Journal index

Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftdsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte. Band 26. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2020, ISBN-10: 3110671360; ISBN-10: 3110671360, 237 old.

The closing part of this study presents the most important dichotomic and trichotomic anthropological models from the era of Reformation (Erasmus, Calvin, Bullinger, the Confessio Helvetica Posterior, the Heidelberg Catechism, István Szegedi Kis) and provides a synthesis of the anthropological view of 20th century theology (Karl Barth, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Oscar Cullmann, Jenő Sebestyén, István Török, Botond Gaál, and others). The conclusion to the historical presentation is followed by an inquiry into the possibilities to apply the results of the anthropological investigations to other fields of theology.
Keywords: theological anthropology, dichotomy, trichotomy, body, soul, spirit, Erasmus, Cal­ vin, Bullinger, Heidelberg Catechism, Barth, Pannenberg.

This article is concerned with the question of dichotomy and trichotomy of the human person. Following an earlier semantic analysis of biblical terms (published in Református Szemle 105.3 (2015)), the present paper introduces the reader into the significance of theological anthropology for the most important authors of the Early Church.

In this short paper we propose to present the teaching of the Bible concerning the love of our neighbours. Starting with Romans 13:10, where apostle Paul asserts that love is the fulfilling of the law, we analyse those biblical passages in which the traces of this topic can be found. We aim to show that both the Old and the New Testament highlights the importance of the love towards God and our neighbours. At the end of our survey we discuss this topic in the light of the threefold use of God’s Law.

In this paper we provide a short semantic analysis of the most important anthropological terms of the Bible. By this analysis we would like to point out that in the biblical anthropological view humans cannot be divided into either two or three parts, but they are unitary beings. What we call flesh (body), soul and spirit (or mind) are not independent substances but rather different aspects of manifestation of the same being. On the one side, we see that terms denoting the soul, body or spirit can also refer the whole man as well. On the other side, the Bible does not provide pure anthropology, because anthropology always appears in the context of other important topics of theology (hamartology, soteriology, etc.).

This article intends to present and evaluate the homiletical heritage of the great Hungarian representative of Puritanism, Pál Medgyesi. He wrote the first Hungarian manual on homiletics, entitled: Doce nos orare quin et praedicare. It is argued here that his method of writing a sermon presented in this manual provides a considerable support to improve the preaching of the Hungarian Reformed Church in the 21th century. This improvement is not to be achieved merely copying of his methodology but by the reflectively rethinking his theological-homiletical approach.