Journal index

Jefte történetében a bibliaolvasó több botránkoztató ténnyel szembesül. Az első Jefte származása. Lehet-e karizmatikus vezető egy parázna asszony fia? Hogyan lehet egy övéitől eltaszított személy hőssé magasztosult vezérré a veszedelem idején? A harcba induló Jefte miért akarja lekötelezni Istent egy könnyelműen tett fogadalommal, s amikor győztesen tért haza, vajon tényleg emberáldozatra volt képes, és feláldozta egyetlen leányát? Vagy pedig „csupán” élő áldozatként szentelte oda Istennek egész életére? Ezekre a kérdésekre szeretnénk választ adni ebben a tanulmányban.

Európa szenved, a 20. század vészterhes örökségét még nem sikerült feldolgoznia. Gyógyulatlan sebek, tabuk, előítéletek, egymásra sütött bélyegek maradtak a háborúk, rendszerváltások nyomán. Az egyének sorsa is hasonló, ráadásul a közösségek, a biztonságadó kötelékek fellazultak, és a sodródásban halmozódnak a összeütközések. A dolgok orvoslásáról addig álmodni sem lehet, ameddig mentalitásváltás nem történik, és ha az egymáshoz történő odafordulás be is következik, szükséges eltanulni a párbeszéd alapszabályait. Mit is jelent a dialógus?

Canaanite Abominations as Presented in the Book of Deuteronomy. A Theological Evaluation. Before entering in the Promised Land the people of Israel were told not to follow the forbidden practices of the polytheistic nations (Deut 18, 9–14), to avoid all kinds of magical and superstitious practices designed to discover the will of gods, or even to compel the gods to action in certain ways. The occult, superstitions, divinisation, sorcery, spiritualism were abominations all to Yahweh and brought about His judgment. Yahweh made His will known through revelation, by the aid of His prophets, whose words would be clearly understandable to the people in contrast with the ambiguous and mysterious spells of those who worked with magic and divinisation. Israel must be blameless in regard to every form of divinisation, magic or spiritism. In our day when we can see the rise of a „new paganism”, moreover when spiritualism, astrology, teacup reading and the like are widely practised, these injuctions given to ancient Israel have a particular relevance. This presentation is trying to understand the present will of God with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to tell the difference between religion and revelation. A short survey is being made to define the aspects of Israelite religion, a product of revelation through the prophets of Jahweh in contrast to the religions and magic void of revelation. The exegesis of the biblical passage from Deut 18,9–14 enables us to search to the different forbidden Canaanite practices. Some attempts are being made towards a possible new translation of the words denoting forbidden practices. The will of God was to be discovered by a prophet and not by a magic worker, a diviner or a spiritist. Israel has to observe the guidance of Yahweh, who will provide a succession of prophets until the day when He will send them the Messiah, the eschatological Prophet Jesus Christ, His Son – who will save His people from damnation. He has the words of eternal life. Jesus asked the twelve: You do not want to leave too, do you? Simon Peter answered him: Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. (John 6,67–68)

The Life-work Which Reveals the Delusion of Christianity, the Kierkegaardian Criticism of the Church and Christianity. Entropy is a main characteristic of the human world; consequently the Church also has a similar tendency. Criticism is in symbiosis with Christian life. One of the most important critical analysis of Christianity is made by Kierkegaard. To understand his life-work from the point of view of criticism, we have to deal with three important aspects: a) The religious influence in his childhood. His family comes from the Moravian tradition; he had the opportunity to examine the dark side of this tradition as wel. b) His relationship to other personalities belonging to the golden age of Denmark. This period is characterized by the intensive reception of Hegel. Kierkegaard could not agree with the Danish Hegelians, because his consequent subjectivity was in permanent polemics with the objectivity of speculative theology. c) The methodology of Kierkegaard – interpretation. The Danish thinker used two types of communication, the direct and the indirect one. The indirect communication is characteristic for his poetical, aesthetical works. This type of communication has a maieutical character, in this manner the writer helps the reader find the truth, but he never gives formulated definitions. An other characteristic of his works are the use of pseudonym for the name of writers’. Kierkegaard protests against the quoting of this works under his own name, because he personally does not agree whit the opinion of the authors. Kierkegaard’s writings at the beginning include aspects of criticism, but in the last period he mostly attacks Christianity. In 1850 was published his Training in Christianity. In this book we can find the main points of his criticism, but after bishop Mynster’s death in 1854 his criticism becomes the sharpest. The targets of his criticism are: the erroneous Church – concept and the problem of sate Church; the cheap grace; the different sins of clergies; the insufficiency of knowledge for true Christian faith, and the discrepancy between Christian teaching and personal life of religious teachers.

The Problem of Suffering in the Holy Scripture. Suffering is one of the universal problems of mankind. Generally saying, everybody suffers to some extent in a part of his or her life. Corporal suffering has a great influence ont he state of mind, and vice versa. We are searching the reason, the purpose the suffering in human experience, in philosophy and in the same way in the Holy Scripture. In this study the author makes an attempt to lighten the answers of the Bible in the following problems: the different kinds of suffering, the origin and the purpose of it, the problem of the substitute suffering, the Servant of the Lord, the sufferings of Christians and of the Church, the human behaviour under suffering, the blessing of it; the suffering, which leads to death and finally: the suffering in the salvation counsel of God. The conclusion of the study is the following: suffering may be probation or an educational instrument of the Lord’s, which is included in his eternal plan of salvation. The blood of Christ purifies us from every sin, but in this earthly life we need the permanent purificatory work of God as long so as to reach we will be transformed to the similitude of the Son of God.