No abstract

The famous story of the doomed cities of Sodom and Gomorrah has generated a rich and diverse history of reception. Whereas the narratives of the Flood, in which the whole of creation reverted to chaos, offer only a very general terminological description of the reason why, the violence and the attempt at male rape in Sodom are explained extensively. The social sin of Sodom developed into a long and painful interpretation of homosexuality and only more recent exegesis has been able to read the texts without the blindfold of dogmatic interpretations of sexuality.This volume presents aspects of the history of reception of this narrative. The papers collected here were presented at the Sixth Groningen Conference on Themes of Biblical Narrative held in June 2002. Every year the Research group Jewish and Christian Traditions of the University of Groningen Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, together with colleagues from other departments, study the history of reception of a narrative from the Hebrew Bible. Naturally, it is not possible to cover every aspect of the rich but cruel history of reception. We hope, however, that enough of the central aspects of the narrative have been treated here to give an impression of the texts interpreted in different times and by different groups.The papers are arranged in four sections. Part One, "Intertextualities", deals with aspects of the history of reception within the Hebrew Bible. Part Two, "Readings", illuminates the use of the Sodom narrative in Jubilees, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Book of Revelation, the Targumim and Early Jewish Literature. A survey of the figure of Lot in the Koran and early Islamic commentaries concludes this section. Part Three, "Themes", focuses on single motifs: the role of the Dead Sea and the command to Lot's wife not to look back. Part Four, "Sexualities", deals with the unholy legacy of the Sodom narrative in the discussion about homosexuality.The first paper, by Ed Noort, "For the Sake of Righteousness", describes the dialogue and negotiations between God and Abraham in Gen 18:16-33 as the first commentary on the Sodom story. This part of the history of reception follows one line of thought: is God still a righteous God if he destroys wicked and righteous men together. It is not the prosperity of the wicked -as in many parts of wisdom literature -that is at issue here, but the punishment of the righteous. This problem culminates in the rhetorical question "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?"(Gen 18:25). The problem of the relationship between God and evildoers is tackled by

No abstract

In einem gehaltvollen Übersichtsartikel konstatiert Walter Dietrich 2 1996 "eine Hochkonjunktur in der alttestamentlich.en Theologie", weil "fast zeitgleich fünf Lehrbücher über diese wissenschaftliche Disziplin erschienen sind".3 Wer etwas weiter in der Zeit zurückgeht und die Entwürfe nach der epochemachenden "Theologie des

Against the background of differing opinions about Gandhi’s views on the relationship between political action and religious inspiration, this paper examines his use of scriptures, if he made hermeneutical decisions and if so, what they were. The starting point is a letter from Gandhi in which he pleaded against reading the scriptures literally and named truth, ahiṃsā, and a living faith as criteria. Reason is most important, but with limitations; ahiṃsā, nonviolence, is never at stake, but the definition of what may be called hiṃsā, or ahiṃsā, is dependent on place, time, and situation. Faith-based truth as Faith = God enabled the use of religious language and definitively bridged the religious and the secular. For an understanding of Gandhi’s personal faith, his statements on Rama and Ramarajya as the Kingdom of God on earth are important. Gandhi found a leading principle in 2 Cor 3:6: “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life,” comparing it often with a literal vs. figurative reading. The connecting factor between Gandhi and Paul was their situation, which is more fully explained for Paul. Both tried from a different perspective to reformulate their religious heritages in a new way by claiming that their now-defended truth was already present in the scriptures. Both needed a hermeneutical key and found it in the killing letter and the life-giving Spirit. For Gandhi, it meant the right to expand the original meaning of texts to realise ahiṃsā hic et nunc. The last section of this paper offers examples of Gandhi’s use of this principle in changing contexts: the opening of the temples of Travancore, his approaches to the Gita, his exegesis of Galatians, and his readings of the Hebrew Bible.