Authors:Ole Jakob Løland Pages: 123 - 60 Abstract: Hugo Chávez (1954–2013), the former president of Venezuela (1999–2013), brought Latin American populism to a global audience through his rhetorical remarks and controversial appearance in the global media. Theological and biblical metaphors were part of this rhetoric. The article argues that Chávez’s appropriation of theological metaphors in his populist political discourse could be considered as a symptom of the continuing influence and relevance of liberation theology in Latin America during the two last decades of victorious leftism on the continent. On one hand, liberation theology as a social movement had been weakened, especially within the Catholic Church. On the other, the bureaucratic language from the neoliberal era, tied to the Washington consensus, was to a high degree exhausted and replaced by a populist language that paved the way for the inflow of religious and Christian metaphors into politics. Chávez’s use of these metaphors in a way that was consistent with liberation theology points to Christian and Latin American liberationist discourse as a crucial factor in the resurgence of the political left within a religiously vibrant region PubDate: 2017-05-12 DOI: 10.11157/rsrr6-2-735 Issue No:Vol. 6, No. 2 (2017)
Authors:William John Lyons Pages: 161 - 87 Abstract: Within the burgeoning area of the Bible's reception history is a variant approach, termed "reception exegesis" by Paul Joyce and Diana Lipton. Investigation of an occasion of reception can generate new insights into the meaning of the biblical texts, they suggest. Introducing the results of a Leverhulme Trust Research Project on Britain’s first purpose-built deaf church to a scholarly readership interested in biblical reception, I show here how the New Testament—especially Mark 7:32–37—was used to construct the deaf people of Victorian London. Specific details of my argument will be compared with the Markan text as constructed by modern commentators in order to test Joyce and Lipton’s hypothesis. The article questions reception exegesis’s usefulness as a generator of long-term interest in biblical studies and proposes a different response to its difficulties, that biblical scholars dedicate themselves to developing a broad conception of reception history in order to generate collaborations across disciplinary boundaries while they are still in a position to do so. PubDate: 2017-05-12 DOI: 10.11157/rsrr6-2-756 Issue No:Vol. 6, No. 2 (2017)
Authors:Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer Pages: 219 - 39 Abstract: This article explores the retellings of and interactions with the biblical account of Noah and the flood (Gen 6–9) in modern literature. The four novels under scrutiny range from children’s literature, via young adult fiction, to mainstream fiction. They also represent diverse traditions and perspectives: from markedly Jewish or Christian perspectives to more secular viewpoints. The article investigates how these novels fill in narrative gaps and provide the key dramatis personae with personality, background, and motivation for their actions. It also looks at how the novels respond to theological problems that the biblical account raises. Why did God decide to send the flood? Why were Noah and his family spared from the destruction? Did Noah preach repentance/intercede while building the ark? Finally, it notes how several of the novels engage with extra-biblical texts (e.g., the Gilgamesh Epic, the book of Enoch) in order to produce a coherent and involving plot. PubDate: 2017-05-12 DOI: 10.11157/rsrr6-2-706 Issue No:Vol. 6, No. 2 (2017)
Authors:Joseph M Spencer Pages: 189 - 217 Abstract: Despite increasing recognition of the importance of Mormonism to American religion, little attention has been given to the novel uses of Isaiah in foundational Mormon texts. is paper crosses two lines of inquiry: the study of American religion, with an eye to the role played in it by Mormonism, and the study of Isaiah’s reception history. It looks at the use of Isa 52:7-10 in the Book of Mormon, arguing that that volume exhibits four irreducibly distinct approaches to the interpretation of Isaiah, the interrelations among which are explicitly meant to speak to nineteenth-century American Christianity. PubDate: 2016-11-24 DOI: 10.11157/rsrr6-2-707 Issue No:Vol. 6, No. 2 (2016)
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