Biblical Theological Seminary

This article investigates how the Book of Revelation, when approached through a trauma-informed and phenomenological lens, functions as a pastoral resource for communities navigating catastrophic loss. The question is practically urgent: pastoral practitioners increasingly encounter survivors whose theological frameworks have collapsed under the weight of violence, bereavement, and collective rupture. Situating Revelation within its first-century pastoral genesis and engaging it through interdisciplinary dialogue between trauma psychology, biblical scholarship, and African American reception history, the study demonstrates that the text functions not as predictive apocalypse but as symbolic wisdom literature designed to sustain communal endurance, facilitate meaning reconstruction, and maintain relational bonds across the boundary of death. The article introduces the concept of relational eschatology — the lived experience of continued connection across death, mediated through Christian symbolic and liturgical practice — as a generative framework for pastoral engagement. It concludes that Revelation's apocalyptic imagination, responsibly interpreted, provides a symbolic grammar capable of supporting narrative coherence, identity reconstruction, and adaptive meaning-making in the aftermath of trauma, with direct implications for pastoral care, chaplaincy, and faith-integrated practice.

This article extends the U.S.-centered reception history of Mark 3:31–35 by examining its function as a theological grammar for kinship reconfiguration in global Black Christian contexts. Amid colonial ruptures that weaponized biological lineage, the pericope has enabled the formation of transdiasporic covenants—border-crossing kinship formations grounded in covenantal obedience, refusing genealogical nationalism. Drawing on postcolonial, womanist, and queer theoretical frameworks, this study traces the text's decolonial potential through exegetical deepening and comparative snapshots from the Caribbean, Black Britain, and South Africa. The article argues that Mark 3:31–35 offers not pastoral consolation but an anti-national ecclesiology, dislocating family from blood, land, and state. The result is a reusable category for migration theology, refugee ecclesiology, and queer exile, urging the global church to adopt this grammar of survival.

Abstract This chapter examines the challenges and prospects the presence of Buddhist concepts in the New Testament present. The history of the comparative study of Buddhist and Christian scriptures shows both positive and negative attitudes to Buddhism. There is overwhelming textual evidence of striking similarities between Buddhist scriptures and the New Testament. The historical, commercial, and political contact between ancient India and West Asia points to the strong possibility of Buddhist influence on the New Testament, though persuasive evidence is yet to be found. Nevertheless, these textual resemblances and historical contacts present a challenge to revisit the cartography of the world of the New Testament and will lead to a better understanding of the New Testament concepts through cross-scripture study of Buddhist and Christian scriptures.

of Denver and the Iliff School of Theology.She was a college dropout, and this is her second career; one that she began in her thirties while raising her children.Tamara provides a forceful example to all those in our communities who, for a variety of reasons, have dropped out of college or are late starters.Tamara is blessed with an insatiable curiosity, a never-ending desire to learn, and, most importantly, to share what she has learned with others alongside a neverending desire to uplift those around her and the larger society.Therefore, none is to be surprised by her many contributions as a researcher, teacher, and mentor to students and colleagues, her social activism in Los Angeles, her numerous contributions to the SBL at all levels, and her willingness to trailblaze on multiple fronts.Let me talk for a moment about her dissertation.

Tämä artikkelikokoelma esittelee raamatuntutkimuksen ja sukupuolentutkimuksen leikkauspintoja suomalaiselle yleisölle. Teos ei pyri olemaan kaiken kattava esitys aiheesta, vaan sen tavoitteena on havainnollistaa sukupuolentutkimuksen soveltamista Raamatun ja muun varhaisjuutalaisen ja -kristillisen kirjallisuuden tutkimukseen erilaisista metodologisista ja temaattisista näkökulmista. Näin syntyvä moniääni­nen kokonaisuus auttaa ymmärtämään sukupuolen rakentumista Raa­matun ajan maailmassa. Otos on luonnollisesti valikoiva, mutta mukana on erilaisia aineistoja aina muinaisesta Lähi-idästä myöhäisantiikkiin. Sukupuolentutkimus on olemukseltaan monitieteistä, ja sen piiriin lukeutuvat eksegeettiset tutkimukset ovat ammentaneet metodologisia virikkeitä usealta taholta. Myös tässä teoksessa esiteltävät näkökulmat ulottuvat arkeologiasta tekstintutkimukseen ja eletyn uskonnon viitekehyksestä queer-teoriaan.

This article investigates the Hebrew idiom śîm pānîm/‘ênayim neged/‘al, attested in Ezekiel 4:3, 6:2, 15:7, 20:46–47, 29:2, Jeremiah 21:10, 44:11, and Amos 9:4, traditionally interpreted by scholars as a rhetorical expression of divine resolve or opposition toward Israel and other nations. It argues that the idiom embodies an evil eye metaphor, reflecting a destructive gaze prevalent in ancient Near Eastern traditions, where a deity’s gaze, such as Enlil’s in Mesopotamian lore or the Eye of Ra in Egypt, was considered a force of destruction. Employing a cognitive linguistic approach, the analysis identifies three thematic clusters – ritual curses (Ezekiel 4:3, 6:2-4, 29:2), where YHWH’s gaze brings siege, cultic destruction, or desiccation; fire imagery (Ezekiel 15:7, 20:46-47), where a fiery stare leads to incineration; and exilic judgments (Jeremiah 21:10, 44:11, Amos 9:4), where the gaze signifies death and cosmic upheaval – illustrating the idiom’s role as a prophetic curse mechanism. Drawing on Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Ugaritic parallels, the study reveals the idiom’s conceptual structure: the vehicle (śîm pānîm/‘ênayim neged/‘al), image (destructive stare, e.g., fiery or petrifying), focus (harm, e.g., fire, death), and concept (glaring causes harm). This reinterpretation challenges conventional exegesis, which overlooks the idiom’s cultural backdrop, emphasising the evil eye’s influence on prophetic rhetoric. The study offers a fresh perspective on YHWH’s gaze as a conduit for divine judgment in biblical texts, paving the way for further research on vision metaphors in other biblical genres, such as Psalms.