Are the \u27Nations\u27 Present in Matthew?

Traditionally Matthew 28:16-20 has been placed in the context of a mandate to Christianize the world. This study attempts to ascertain if the gentile woman in the genealogy and the Canaanite woman near the center of Matthew\u27s gospel constitute a precedent and a model for the mandate to bring the enemy tribes into the fold of Israel

Enemies of Israel: Ruth and the Canaanite Woman

This article elaborates on the author’s monograph “Have mercy on me”: The story of the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15.21-28 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002). According to the monograph, Matthew uses the Psalms, the story of Ruth and rabbinic tradition to turn Mark’s story of the Syrophoenician woman (7:24-30) into a conversion formula for entrance into the Jewish community. This article employs an intertextuality approach to enhance the theory of proselytism in Matthew’s gospel. The Canaanite woman passes a three-time rejection, one-time acceptance test that the first-century rabbis delineated from the story of Ruth for converting to Judaism

Naomi, Ruth and Orpah

This article explores how the friendship of the two women, Naomi and Ruth, crossed religious and cultural boundaries. The cross-cultural dimension of their friendship impressed the early rabbis who saw in the story of Ruth\u27s loyalty and commitment to Naomi a paradigm of conversion

The Complete Gospel: Jesus and Women via the Jesus Seminar

Playing on the title of the Jesus Seminar\u27s first major publication, The Complete Gospels, this study uses the database of the Jesus Seminar to stitch together the story of Jesus as it appears in the Gospel narratives that include women as major characters

Rebel Soldiers as Good Samaritans: New Testament Parables in an African Context

This article aims to critique western understanding of New Testament times. Most of the historical reconstructions done in the West are based on what biblical scholars have learned through primary and secondary written sources, occasionally from archaeological findings. The article recounts the author’s experiences at Africa University in Mutare, Zimbabwe. Students who themselves live in agrarian, technologically undeveloped rural areas, convinced her to return to Africa in order to travel with them and learn for herself how they relate to an economically poor lifestyle of two thousand years ago. As a result, the article argues that the ordinary in Africa should be seen as extraordinary from a western worldview and completes a full circle by being in the context of New Testament times

Seeing the World Through the Eyes of Andries van Aarde : Radical Inclusivity : Original Research

In the article the author reflected on her personal and existential experience of a journey to Egypt, and how this highlights radical inclusivity. The article focused on the issues of the violence of poverty, the history of Coptic Christianity and the role of women within this tradition. The article touched on aspects such as \u27women monks\u27, ecclesiastical hierarchy in modern Coptic Christianity, and the ordination of clergy. It also considered the perspective of \u27social hierarchy\u27 and \u27spiritual or divine hierarchy\u27

Framing insiders by outsiders

In this article, the author rehearses the Lukan parable of the Friend at Midnight (Lk 11:5–8) as a segue from Insiders and Outsiders and a Hermeneutic of Resonance to provide a method she employs as an outsider sharing stories from and insights into a culture in which she was not born. She then connects her personal and existential experiences to the academic world of research.http://www.hts.org.zaam2020New Testament Studie

The ‘complete gospel’ revisited : Middle East and African influences

The author focuses on the historically-reliable gospel pericopes in which a woman is the lead character. She argues that these women provide the complete gospel − Jesus teaches, heals, preaches and is anointed in the context of female-based stories and, of course, the women take him from conception to resurrection. Jackson argues, not only from an analysis of the texts themselves, but also from her personal experiences in the Middle East and Africa.http://www.hts.org.zaam201