Abstracts numero 2003/1

Articles varia

  • - « Ils virent la voix ». Réflexions théologiques sur la vision dans l’Ancien Testament
  • Looking at the numerous biblical passages which presuppose that God lets himself see  even if this vision happens sub contrario  should we keep upright, in the context of a biblical theology, that God is in himself, theoretically, invisible ? Is not the interdiction as such to represent him an indication of his visibility ? After he has pointed out the importance of seeing in the Old Testament, the author sketches first the problems related to the vision as a mode of revelation (the connection between looking and appearing, the difficulty of speaking of an experience that implies rapture und rupture, the importance of the horizons of expectancy and experience). He studies then in this perspective three passages of the Old Testament (Gn 1, Ps 93, Dt 4/9s) with their thematic echos in the New Testament (Jn 1, Col 1,15-20, 2 Cor 4,6), to lead to a chapter of synthesis in which he shows that an « imaginative texture » nurtures the horizon of expectancy and makes possible an involvment in the visionary experience, for, if, in its individuality, such an experience remains psychologicaly inaccessible, it works as a mighty integrating force for the circle of disciples, as this is reflected in the formation of books like those of Amos, Ezekiel and Isaiah. After a short conclusion, the author presents an excursus on the highly debated question about aniconography.

  • - L’herméneutique de Jésus au sujet de la loi dans la parabole du bon Samaritain
  • The thesis of this paper is that Luke 10’s Parable of the Good Samaritan provides an important exegetical key for the understanding of Torah/Law in Jesus’ thinking. Priest and Levite are here representing a certain method of approach, with which the Jurist of the story evidently feels at ease but is rejected by Jesus as inappropriate. The Samaritan stands at the antipode of the men of cloth and other moral authorities of the people. It is he, however, who demonstrates by his attidude the true understanding of the Law by applying the principle of love superabundance. Far from being anomistic, this is a radicalization of the Torah’s bearing while refusing any restrictive definition of « neighbor ». My neighbor is the one to whom I show neighborliness. Hence, all depends upon me in this respect, not upon whatever intrinsic quality (or deficiency) of the wounded man in the Parable. This is true of the practice of the whole Law. For the one who is pure, everything is pure (Tit. 1,15), and for the one who loves, the « other » is made « same ». In Luke 10,37, the Jurist seems to have been convinced by the Master’s argument… This is far from trivial, for it means that he will have to question all of his previous basic options : from disorientation to reorientation.

  • - Visages de la souffrance dans les poèmes religieux de John Donne. « Mon Dieu, mon Dieu… Tu es un Dieu qui manie la représentation et la métaphore »
  • John Donne, the emblematic figure of metaphysical poetry in Jacobean England, has devoted a fair amount of his religious poetry to the representation of suffering. Weaving the theological and the literary perspectives, his multifarious rendering of human and godly suffering stems from life experience, religious meditation and a deep concern for aesthetics. His condition of poet-priest prompts the choice of the poetic mode as a claim for kinship with the biblical figure of the psalmist ; there lies the source of his inspiration together with the legitimacy of his creativity.

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