OT Apocrypha

This paper provides an autobiographical response to the author’s 2004 monograph on Judith focused through the character of Achior. It briefly outlines Jung’s concept of individuation and the author’s understanding of autobiographic biblical criticism. The paper then addresses the author’s original findings on Achior and concludes with a personal and academic response, noting particularly new insights and the role that her academic work has played in her own individuation / transformation.

A brief overview of Adventism's relationship with the Apocrypha, spanning from the year 1842 until 1918. It updates the conclusions of the last previous study conducted by Ron Graybill and utilizes previously undiscovered documents and even writings by Ellen White to propose that Adventism's entanglement with the Apocryphal corpus is far reaching and vastly understudied in its importance for the study of Early Adventism and Ellen White.

The problem is that many interpreters insufficiently account for the literary context of the Samaritan Parable of Luke 10:30–35, which leads to misunderstanding the parable. Redaction critical textual relationships (cultural literary context, preceding and succeeding narrative co-text, intra-parabolic canonical intertext [Hosea & 2 Chronicles]) show that the literary context in which the Samaritan parable occurs prepares for the reader’s seeing the theological theme of Messianic Reunification (MR) of all Israel. Thus, fully appreciating the literary context indicates that the Samaritan parable coheres with MR and that Jesus is answering the two combined questions: “Whom must the Judaean accept as a fellow Israelite in order to participate in the messianic restoration of the reunited kingdom of all Israel?”

This talk is helpful to see some of the basic points I make about how the OT prophetic theme of the Messiah, who would come to reunite the divided kingdom of north and south Israel, empowers better understanding this parable of Jesus, who claimed (e.g. Luke 24:44) that all the prophecies were to be fulfilled by Him and His people.

Jesus, as part of his mission to remove divisions within Israel, to include those wrongly marginalized, etc., here uses the most ancient and hateful division of Israel in an a fortiori manner to specifically teach that polemically racist Judaean cultists, who wrongly exclude many Israelites, must accept even their estranged fellow Samaritan Israelites as covenanters if they want to be part of the Messiah's reunited Davidic kingdom.

According to the near context of Daniel (chapters 2 & 7) and in the fuller context of the LXX (Esaias 27:1 & Wisdom of Salomon 14:11–14), the Ancient of Days/Most High God will in the last days destroy all idols and a dragon/serpent figure. In the second of the so-called “Additions” to Daniel, the captive Prophet is portrayed as signaling in “history” those eschatological events by discrediting the god Bel and demolishing his idol and also by destroying the fearsome dragon in the heart of the Babylonian Empire during Judah’s exile. In an Excursus, I tentatively suggest that in Susanna Daniel's role as judge also "signs" before the end that which the Ancient of Days will do in the future.

“Psychostasia” is the notion that a divine or supernatural figure
weighs and/or measures the souls of people when judging them. The present effort represents the second of three articles on psychostasia. The first article focused on the occurrences of psychostasia in the OT. In the current article, attention is paid to the occurrences of psychostasia in apocryphal and pseudepigraphical Jewish writings from the Second Temple period, including the Qumran Scrolls. The current purpose is firstly to determine whether or not the concept of psychostasia was a recognised and recognisable feature of Second Temple Palestinian Judaism. Allowing for a positive answer to the latter,  the second purpose of this article is to ascertain how the idea of psychostasia was understood by Palestinian Jews of the Second Temple period.

This paper provides an autobiographical response to the authors 2004 monograph on Judith focused through the character of Achior. It briefly outlines Jungs concept of individuation and the authors understanding of autobiographic biblical criticism. The paper then addresses the authors original findings on Achior and concludes with a personal and academic response, noting particularly new insights and the role that her academic work has played in her own individuation / transformation.