SCRIPTURA  

Hans Ausloos

Balaam counts among the most enigmatic characters within the Old Testament. Not everyone has the privilege of meeting an angel, and being addressed by a donkey. Moreover, the Biblical Balaam, as he is presented in Num. 22-24, has given rise to multiple in... see more

Ntozakhe Simon Cezula

 In the third year of my theological training I had lectures in wisdom literature by Professor Hendrik Bosman. Teaching the Book of Job, he lamented that commu-nities mainly use this book at funerals to console families of deceased. This practice foc... see more

L Juliana Claassens

 This article seeks to investigate the rhetorical function of Jeremiah’s Temple, Covenant and Sabbath Sermons against the backdrop of cultural trauma. I propose that the three sermons found in Jeremiah 7, 11: 1-14 and 17: 19-27 provide a good illustr... see more

Ernst M Conradie

 This essay explores the question whether and if so what contribution Christian systematic theology can make to contemporary discourse on sustainability and more specifically ‘entangled sustainabilities’. It acknowledges that any such contribution wo... see more

Alphonso Groenewald

 One should not underestimate the impact suffering has on a community. Therefore in biblical studies we are aware, more than ever before, of the impact traumatic events had on individuals and groups. Trauma studies have become an important part of th... see more

Knut Holter

The idea that a certain ethnic or social group is historically related to the ancient Israelites is a widespread phenomenon in Africa. In some cases the identification is made from a ‘we’-perspective about ‘our’ group, such as the Lembas in Zimbabwe and S... see more

Dirk J Human

 Psalm 132 can be interpreted from various compositional contexts. In every new compositional context different nuances add value to the significance of the text. Psalm 132 can be interpreted as a single psalm, and as part of the Sîre Hama·alôt psalm... see more

Douglas Lawrie

Ancient scribal culture had two faces. After arduous and largely impractical training, scribes were admitted to an elite circle and became custodians of a cultural tradition. But scribal teachers were also credited with opening the eyes of their students ... see more

Jurie Le Roux

 This article is dedicated to Hendrik Bosman and to a certain extent it is the outcome of our many discussions about the historical understanding of the Old Testament. In this article it is argued that such an understanding comes a long way and that ... see more

Madipoane Masenya (Ngwan’a Mphahlele)

 The image of a woman who is portrayed negatively in Proverbs 1-9, that is, Woman Stranger, has been engaged variously by Hebrew Bible scholarship, especially by feminist biblical scholars. Some have argued that Woman Stranger is in fact one woman sy... see more

Esias E Meyer

The paper engages with Numbers 18 in the light of the recent debate on ritual innovation. The focus is especially on verses 8-20 and the ‘portion’ of the priests, or more specifically the Aaronides. The intertextual links between Numbers 18 and other text... see more

Funlola Olojede

 This article investigates the conceptions of night in the books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs in the light of the theology of night in the book of Job and the Psalter. It is noted that though some levels of correspondence are observabl... see more

Eben Scheffler

 It has been widely recognised in scholarship that the Deuteronomistic History (Deuteronomy to 2 Kings 25) was written to explain why the states of Israel and Judah both failed, attributing the reasons for the failure to their kings’ disobedience reg... see more

Fanie Snyman

 This contribution investigates the issue of mixed marriages in the book of Malachi, Ezra-Nehemiah and the Pentateuch. It is found that mixed marriages in Malachi are denounced on religious grounds while in Ezra-Nehemiah nationalistic motivations suc... see more

Gerrie F Snyman

 This essay explores Manasseh’s vulnerability in both narratives in terms of the current reader’s own vulnerability. In 2 Kings 21:1-18 Manasseh appears to remain invulnerable over-against the inhabitants of Jerusalem’s vulnerability. In 2 Chronicles... see more

Izak J J Spangenberg

 Two newspaper articles prompted the writing of this academic article. The first one concerns the theological conference "Gateway to the future from a deconstructed past" held at the University of Pretoria earlier this year. The second concerns Chris... see more

Charlene Van der Walt

 The oeuvre of the American film writer, director and producer, Terrence Malick has consistently traced themes related to creation and natural phenomena. Nowhere is it quite as spectacularly clear as in the critically acclaimed and 2011 Palme d’Or wi... see more

Hans Van Deventer

 In the Hebrew Bible, the name of Moses appears most frequently in the Hexateuch. Outside this corpus that is closely related to the life of this main character in the narrative, the name of Moses is found mostly in post-exilic material. This article... see more

Willie Wessels

 The passage Nahum 3: 15-17 operates within a context in which the theme of de-struction is expounded. Various references of locusts as part of simile are used to speak about the threat and downfall of Nineveh, the symbol of Assyrian power, and some ... see more

Gerald O West

This article uses the Ujamaa Centre’s work on the book of Job as a case-study for how the resources of biblical studies have enabled access to the biblical tradition of lament, and of how the lament of people living with HIV has posed new questions to bib... see more