La Mort d' Ananias et Saphira (Ac 5.1-11) dans la stratégie narrative de Luc

1.1 L'histoire du jugement de Dieu sur Ananias et Saphira (Ac 5.1-11) compte parmi les épisodes les plus pathétiques du livre des Actes. L'art lucanien de la dramatisation atteint ici un sommet. La fin tragique d'Ananias foudroyé par la parole dénonciatrice de Pierre, son enterrement hâtif, puis la venue de Saphira ignorante du drame, son mensonge public suivi de sa mort annoncée sur un ton d'humour noir (5.9b): l'effet pragmatique cherché par le narrateur est programmé par le scénario; il s'inscrit aussi dans le texte lui-même: ‘un grand effroi saisit ceux qui l'entendaient' (5.5, 11). L'histoire est destinée à provoquer la craint

Jésus le juif selon la Troisième Quête du Jésus de l'Histoire

La Tercera Recerca del Jesús de la història ha tingut el mèrit de rejudeitzar la figura de Jesús, que la recerca precedent havia arrancat del seu medi. El mestre pensador és aquí Ed P. Sanders. La inmensa influència que han exercit els seus treballs demostren tanmateix un recel que, a força de projectar l’home de Natzaret sobre la figura del rabí fariseu, fa perdre la seva singularitat. Daniel Marguerat revela tres punts en els quals els ensenyaments de Jesús es resisteixen a aquesta asimilació : 1) la reinterpretació radical de la llei sota l’ègida d’un imperatiu d’amor; 2) la seva concepció inclusiva de la puresa; 3) l’estat d’urgència escatològica. En el seu temps l’investigador jueu Joseph Klausner havia explicat molt bé aquesta dialèctica de continuïtat i de ruptura entre Jesús i el judaïsme dels anys 30.We owe it to the scholar Ed P. Sanders to have shown that the Third Quest for the Historical Jesus has had the merit of reaffirming the Jewishness of the figure of Jesus that the previous quest had totally diminished. At the same time, the immense influence of Sanders’ work has demonstrated certain misgivings which, by insisting on projecting Jesus from Nazareth onto the figure of the rabbi-Pharisee, make it lose its singularity. Daniel Marguerat reveals three points in which Jesus’ teachings oppose such an assimilation: 1) the radical reinterpretation of the law under the aegis of the imperative of love; 2) the inclusive conception of purity; 3) the state of eschatological urgency. In his time the Jewish scholar Joseph Klausner explained perfectly well this dialectic of continuity and rupture between Jesus and the Judaism of the 30’s

Jésus historique et Christ de la foi : une dicotomie pertinente ?

Daniel Marguerat rebat la clàssica dicotomia existent entre el Jesús de la història i el Crist de la fe. La seva argumentació es fonamenta alhora en una nova aproximació de la història, que postula el caràcter reconstructiu de tota la historiografia, i en una aproximació narrativa dels evangelis. Tant el Jesús històric com el Crist de la fe són efectivament el resultat de reconstruccions, cadascuna amb els seus propòsits i legitimacions pròpies. Daniel Marguerat considera els evangelis com a biografies teològiques que, com a resultat del relat, elaboren una Cristologia narrativa. Els evangelis articulen així, d’una manera irreductible, el Jesús de la història i el Crist de la fe. El lector de l’evangeli, cridat a referendar el paper del deixeble, descobreix en el fil de la lectura la identitat entre l’home de Natzaret i el Senyor de l’Església. Els evangelis únicament han conservat els trets de Jesús que servien per a aquesta identificació, esborrant o eludint allò que era inútil o enutjós, i així entren en una anamnesi de Jesús a una certa distància cronològica. La recerca sobre el Jesús de la història és indispensable per a la teologia, ja que evita que caigui en una especulació espiritual que menystingui la humanitat de Jesús i que pari tan sols atenció a la seva divinitat. La recerca històrica de Jesús s’insereix dins un «deure d’encarnació».Daniel Marguerat invalidates the classical dichotomy between the historical Jesus and the Christ of the faith. His argumentation is based both on a new approach of history, which assumes the constructive dimension of historiography, and on a narrative reading of the Gospels. Historical Jesus as well as Christ of the faith are indeed the result of reconstructions, each of them having their own aim and rightfulness. Daniel Marguerat considers the Gospels as theological biographies which, by means of the narrative, work out a narrative Christology. The Gospels articulate therefore inseparably the historical Jesus and the Christ of the faith. The reader of the Gospel is invited to endorse the role of the disciple and thus discovers throughout his/her reading the sameness of the man of Nazareth with the Lord of the Church. The Gospels have solely recorded the features of Jesus that helped this identification, erasing or dimming what appeared unnecessary or awkward. The quest for the historical Jesus appears finally essential to theology : it prevents it from falling in spiritual speculations that disregards Jesus humanity and commits only his divinity to memory. The historical research on Jesus assumes a « duty of incarnation »

