Abstracts numero 2002/2

Articles varia

  • - Ethique et Communauté dans l’épître de Jacques. Réflexions sur son Sitz im Leben
  • This article wants to demonstrate that the letter of James drafts en autonomous ethic for Early Christians, who want to be free of this world, i. e. free of the structures of the household (the oikos) and of the city (the polis). By his polemics against the riches he opposes on the one hand tendencies within the communities, that the wealthy patrons of houses become benefactors and patrons of the congregations. On the other hand his polemics against the riches is aimed at the political elite outside of the Christian communities. This elite had exclusively the right to sentence s.o. to death. Being independent of the structures of this world (i.e. this society) the Christian congregation is based on « the law of liberty ». That is why the teachers have such an importance. They represent the norms and traditions, which form Christian identity and they are responsible that the congregation follows them in an autonomous way according to their own rules.

  • - Le Jésus de Luther, de Calvin … et de quelques autres protestants
  • The writing of Lives of Jesus was for two centuries a Protestant monopoly, with a limited contribution of non-religious scholars like Renan and his followers. Is that state of affairs a consequence of the Reformation ? Indeed not, as the main-stream Reformers took little interest in the earthly career of Christ. Only 18th century protestantism, confronted with the philosophy of the Enlightenment, launched itself into a re-reading of the Gospels that led to the writing of Lives of Jesus. To-day, in the last half-century, everyone has taken to writing Lives of Jesus and the contribution of Protestant scholars, even if it is still important, differs little from that of Catholic, Jewish and non-religious critics.

  • - Jésus de l’histoire et Christ de la foi. Quelques publications récentes
  • - Remarques critiques sur la promotion de la mère de Jésus dans le christianisme ancien et sur son traitement œcuménique récent
  • The conclusions, together with the new compromise, suggested by the latest works of hte « Groupe des Dombes », whose aims is more or less to patch up the traditional mariological breach between Catholics and Protestants, are highly likely to cause perplexity within the minds of critical theologians in connection with the premises that presided over the selection and interpretations of the reference sources, as well as the probing of these sources and the a priori fashioning of those for ecumenical activity. H. Garcia’s analysis, which is meant to b the first half of an overall analysis of the « high » mariological journey and its christological consistency in ancient chritianity, attempts at highlighting the limitations, possibly even the deadlocks, of ecumencial discourse on the mother of Jesus by resorting to different theological loci, different presuppositions applying to different literary sources, whith the aim of balancing the objective file to be analyzed from a scientific standpoint with the apposite attitude to be adopted on a spiritual level.

  • - « Ma théologie » en quelques mots
  • The contribution of E. Jüngel, who teaches systematic theology and philosophy of religion at Tübingen, is a summary of his theology. Theology is based on faith, which precedes and requires its intelligence. Fides quaerens intellectum (Anselm). But faith does not only require intelligence, faith stimulates its elaboration an explication. In following this stimulation theology takes part at the origin, at the langage and at the mystery of christian belief. On the other hand christian faith with the help of theology reveales its good ­ and surprising ­ sense.

  • - Pour en finir avec le mythe des origines : le Mayflower compact
  • The Mayflower Compact, signed by the first settlers of New England in 1620, is one of the earliest founding documents in American history, and seeing it as the origin of the American democracy has long been a commonplace. Should we, as André Kaspi, among others, has claimed in a book for a general public, consider it as a « first step towards an egalitarian democracy » ? This is what L. Henneton questions through a contextualised reading. On a wider scale, he raises the issue of a past turned into a national mythology subject to political and ideological manipulations.

Notules et Péricopes

Parmi les livres