NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion - Volume 45, Issue 3, 1991

A recently published Greek altar-inscription from Asia Minor with the dedication theōi apseudei kai acheiropoiētōi most probably is to be regarded, on the basis of the terminology used (especially acheiropoiētos), as an inscription of a so-called Godfearer, i.e., a pagan sympathizer with Judaism, who erected this private altar for the God of Israel.

The tale of the deceit of Jacob should be interpreted against the background of the struggle in Israel between Yhwh and Baal. Especially some chapters of Hosea make it clear that Genesis 27 does not contain a story about a controversy in the house of Isaac, but elucidates rather some fundamental aspects of the history of Israel-Efraim. The fraud of Rebecca and her son reflects one of the most persistent and disputed errors of Israel (and the nations), namely idolatry.

This article focuses on the reception in Jewish tradition of the story of Joseph’s temptation by Potiphar’s wife (Gen. 39:1-20). Firstly, the meanings of the Hebrew term tsaddiq and its Greek equivalents are analysed. Secondly, the author offers various examples of midrashic interpretations of Joseph stories from early Jewish Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek literature. It is obvious that Joseph is characterized as tsaddiq/sofron in the sense of being a chaste man. Joseph thus became the model par excellence of the ideal of chastity.

This article offers a survey of the semantic and hermeneutic vicissitudes of the medieval distinction between God’s potentia absoluta and potentia ordinata. It shows that a crucial shift in the theological use of the distinction between the two potentiae was initiated by Scotus, mitigated by Ockham, but taken to extremes in 14th and 15th century radically nominalist circles. Instead of continuing to function as a transcendental, critical concept expressing the contingency of creation as well as the divine freedom, the notion of potentia absoluta became misunderstood as referring to a separate source of divine power which might really be actualized.

The aim of this article is to develop a criterion for deciding when it is rational to adhere to an ideology or a religion. Various views on the rationality of religions are discussed, and a structural view on ideologies and religions is developed. The view is then defended that it is rational to adhere to an ideology or religion only if it can serve to create and sustain values. For this purpose a utopian concept of human life is required on the basis of which we can decide both what is to count as failure, guilt etc., and also what attitude we are to adopt toward reality.