Traces du Jésus de l’Histoire. L’état des sources documentaires

Que savons-nous de Jésus ? Jésus a-t-il existé ? L’inventaire des sources documentaires sur Jésus permet de réfuter sans appel la « théorie mythiste » d’un Jésus fictif. On dresse ici l’inventaire des sources littéraires, chrétiennes et non-chrétiennes, à notre disposition, relevant leur exceptionnelle antiquité et leur pluralité. Un intérêt particulier est accordé aux sources juives, en particulier le Talmud et Flavius Josèphe. À côté des textes du Nouveau Testament, les évangiles extra-canoniques s’avèrent d’un intérêt certain. S’ajoutent au tableau les récentes découvertes archéologiques à Jérusalem et en Galilée, qui éclairent le cadre de la vie quotidienne palestinienne au premier siècle. Il s’avère au final que la question n’est pas de savoir si Jésus a existé, mais quel Jésus a existé.What do we know about Jesus? Did Jesus exist? All the documentary evidence about Jesus allows us to refute the “mythist theory” claiming the fictionality of Jesus. The Author lists the literary sources (Christians and non-Christians) at our disposal and underlines their exceptional antiquity and plurality. Of particular interest are the Jewish sources – notably the Talmud and Flavius Josephus. The apocryphal Gospels deserve also our attention beside the texts of the New Testament. Furthermore from the recent archeological discoveries in Jerusalem and Judea comes a fresh light on the daily life in Palestine during the first century C.E. Finally the question is not if Jesus has existed, but which Jesus

Size-Dependent Expression of the Mitotic Activator Cdc25 as a Mechanism of Size Control in Fission Yeast [preprint]

Proper cell size is essential for cellular function (Hall et al., 2004). Nonetheless, despite more than 100 years of work on the subject, the mechanisms that maintain cell size homeostasis are largely mysterious (Marshall et al., 2012). Cells in growing populations maintain cell size within a narrow range by coordinating growth and division. Bacterial and eukaryotic cells both demonstrate homeostatic size control, which maintains population-level variation in cell size within a certain range, and returns the population average to that range if it is perturbed (Marshall et al., 2012; Turner et al., 2012; Amodeo and Skotheim, 2015). Recent work has proposed two different strategies for size control: budding yeast has been proposed to use an inhibitor-dilution strategy to regulate size at the G1/S transition (Schmoller et al., 2015), while bacteria appear to use an adder strategy, in which a fixed amount of growth each generation causes cell size to converge on a stable average, a mechanism also suggested for budding yeast (Campos et al., 2014; Jun and Taheri-Araghi, 2015; Taheri-Araghi et al., 2015; Tanouchi et al., 2015; Soifer et al., 2016). Here we present evidence that cell size in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe is regulated by a third strategy: the size dependent expression of the mitotic activator Cdc25. The cdc25 transcript levels are regulated such that smaller cells express less Cdc25 and larger cells express more Cdc25, creating an increasing concentration of Cdc25 as cell grow and providing a mechanism for cell to trigger cell division when they reach a threshold concentration of Cdc25. Since regulation of mitotic entry by Cdc25 is well conserved, this mechanism may provide a wide spread solution to the problem of size control in eukaryotes

A simple method for directional transcriptome sequencing using Illumina technology.

