the last beatitude in Matt 5,11-12 and Luke 6,22-23 different from the former blessings. The persecution form present in this beatitude seems to be an authentic saying of Jesus, subsequently widespread in NT literature. Such a motive, in fact, does not appear in Judaism and in intertestamental or in apocryphal literature. The First Letter of Peter is instead a special witness of 'joy in suffering'.

The episode of Simon the magician is found in a transitional section and inaugurates a series of conversions between chapters 8 and 11. When the missionaries leave Jerusalem, they encounter new obstacles. This article focuses on Simon’s conversion: is he truly converted? As magic is very powerful and can clothe any religious system reducing it to its own vision, based on the magician’s power, the reader wonders till the end of the story. On the one hand, Philip and Simon as well as Peter and Simon are depicted in a mimetic parallelism; on the other hand, Peter denounces the magician and condemns him by ruining his reputation. At the end of the story, Simon is a deflated matamore left alone with himself. Will he change his magic vision and behaviour? No one knows but himself.

Psalms 120–134, the 'Songs of Ascents', are a functional unity. In early rabbinical tradition concerning the Great Hallel, they seem to be linked with Psalms 135 and 136; in the texts themselves this connection is quite clear. The Songs, as a collection, and the two psalms of praise apparently stem from the later post-exilic period, when they were used during the festival of Sukkoth. The Songs were recited in processions to the sanctuary; the psalms of praise were part of the liturgy proper.

See more by the same author

The closing verses of the Song of Deborah include a curious reference to chariotry (Judg 5,28) at a rhetorically potent moment in the poem. The present study examines the implications of the use of this image against the mythopoeic impulses in the poem, the larger historical background of early Israel's confrontations with Canaanite aggression in the 12^th century BCE and the memory of Egyptian strategies of hegemony from the late Bronze Age. The effects of these memories and experiences leave profound impressions in the social and mythic matrices embedded in a broad spectrum of Biblical traditions.

See more by the same author

Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died and was buried under an oak tree and it was named twkb Nwl). Two major questions should be raised here. One, why was the place named twkb Nwl)? Second, why was she buried under a tree? This short paper will posit that the place was called twkb Nwl) as a reference to Deborah being a bakki¯tu a professional crier. Burial under a tree was for common people, and because of her lower class status, she was buried under the tree like the common people who were buried in common grave yard.

See more by the same author

The LXX version of Job is described as an abbreviated, shortened text. However, it does contain two prominent additions in Job 2,9a-e and 42,17b-e. As far as the first is concerned this article argues that it is not the result of a later hand, nor of a differing Hebrew parent text. Based on a contextual analysis combined with an analysis of lexical items found in the additions, it reaches the conclusion that the translator of the Old Greek in fact is the work of the original translator.