NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion - Volume 59, Issue 1, 2005

This article examines the development of the popularity of religious healing in the Netherlands since 1850 and the factors that contribute to its continuation. It focuses upon three traditions: devotional healing in Roman Catholicism, charismatic healing in Pentecostalism and energetic healing in Western Esotericism. Till about 1965, the interest in making a pilgrimage to holy places of healing showed a strong increase, while the number of participants in faith-healing and esoteric healing remained small. Since then, the development has turned completely the opposite way. Starting from a market approach it is related to contextual, institutional and supply factors. It is argued, that religious healing practices are a normal phenomenon in Western European culture with the vitality to survive in modern times.

This review article discusses the recent book by Chris Caragounis on the development of the Greek language in its relevance to the study of the New Testament. Special attention is paid to the elements of continuity and change in pronunciation, semantics and syntax. In spite of the fact that Caragounis overstates his case in some respects, this book undoubtedly throws new light on several problems of NT interpretation.

The new trend in the study of Christian apocryphal texts is to include among them not only the traditional ‘New Testament apocrypha’, but also other texts written later than the first centuries of our era, or clearly reworked in the Middle Ages. Behind this wider choice stands the opinion of Éric Junod and Jean-Claude Picard that there is no temporal limit for the rise of apocryphal texts. Using the evidence provided by some modern ‘strange new Gospels’, I argue that the process of producing apocryphal narratives is the outcome of a creative exegesis that is still at work in many cultural contexts.

The prayer of the Syrian theologian Aphrahat in Demonstratio 23.53-59 displays at least seven analogies with the Jewish prayer Amidah. Textual analysis suggests that there are more instances of Jewish influence in this prayer. In this study it is considered plausible that Jewish prayers from the period after 70 AD or 135 AD, have found a way into the Christian liturgy of Syriac-speaking Persia through Jewish proselytes. It is probable that the borrowing took place in the short period between the outbreak of the persecutions in 340 under the Persian king Shapur II and the writing of Demonstratio 23 in 345.