High-throughput sequencing of cDNA has been used to study eukaryotic transcription on a genome-wide scale to single base pair resolution. In order to compensate for the high ribonuclease activity in bacterial cells, we have devised an equivalent technique optimized for studying complete prokaryotic transcriptomes that minimizes the manipulation of the RNA sample. This new approach uses Illumina technology to sequence single-stranded (ss) cDNA, generating information on both the direction and level of transcription throughout the genome. The protocol, and associated data analysis programs, are freely available from http://www.sanger.ac.uk/Projects/Pathogens/Transcriptome/. We have successfully applied this method to the bacterial pathogens Salmonella bongori and Streptococcus pneumoniae and the yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe. This method enables experimental validation of genetic features predicted in silico and allows the easy identification of novel transcripts throughout the genome. We also show that there is a high correlation between the level of gene expression calculated from ss-cDNA and double-stranded-cDNA sequencing, indicting that ss-cDNA sequencing is both robust and appropriate for use in quantitative studies of transcription. Hence, this simple method should prove a useful tool in aiding genome annotation and gene expression studies in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes

R-loops and regulatory changes in chronologically ageing fission yeast cells drive non-random patterns of genome rearrangements

Aberrant repair of DNA double-strand breaks can recombine distant chromosomal breakpoints. Chromosomal rearrangements compromise genome function and are a hallmark of ageing. Rearrangements are challenging to detect in non-dividing cell populations, because they reflect individually rare, heterogeneous events. The genomic distribution of de novo rearrangements in non-dividing cells, and their dynamics during ageing, remain therefore poorly characterized. Studies of genomic instability during ageing have focussed on mitochondrial DNA, small genetic variants, or proliferating cells. To characterize genome rearrangements during cellular ageing in non-dividing cells, we interrogated a single diagnostic measure, DNA breakpoint junctions, using Schizosaccharomyces pombe as a model system. Aberrant DNA junctions that accumulated with age were associated with microhomology sequences and R-loops. Global hotspots for age-associated breakpoint formation were evident near telomeric genes and linked to remote breakpoints elsewhere in the genome, including the mitochondrial chromosome. Formation of breakpoint junctions at global hotspots was inhibited by the Sir2 histone deacetylase and might be triggered by an age-dependent de-repression of chromatin silencing. An unexpected mechanism of genomic instability may cause more local hotspots: age-associated reduction in an RNA-binding protein triggering R-loops at target loci. This result suggests that biological processes other than transcription or replication can drive genome rearrangements. Notably, we detected similar signatures of genome rearrangements that accumulated in old brain cells of humans. These findings provide insights into the unique patterns and possible mechanisms of genome rearrangements in non-dividing cells, which can be promoted by ageing-related changes in gene-regulatory proteins

The Fission Yeast Homeodomain Protein Yox1p Binds to MBF and Confines MBF-Dependent Cell-Cycle Transcription to G1-S via Negative Feedback

The regulation of the G1- to S-phase transition is critical for cell-cycle progression. This transition is driven by a transient transcriptional wave regulated by transcription factor complexes termed MBF/SBF in yeast and E2F-DP in mammals. Here we apply genomic, genetic, and biochemical approaches to show that the Yox1p homeodomain protein of fission yeast plays a critical role in confining MBF-dependent transcription to the G1/S transition of the cell cycle. The yox1 gene is an MBF target, and Yox1p accumulates and preferentially binds to MBF-regulated promoters, via the MBF components Res2p and Nrm1p, when they are transcriptionally repressed during the cell cycle. Deletion of yox1 results in constitutively high transcription of MBF target genes and loss of their cell cycle–regulated expression, similar to deletion of nrm1. Genome-wide location analyses of Yox1p and the MBF component Cdc10p reveal dozens of genes whose promoters are bound by both factors, including their own genes and histone genes. In addition, Cdc10p shows promiscuous binding to other sites, most notably close to replication origins. This study establishes Yox1p as a new regulatory MBF component in fission yeast, which is transcriptionally induced by MBF and in turn inhibits MBF-dependent transcription. Yox1p may function together with Nrm1p to confine MBF-dependent transcription to the G1/S transition of the cell cycle via negative feedback. Compared to the orthologous budding yeast Yox1p, which indirectly functions in a negative feedback loop for cell-cycle transcription, similarities but also notable differences in the wiring of the regulatory circuits are evident

Jesus, Barabbas and the People: The Climax of Luke’s Trial Narrative and Lukan Christology (Luke 23.13-25)

This article argues that the nuance and function given to the Barabbas pericope in Luke’s trial narrative differs significantly from that expressed by the other evangelists. It submits that Luke depicts Jesus’ death to be the result of a substitution between the acquitted Jesus and the insurrectionist and murderer Barabbas. Furthermore, the third evangelist has crafted his trial narrative so as to highlight the representative nature of this death, thereby developing Jesus’ narrative identity as the Messiah. It is concluded that Luke’s crafting of his trial narrative raises questions for the prevalent view that the third evangelist has not integrated the idea of substitution into his understanding of Jesus’ death