Ole Davidsen

The Adam-Christ typology in the Letter to the Romans denotes Paul's basic story. It gives us the simple backbone of two narratives, one Adam-story and one Christ-story. Taken together, they form the foundational double story of the Pauline world of thought. A narrative exegetical approach is, therefore, a natural choice when we wish to understand the basics of Paul's story based theology, his narrative understanding of God, Human, and World.

Er evangeliefortællingen, f.eks. Markusevangeliet, realitet eller fiktion? Er den en tilforladelig historisk beretning om virkelige begivenheder, eller er den et produkt af en mytoman fantasi? Spørgsmålet stiller sig med en særlig intensitet, fordi Markusevangeliet, ligesom de andre evangeliefortællinger, hævder at være virkelighed, men samtidig semio-litterært må betragtes som en fantastisk fiktionsfortælling. Denne problemstilling er imidlertid ikke fremmed for evangeliefortællingen selv, men spørgsmålet om sandhed og løgn gennemtrænger denne fra begyndelse til slutning. Markusevangeliet præsenterer således sin læser for fire forskellige fortolkninger af Jesu død, der snart ses som henrettelse eller mord, snart som offer eller selvmord. Ironisk nok, vil den transparente sandhed først blive afsløret på dommens dag. Den objektive sandhed, evidensen, er eskatologisk udskudt; læseren må sætte sig selv på spil i en afgørelse. Gennem sin stillingtagen, dvs. sin egen dom, vil læseren åbe...

The radical love command in the Sermon on the Plain, Luke 6:27-36, appears as a social paradox but is in no way semantically unreasonable. It has its rationality coming into sight when we uncover the semantic macro-cosmos of which it forms a part. Three different but structurally related realms can be identified therein: In the midpoint, the Kingdom of Justice (love of friends, hatred of enemies), flanked by the anarchistic Kingdom of Evil (hatred of friends) and the likewise anarchistic Kingdom of Mercy (love of enemies). Jesus' love command, representing the Kingdom of Mercy, receives its conciseness, its rationality, and intelligibility from being a structural permutation of constitutive elements in this semantic macro-cosmos showing us the essential features of the narrative character of our moral thinking based on the logical of exchange (giving and taking, and serving and harming). 1

The centurion’s confession is often regarded as the first acknowledgment of Jesus as the Son of God by a human being, even a gentile. It is, however, questionable if this interpretation does justice to the gospel text when his confession is taken to be an outright testimony of Christian faith. From a semio-literary point of view, the centurion’s confession only represents a step forward in the story’s revelation of the secret about Jesus’ true identity. Like Peter’s confession (Mark 8:29) the officer’s statement only catches vague aspects of Jesus’ role and dignity. But we shall rather equate the centurion’s verbal confession with Joseph from Arimathea’s confession in acting, his entombment of Jesus. Despite their sympathy for Jesus, however, neither the Gentile commander nor the Jewish member of the council has the resurrection in mind but regard his death as final. The question, therefore, remains if any human character of the gospel story ever arrives at the proper understanding ...

The Adam-Christ typology in the Letter to the Romans denotes Paul's basic story. It gives us the simple backbone of two narratives, one Adam-story and one Christ-story. Taken together, they form the foundational double story of the Pauline world of thought. A narrative exegetical approach is, therefore, a natural choice when we wish to understand the basics of Paul's story based theology, his narrative understanding of God, Human, and World.

Exchange is almost certainly the most fundamental concept in an anthropological approach to the study of religious practice and of great importance for the study of primitive Christian religion/New Testament theology. Exchange, however, has primarily been studied as reciprocal gift giving (Marcel Mauss, Claude Levi-Strauss), but taking is reciprocal as well, and we should rather consider giving and taking as the two fundamental forms of exchange. Giving endorses and/or protects life, while taking obstructs and/or destroys life: Give is a good girl, but Take is bad and she brings death (Hesiod). The structural relationship between giving and taking is evident in the interpretation of the cross event in Mark, where crucifixion as legal or illegitimate taking (execution or murder) is opposed to the death on the cross as a legal or illegitimate giving (sacrifice or suicide). The basic story is organized by a narrative schema, which represents a regulated sequence of exchanges. Not only myth, but also ethics seems to be thought of in terms of exchange. According to the law of repayment, take is paid back by take, gift by gift; but according to the ethics of Jesus one should respond to taking by giving (if any man will take away your shirt, give him your coat also), and giving corresponds to loving and serving. It is not only more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35), but more blessed to serve than to be served (Mark 10:45). The New Testament world of imagination is a vision of the right exchanges between God and humankind and among people, what words as repayment, reward, debt, reconciliation, revenge, and gift, but also mercy, forgiveness, and grace bear witness to. The study of exchange in New Testament is of great importance to our understanding of the primitive Christian religion, since this religion has established itself as a protest against forms of exchange, which were considered to be a perversion of the Creator's intentions about the good life.

