Biblical Theology Bulletin: Journal of Bible and Culture

This study aims to trace what kind of Sodom’s sin is in Genesis 18-19. Since the interpretation of Augustine of Hippo on Sodom’s story, the ideology of reading the text in a certain way has been systemized. He claimed homosexuality was the sin of Sodomites. Churches in Indonesia have inherited this way of reading. As a result, many churches reject the presence of homosexuality based on the passage. They argue that homosexuality was the reason why God punished Sodom and Gomorrah. However, the rationale for claiming such a way is based on the verb yāda`, which is used by men to other men as the object of sexual connotation of the verb. By reading the text intertextuality with an emphasis on deconstructionist criticism, we question the meaning of yāda` in the larger unit of Genesis 18-19. In addition, we contend that Indonesian churches should not violently reject homosexuality the way Sodomites reject Lot and his guests.

Conflict is an essential part of human existence. It manifests itself where people or things struggle for scarce values. Conflict brings about breakage in interpersonal relationships and divides communities. The pericope of Matthew’s gospel (18:15–17) is concerned with the running of a Christian community and the discipline of its members. Its special focus is the resolution of conflicts among members of the community. The verses recommend a process of reconciliation and forgiveness of offences that involves several stages. Central to the issue at stake is the injunction that a believer who sins against a brother and refuses to listen to the brother, to the witnesses and to the community (ecclesia) is to be treated as a tax collector or as a gentile. This paper studies this gospel idea in relationship with the reconciliatory process of the traditional Igbo Umunna (community). It argues that the Igbo community plays a vital role in conflict resolution to bring back erring brothers to the community just as Matthew’s Jesus showed concern for the resolution of conflicts in the community of his followers.

Among handwritten manuscripts, Acts 17:26 most commonly reads “God made of one blood every ethnicity of humans…” Another reading here is “God made of one every ethnicity of humans…” This Part B paper documents that the “of one blood” reading appears very early and extensively across multiple language manuscript and patristic quotations—more so than for any other distinctly Byzantine reading of an Acts passage. We document a significant number of “Byzantine” readings that were already attested in Acts patristic quotations and ancient languages of the 2nd-5th centuries. We also show that singular reading omissions considerably outweigh additions in Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, and P74. This finding leads us to wonder whether “blood” was similarly an omitted word in these four manuscripts. Importantly, no first millennium manuscripts read “from one man” here, and this emendation has only become commonplace in English Bible translations since the 1960’s. A Part A companion paper (Cannon 2024) focuses on Greek manuscripts at these Acts passages.

The purpose of this article is to explore the concept of the Logos in John 1:1-18 and how it differs from Greek and Hellenistic philosophy and religious thought. While the term Logos was frequently used in these contexts, John’s understanding of it is unique and shaped by his Christological perspective. To demonstrate this, I examine the concepts of the Logos used by Heraclitus, Zeno, and Poimandres and discover how John’s understanding and use of the Logos differ from theirs. Although John borrowed the term to convey his theology to Hellenic readers, his Logos doctrine is distinct and centers on Jesus Christ as the incarnate person who is equal to God.

The conceptualization of colors is heavily influenced by culture, resulting in the fluid semantics of color-related terminology. This necessitates heightened attention towards concepts present in ancient languages, which often receive inadequate scrutiny from lexicographers. Within Greek biblical language, numerous terms are translated as “red” in English, yet the objects described by these terms challenge the validity of this simple identification. This study focuses on the term erythros, which functions in biblical Greek primarily as part of the toponym erythra thalassa, commonly identified with the Red Sea. By analyzing the adjective erythros in non-biblical sources, its Hebrew counterparts, as well as natural phenomena possibly contributing to the chromatism embedded in the toponym erythra thalassa, alongside the verbs (erythriaō, erythainō, and erythrodanoō) and the noun (erythēma) morphologically linked to the adjective erythros, it is demonstrated that these concepts were also employed to describe the pinkish hue of skin, the color of wine (implicitly blood), and the pigment derived from Rytiphloea tinctoria. Concerning the hue of the thalassa, it might have derived from perceptions of water tinted either by reflecting hills or the presence of the algae Trichodesmium erythraeum. Consequently, the adjective erythros more aptly aligns with shades of brown and orange than with the connotations associated with the contemporary understanding of “red.”.

This paper considers the background of Paul’s generic “slave” metaphor in 1 Cor 9:19–23. Scholars at various times have attempted to identify this slave as a more precise figure from the ancient world. Proposals such as the “enslaved leader” or the “flatterer” have been put forward. This paper agrees with the assumption that Paul has something specific in mind but argues that the various proposals previously offered do not fully encompass Paul’s description of the figure. Instead, it will be argued that what Paul has in view is the ancient actor.