NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion - Volume 51, Issue 2, 1997

Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth as synchronous with Quirinius’ census (according to Josephus in 6 CE) has traditionally met with a triple criticism: (1) Herod I had then been dead for more than ten years and his kingdom was never subject to a Roman census; (2) no general decree about such a census is known to have been issued by Augustus around the beginning of our era; (3) in 6 CE Joseph in the tetrarchy of Galilee was not subject to a census in Judaea. Much of the difficulty here is removed by alternative interpretations of both ‘king Herod’ (Lk 1:5) and ‘in those days’ (Lk 2:1). Census-papyri found in Egypt and Judaea as well as other data make Joseph’s travel to Bethlehem less improbable than it is usually assumed to be.

The present essay deals with the thought of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. The essay starts with biographical information on Soloveitchik and a short characterization of his mitnagdic background. It continues with a discussion of Soloveitchik’s ontotheological interpretation of the divine names ehyeh, ehyeh asher ehyeh, and the tetragrammaton. The discussion deals with Soloveitchik’s four claims on the matter, viz.: (1) the God of Abraham, Isaak and Jakob is the ens necessarium; (2) everything that exists is dependent on the reality of His existence; (3) the divine names under discussion refer to God’s simplicitas and singularitas. The latter is taken, among other things, as an indication of God’s incompatibility with all other things in reality, since apart from God nothing in reality can be attributed with necessary existence, comprising and maintaining it all. 4. divine singularity implies divine isolation vis-à-vis everything that exists, for no living thing can live in the proximity of God.

This article offers a survey of recent research in fundamental Christian ethics, from the perspective of Protestant theology. It shows that besides the concept of morals as autonomous, and besides the still predominant tradition of rational deliberation (with its focus on the moral act and decision in isolation from the moral subject and the moral purpose) there are to be discerned three concepts, in which the moral act is embedded in a wider moral theology. The first of these three concepts is an anthropological one (T. Rendtorff), the second consists in an evangelical proclamation of the created moral order (O. O’Donovan), while the third has its centre in ecclesiology (S. Hauerwas). These concepts have in common that new attention is given to the ethical subject and the moral purpose, which is also perceptible in recent Roman Catholic writings and in feminist ethics. It has its parallel and part of its inspiration in the works of moral philosophers like A. MacIntyre and Ch. Taylor.