NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion - Volume 49, Issue 3, 1995

In order to study the possible presence of halakha in Jewish-Rabbinic, Jewish non-Rabbinic, New Testamentical and Pseudegraphic/Apocryphal texts, the article argues in favour of a descriptive model of halakhic sentences. A comparison between halakhic patterns from the Mishnah and parenetical passages from the New Testament on account of Tomson’s Paul and the Jewish Law seems to justify the preliminar desirability of a formal-linguistic method of description.

Usually, parables are identified with the teaching of Jesus in the gospels and also rabbinical teaching in general. It is less known that extended metaphors, similes and even fullfledged parables and fables form an integral part of the Old Testament prophets. In this article, a few metaphors and parables from the prophet Amos are discussed in the light of modern theory on metaphor (Amos 3:12; 2:13; 9:9; parables in 3:3-8; 5:18-20). It appears that the richness of the genre attested in the gospels is already represented in Old Testament teaching as Anrede (Westermann).

In this article I argue that traditionalism is a viable alternative to forms of foundationalism, relativism and skepticism. Assuming that foundationalism has collapsed, I consider various forms of relativism, including those of Sallie McFague and J. Runzo, and I argue that only relativism of reason and of truth should be rejected because they lead to fatal inconsistencies. Next, fallibilism, as a central component of traditionalism, is illustrated and compared to foundationalist and methodological dogmatism. After outlining other components of traditionalism, such as its holism, (moderate) realism and truth as an ideal standard, I discuss and reject objections to traditionalism by J. Margolis and D.Z. Phillips.

The article demonstrates, by means of the analysis of a few pages of Baigent & Leigh’s bestseller The dead Sea Scrolls Deception, that the authors wittingly twisted their sources in support of Eisenman’s theory of James the Righteous as a zealot ‘opposition high priest’, who should be identified as the ‘Teacher of Righteousness’ mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The analysis consists in a close collation of Eusebius’ account of the murder of James (Hist. Eccl. II, 23, 4-24) with the way the authors quote and interprete this text: it leads to the conclusion that they made a well-considered attempt to mislead the general public.