"Love of Enemies, Hatred of Friends. Morality and Exchange in Luke 6:27-36" offers a semiotic interpretation of the radical love-command in the Sermon on the Plain. The love-command appears as a social paradox but is in no way semantically unreasonable. Its own rationality comes forth, when we uncover the semantic macro-cosmos of which it forms a part. Three different but structurally related realms can be identified therein: In the midpoint the Kingdom of Justice (love of friends, hatred of enemies) is flanked by the anarchistic Kingdom of Evil (hatred of friends) and the likewise anarchistic Kingdom of Mercy (love of enemies). Jesus' love-command, representing the Kingdom of Mercy, receives its conciseness, rationality and intelligibility from being a structural permutation of constitutive elements in this semantic macro-cosmos which itself shows us the essential features of the narrative character of our moral thinking, based on a logic of exchange (giving and taking).

During the final layout, an error, unfortunately, occurred on page 27. The sentence may be confusing, although the context gives the correct sense of it. Thus, the third paragraph in the left column should read: 3) The son's symbolic death leads to a symbolic resurrection. Thus, Abraham sacrifices Isaac but receives him back from the dead.

Covenant, circumcision, and sacrifice in the Abraham tradition are analyzed, especially as articulated in the triangle relationship between God, Abraham, and Isaac. Two texts are particularly in focus, Gen 17 and Gen 22:1-19, concerning the initiation of Abraham as a covenantal servant, the covenant as a course of events developing a reciprocal structure of exchange, and the connection between initiation, circumcision, and sacrifice. The stories of P and JE about the miraculous birth of Isaac are almost the same but differ on a certain point. Where P recounts the circumcision of Isaac, JE tells the story about the sacrifice of Isaac, and we suggest the sacrificial narrative functions as the founding myth for the circumcision rite. Finally, we introduce the Jewish Akedah tradition and its connection with the narrative interpretation of Jesus’ death in the New Testament and demonstrates how the relationship between sacrifice and baptism in the Jesus story in a displaced manner repeats the relationship between sacrifice and circumcision in the Abraham story.

The Adam-Christ typology in the Letter to the Romans denotes Paul's basic story. It gives us the simple backbone of two narratives, one Adam-story and one Christ-story. Taken together, they form the foundational double story of the Pauline world of thought. A narrative exegetical approach is, therefore, a natural choice when we wish to understand the basics of Paul's story based theology, his narrative understanding of God, Human, and World.

... er heiier ikke i denne sammenhaeng brug for en detaljeret eksegese, sfi lad mig biot kcrt genkaide fortaeliingens grundtraek: 1. Gud szetter Abraham pa prave, iéet han becrdrer ham tii at cfre Isak, hams farstefcdte cg eiskede scan, pa et bjerg i Mcrija-iandet (vi-2)?” 2. Na:-zste ...

The Christ hymn in Phil 2:6-11 has mythical and ritual qualities. As a hymn, it points to some ritual or liturgical use; as a narrative resume, it relates to a broader Christ myth. This Christ myth, we argue, is the early Hellenistic narrative interpretation of Jesus that we detect behind Paul’s and Mark’s theology. From a narrative approach, we reconstruct the basics of this narrative tradition and use it as the frame of reference for understanding the Christ hymn. It follows from this anthropological view that the Christ hymn should be understood without reference to preexistence and incarnation. Instead, it refers to Jesus from Nazareth and episodes during his ministry. The book falls into five parts. Part I (5-19), Descriptions and Definitions, presents the study’s methodological basis and the idea that Jesus’ reversal of position is due to the renouncement of status and power during his agency. Next, two concepts of great significance for understanding the Christ myth’s processual Christology are introduced: Modality and Competence. Part II (22-54), Myth, presents our first analysis of the hymn’s mythical part (vv6-9). The theomorphic forms point to Jesus as God’s representative toward humankind; the anthropomorphic forms point to Jesus as humankind’s representative toward God. The reversal concerns Jesus passing from appearing in (predominantly) divine form to appearing in (mostly) human form. Part III (56-66), Ritual, analyses the hymn’s ritual part (vv10-12), focusing on how its story thematizes its liturgical performance. Part IV (68-83), Adam Christology – The Adam Myth, discusses James D.G. Dunn’s concept of Adam Christology and his hymn analysis critically. We argue more extensively that although the Adam myth (Gen 2:4b-3:24) and the Christ myth are inseparable, we shall see the Christ myth as background for the Christ hymn, not the Adam myth. Finally, Part V (86-112), The Christ Myth, presents in an expanded form our understanding of the Christ myth’ covenantal plot structure and its relevance for the interpretation of the Christ hymn. The significance of precise knowledge of the structural interplay between temptation and trial for New Testament text analysis is underlined before we define the plot of the Christian myth as a divinization process through which Jesus from Nazareth stepwise realizes his full divine status as universal Christ and Lord.