Associate Professor of Theology at Trinity Christian College (2023-) Affiliate Research Professor of Advanced Studies at Singapore Bible College (2023-) Academic Dean of the School of Theology (English) at Singapore Bible College (2017-2023) Associate Professor of Old Testament at Singapore Bible College (2015-present) Assistant Professor of Old Testament at Singapore Bible College (2010-2015) Adjunct Professor of Biblical Studies at Biola University (2009, 2014)
This is the front matter for a new OT textbook that I had the privilege of co-editing with Dr Ang... more This is the front matter for a new OT textbook that I had the privilege of co-editing with Dr Angukali Rotokha. Here is the description from the back cover: "Exploring the Old Testament in Asia is the first evangelical Old Testament textbook written both from and for an Asian cultural context. Rooted in the theological conviction that God still speaks through the Old Testament in all its fullness, the twelve essays in this book address key theological issues pertinent to the diverse cultures and contexts of Asia. Touching on topics from polytheism and kinship bonds to Scripture translation and the biblical conception of wisdom, the writers position themselves in conversation with Asia's rich spiritual, cultural, and literary heritage. The result is a theological contribution that is both contextually relevant and biblically faithful."
This is the pre-pub front matter for my new book, Contextualization and the Old Testament: Betwee... more This is the pre-pub front matter for my new book, Contextualization and the Old Testament: Between Asian and Western Perspectives (Asia Theological Association/Langham, 2022). Here is the description from the back cover: "Christianity is often viewed in Asia as a Western imposition. Challenging this, Dr. Jerry Hwang examines the Old Testament’s cultural engagement of its ancient Near Eastern context, arguing that Scripture itself provides the ultimate model for contextualizing theology in Asia. While it is common for missiological studies to ignore the Old Testament in their discussion of contextualization, truly biblical contextualization must include the whole Bible, not simply the New Testament. This study provides insightful discourse between the Old Testament and various Asian contexts, while demonstrating how Asian perspectives can help overcome the Eurocentrism prevalent in Old Testament scholarship. This is an ideal resource for scholars and practitioners interested in a biblical perspective of contextualization, especially as related to constructing theology that honors the truth of Scripture in the context of Asia."
"[From Eisenbrauns website]
To whom is Moses speaking in Deuteronomy? This question is controver... more "[From Eisenbrauns website]
To whom is Moses speaking in Deuteronomy? This question is controversial in OT scholarship. Some passages in Deuteronomy indicate that Moses is addressing the first exodus generation that witnessed Horeb (Deut 5:3–4), while other passages point to the second exodus generation that survived the wilderness (Deut 1:35; 2:14–16). Redaction critics such as Thomas Römer and John Van Seters view the chronological problems in Deuteronomy as evidence of multiple tradition layers. Although other scholars have suggested that Deuteronomy's conflation of chronology is a rhetorical move to unify Israel's generations, no analysis has thus far explored in detail how the blending of "you" and the "fathers" functions as a rhetorical device. However, a rhetorical approach to the "fathers" is especially appropriate in light of three features of Deuteronomy.
First, a rhetorical approach recognizes that the repetitiveness of the Deuteronomic style is a homiletical strategy designed to inculcate the audience with memory. The book is shot through with exhortations for Israel to remember the past. Second, a rhetorical approach recognizes that collective memory entails the transformation of the past through actualization for the present. Third, a rhetorical approach to Deuteronomy accords well with the book's self-presentation as "the words that Moses spoke" (1:1). The book of Deuteronomy assumes a canonical posture by embedding the means of its own oral and written propagation, thereby ensuring that the voice of Moses speaking in the book of Deuteronomy resounds in Israel's ears as a perpetually authoritative speech-act.
The Rhetoric of Remembrance demonstrates that Deuteronomy depicts the corporate solidarity of Israel in the land promised to the "fathers" (part 1), under the sovereignty of the same "God of the fathers" across the nation's history (part 2), as governed by a timeless covenant of the "fathers" between YHWH and his people (part 3). In the narrative world of Deuteronomy, the "fathers" begin as the patriarchs, while frequently scrolling forward in time to include every generation that has received YHWH's promises but nonetheless continues to await their fulfillment.
