‘Abraham Did not "Doubt” in Unbelief' (rom. 4:20): Faith, Doubt, and Dispute in Paul's Letter to the Romans

This article offers an exegetical-theological analysis of Rom. 4:20: ‘No distrust made him waver (διακρίνεσθαι) concerning the promise of God' (NRSV). It challenges the common assumption that our customary descriptions and definitions of ‘doubt' may be applied—via negativa—to the attitude or disposition of Abraham. When Paul uses the word διακρίνεσθαι in this context, he does not intend to say that Abraham's disposition was free from doubt, uncertainty, or hesitation. Rather, Paul had in mind that Abraham did not oppose God in a presumptuous attitude, offend him through conceited enquiries, or question him in order to overturn his word. This interpretation counters the exegetical communis opinio, but has veritable precursors—John Chrysostom, John Calvin, and Markus Barth—and, at the same time, conforms well to the line of thought of Paul's letter. The object of Paul's accusation against Greeks and Jews (Romans 1-3) is less an intrapersonal contradiction or inconsistency rather than an interpersonal conflict between God and human being. Significantly, the contextual argument is supported by a lexicographical fact: The meaning ‘to doubt' for διακρίνεσθαι is unattested prior to the New Testament; in classical/Hellenistic Greek the verb comprises, inter alia, the notions of ‘separation' and ‘dispute

‘Exegetical Amnesia' and ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ: The ‘Faith of Christ' in Nineteenth-Century Pauline Scholarship

Contemporary scholarship holds, almost unanimously, that Johannes Haußleiter was the first to suggest that Paul's expression πίστις Χριστοῦ should be interpreted as the ‘faith(fulness) of Christ'. His article of 1891 is said to have initiated the ongoing debate, now more current than ever. Such an assessment of the controversy's origins, however, cannot be maintained. Beginning already in the 1820s a surprisingly rich and nuanced discussion of the ambivalent Pauline phrase can be seen. Then, a number of scholars from rather different theological camps already considered and favoured the subjective genitive. The present study seeks to recover the semantic, grammatical, syntactical, and theological aspects put forward in this past (and ‘lost') exegetical literature. Such retrospection, while not weighing the pros and cons for the subjective or the objective interpretation, helps put into perspective the arguments and responses in the present debate. Then and now, scholars' contextualization of their readings is in keeping with their respective diverse theological and philosophical frames of referenc

A quantum spin transducer based on nano electro-mechancial resonator arrays

Implementation of quantum information processing faces the contradicting requirements of combining excellent isolation to avoid decoherence with the ability to control coherent interactions in a many-body quantum system. For example, spin degrees of freedom of electrons and nuclei provide a good quantum memory due to their weak magnetic interactions with the environment. However, for the same reason it is difficult to achieve controlled entanglement of spins over distances larger than tens of nanometers. Here we propose a universal realization of a quantum data bus for electronic spin qubits where spins are coupled to the motion of magnetized mechanical resonators via magnetic field gradients. Provided that the mechanical system is charged, the magnetic moments associated with spin qubits can be effectively amplified to enable a coherent spin-spin coupling over long distances via Coulomb forces. Our approach is applicable to a wide class of electronic spin qubits which can be localized near the magnetized tips and can be used for the implementation of hybrid quantum computing architectures

Why Did Paul Skip Alexandria? Paul's Missionary Strategy and the Rise of Christianity in Alexandria

Why did Paul skip Alexandria? Why is there a blank spot on his missionary map? What prompted him to make plans to travel west rather than south? The lack of scholarly interest in this question is almost as conspicuous as the lack of sources for earliest Christianity in Alexandria. This article surveys and categorises the rather random hypotheses offered in scholarship. They relate to Paul's self-understanding as a missionary, to his theological raison d’être, to religious and cultural aspects, and to political circumstances. The most plausible answer concerns early Christian mission strategy: Paul skipped Alexandria because it was a Jewish city and as such part of the Jewish-Christian mission