NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion - Volume 47, Issue 1, 1993

Totemism in Polynesia is still alive. It has its roots in the search for a base for peaceful and fraternal relations between human beings and animals (or trees, plants) in this world of life. Central figure is the ancestor of the clan, transformed into an animal: the totem. Traditions, myths and legends underline and explain the relation totem - clan and its rules of conduct and cult; but also the relations of totemism with namegiving, tattooing and belief in reincarnation.

This article surveys recent monographs on Chronicles. There are still divergent opinions concerning questions about the Chronicler’s attitude to Samaria, possible extrabiblical sources, date, and especially concerning intentions which led the Chronicler to write his book. A difference with the earlier period is that the question what Chronicles contributes to our knowledge of pre-exilic Israel has all but disappeared. The approach is more sympathetic in the sense that Chronicles is studied as a literary-theological writing in its own right.

Thanks to several important discoveries, the study of Manichaeism flourishes as never before. This article gives an overview of the most important recent discoveries (e.g. of the Cologne Mani Codex) and studies, asks for their implications to interpret the Manichaean worldreligion as a Gnostic-Christian worldreligion and also introduces one of the most recent finds: the hitherto unpublished texts from the Dakhleh-Oasis (Egypt).

The author examines five ways of approaching the issue, beginning with rejection of the legitimacy of the question as in the writings of Schleiermacher and Barth. Neither is found persuasive, the latter because of more recent biblical studies. Next, an answer in terms of divine will is examined, and here it is argued that Calvin and Descartes generate more serious problems than they realised (by continuing the later medieval tradition of substituting will for intellect in their analysis of the divine nature). A third option of postulating a specific need in God, as with Sölle and (to a lesser degree) Moltmann, is also rejected before two positive approaches are canvassed, that it is integral to the meaning of goodness to share or, as Balthasar prefers to express it, for Beauty to ‘overflow’ into a world of beauty.