Abstracts numero 2009/4

Articles varia

  • - L’Egypte, une autre terre de salut ? Une lecture de Gn 45,1-46,7
  • Egypt generally appears as extremely negative in the Hebrew Bible: a land of oppression and distress. In this essay, Dany Nocquet shows that some texts moderate or even deny this image (i.e., Isaiah and the story of Joseph in Genesis). A narrative approach of Gen. 45:1-46:7 highlights the fact that Egypt is a new « Promised Land » for Jacob’s family, a haven at a time of threatening famine. Historically, the story in Gen. 45:1-46:7 should be read first as a counter-project to Exodus and another way of understanding the Exile. This story by giving a legitimate status to the situation of the Jewish community in Egypt both testifies to a universal and dispersed Judaism and challenges a certain Judean centralism.

  • - Le royaume de Dieu, but de l’histoire. L’eschatologie comme réflexion sur l’histoire chez Paul Tillich
  • Christian Danz analyses Tillich’s conception of eschatology and its relation to the creation and to history in his early works as well as in his later writings especially his Systematic Theology. Tillich’s conception of eschatology is based on the philosophy of history he had worked out in the 20th century when dealing with Ernst Troeltsch. It turns out, that for Tillich the symbol « Kingdom of God » is both a reflection and an interpretation of history.

  • - La mort : un kairos ?
  • Is it possible to construe death by using the concept of kairos as Tillich did, i.e., as a concept referring to a collective eschatology rather than to an individual one ? Peter Haigis argues that, seen from an ontological and theological point of view, death can be understood as a kairos par excellence, namely as a crossing point between temporal reality and eternity.

  • - Albert Schweitzer et la vie de Jésus. La place de la Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung dans son oeuvre théologique et humanitaire
  • Matthieu Arnold’s essay shows how important the figure of Jesus has been in Albert Schweitzer’s life. Referring to documents such as letters to his wife-to-be Hélène Breslau, it examines the building up of the Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung between 1901 and 1905 as well as its echoes in Schweitzer’s autobiographic writings, and argues that his work as a physician in Lambaréné is a patent result of his decision to obey the words Jesus addressed to his disciples: « Come and follow me ».

  • - Suzanne subversive à son corps défendant. Quand le jeune s’oppose à l’Institution
  • Tradition and iconographic convention both assume that the two prosecutors of Susanna were old men. How was this issue of age addressed in the original version of the story? The oldest witness known to this day is the Greek version in the Septuagint. Yet Hélène Koehl claims in this essay that the contrast between Daniel’s youth and the two iniquitous judges’ respectable age was a secondary issue in the original midrash, a classic text of Jewish intertestamentary literature. Its real function could very well be a denouncing of institution as the only legitimate authority.

  • - Henri de Geymüller (1839-1909) et le « style chrétien par excellence »
  • Henry de Geymüller, a committed Protestant, was known for his discovery of Bramante’s initial plans for St. Peter’s basilica in Vatican City, but also for his writings about the history of architecture, especially the architecture of Renaissance in France. The posthumous publication of Architektur und Religion reveals the importance of Providence in his vision of the history of architecture. Bernanrd Reymond argues that while he interprets this history as leading to Bramante’s art as its highest achievement, Geymüller makes his case in a rather distinctively Protestant way.

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