Articles varia
- ASKANI Hans-Christoph - Comment le canon nous advient. Essai sur le concept de texte, de canon et de texte sacré
- MÜLLER Denis - Vérité et liberté. Par delà les dangers des relativismes et des tentations identitaires. Remarques à propos de Stanley Hauerwas
- WÜTHRICH Serge - Quelle place pour un lecteur croyant dans l’exégèse moderne ? Trois modèles à l’épreuve
- BENETREAU Samuel - Permanence de la symbolique familiale en Romains 8, 18-30
- RASTOIN Marc - Le nombre des sauvés en Ac 27, 37. Pourquoi 276 ?
- SANCHEZ Sylvain J. G. - Ernest-Charles Babut (1875-1916). Un spécialiste oublié du christianisme ancien
Once very dear to theology, the concept and reality of the canon are now raising number of disconcerting questions. Why should we grant a special status to one text (or one collection of texts) among many others ? Are not all texts equal in principle? In addressing these issues, Hans-Christoph Askani proposes to reconcile historians and theologians around an interpretation of the canon as being-reference.
In recent years the Methodist Stanley Hauerwas has imposed himself on the protestant and catholic theological scene as one of the most influential ethicists of his generation. In this critical assessment of Hauerwas’s work, Denis Müller values its commitment to the specific features of Christianity but he suspects its positionalism to offer but an uncritical way of upholding the absoluteness of its own position
The advent of scientific methods has introduced a subject/object dichotomy, which in Biblical exegesis, has led to distinguish between a learned reading entailing some critical distance towards the text and a belief-full reading meant to be a personal challenge to the reader. Investigating into three modern exegetical methods (historical criticism, narrative criticism, and semiotics) Serge Wüthrich argues that, while each method addresses the reader in a different way, the definition of an adequate apprehension would overcome the dichotomy between learned and belief-full approaches and allow to conceive an encompassing framework for the reading of Biblical texts.
Romans 8:14-17 bears witness to an outstanding privilege conferred by the Holy Spirit: « Sons of God! », « Heirs of God! » Examining the development of these family symbols in the following section (18-30), Samuel Bénétreau argues that, without ignoring the decidedly eschatological frame of chapter 8 as a whole, these verses are concerned with the actual life of the sons of God in the world, with its many limitations and weaknesses, and that the family symbols do not disappear but grow richer. To the topics introduced in 14-17 (liberation, adoption, prayer) are added the images of child-birth and of the gathering of many brothers around a glorious first-born son. The considerations on prayer (26-27) and on the generosity of God toward those who love him (28) can also be read within the context of the father-son relationship.
In Acts 27:37, Luke gives the exact number of souls saved during the tempest: 276. The history of the numerous attempts to disclose the meaning of this number reaches back to patristic times. Is Luke simply trying to give an « effect of reality » or should the number be interpreted as adding to the ecclesiological dimension of the passage? Marc Rastoin concludes his survey of the extant explanations by suggesting that the hypothesis of aguematria should be inquired again.
In this portrait of Ernest-Charles Babut (1875-1916) completed with a bibliography of his works, Sylvain J. G. Sanchez pays tribute to a French Protestant historian of the Belle Époque who prematurely died on the battlefield. Focusing on Ancient Christian heresiology and hagiography, Babut’s almost forgotten work appears to be a noteworthy contribution to the debates that opposed Catholics and Republicans in the years immediately preceding World War I. A harsh historiographical controversy between Babut’s mentor Charles-Victor Langlois and his former fellow Charles Péguy highlights his own involvement in these debates as both a Protestant and a Republican.