Hwang's study is an insightful, innovative approach that addresses crucial aspects of the Deuteronomic style with a view to the theological effect of that style."
Hosea 7–8 contains one of the more potent but overlooked statements of political theology in the ... more Hosea 7–8 contains one of the more potent but overlooked statements of political theology in the Hebrew Bible. While it is common to view “politics” narrowly in terms of government and diplomacy, Hosea and other eighth-century prophets offer a “theopolitics” (to borrow Martin Buber’s term) that traces the holistic connections between religious, political, and economic sins on the international scene with their counterparts on the domestic scene. Particularly in chapters 7–8, the theopolitics of Hosea uses a remarkable combination of metaphor and wordplay to confront toxic leaders and their enablers among the people. Rather than engaging in power politics, Israel must learn to embrace weakness and recognize Yahweh as sovereign over the entire order of creation and empires, against all appearances, even as his own people and land are shrinking. This results in a national identity for Israel which defies the usual categories, making Hosea 7–8 a model of creativity, boldness, and misdirection for resistance literature and protest politics today.
Scholars of the Hebrew Bible tend to dismiss Deuteronomy’s “Law of the King” (17:14–20) as a utop... more Scholars of the Hebrew Bible tend to dismiss Deuteronomy’s “Law of the King” (17:14–20) as a utopian construct that was never realistic and/or historical. Underlying these views, however, are certain assumptions about what is culturally plausible in a world dominated by sacral kingship. Since this has been the most common form of government in human history (as shown by Francis Oakley, David Graeber, and Marshall Sahlins, among other comparativists), any generalizations about the historicity of the “Law of the King” must engage in a broader intercultural analysis of theopolitics, divine right of kings, and separation of powers. This article sets the “Law of the King” in the larger context of sacral kingship in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. What emerges from such a descriptive comparison is the bridging of a notable false dichotomy in Old Testament scholarship—Israel’s particular form of sacral kingship is both distinctive as well as realistic in nature. This conclusion suggests that skepticism about the historicity of sacral kingship in Deuteronomy is beholden to a Eurocentric frame of reference which, somewhat ironically, is also skeptical of Western-style absolute monarchy.
In the hierarchical structures that characterize Asian societies (and Asian American subcultures ... more In the hierarchical structures that characterize Asian societies (and Asian American subcultures by extension), the concept of grace is typically presented as a form of unmerited favor which places the recipient into some kind of debt-relationship with the giver. Ironically, grace can become a guilt trip that leads Christians of Asian and Asian American descent to conceive of God as a cosmic Patron who can never be repaid. On a similar note, Western missiologists have recently advocated the recovery of patronage concepts in the Bible which are supposedly nearer to non-Western cultures, without realizing how their misapplication has often created and reinforced the very kinds of hierarchy in Asian Christian communities that the Bible subverts. This article engages the latest work on gift-giving, patronage, and covenant to reexamine how the concept of grace can be truly good news for Asian and Asian American Christians in a manner that is biblically accurate and culturally relevant.
The label of “model minority” for Asian Americans has rightly come under scrutiny due to its role... more The label of “model minority” for Asian Americans has rightly come under scrutiny due to its role in constructing a new cultural narrative that repositioned them as desirable immigrants. Among Asian American Christians, the construct of “model minority” has often been mirrored in the biblical book of Ruth since she, as ancient Israel’s most famous daughter-in-law, is portrayed as compliant, loyal, and industrious despite being a “perpetual foreigner.”
Recent global developments have mounted a challenge to this account of the submissive “model minority.” Since Ruth’s character is ambiguous and has been (mis)used at times among Asian American Christians as a “biblical” example, the real “model minority” is found in Jeremiah’s portrayal of Ebed-Melech. He intervenes on behalf of a prophet about to be killed and speaks truth to power (Jeremiah 38). However, Ebed-Melech is frequently overlooked because of the unfounded assumption that, as a black Cushite, he must have been a slave and/or eunuch.
Lamin Sanneh has influentially observed that translating the Bible is always a seminal act of doi... more Lamin Sanneh has influentially observed that translating the Bible is always a seminal act of doing contextual theology. While this has been well demonstrated for the African context, it has rarely been explored for the Asian context. This article examines the Chinese Union Version (CUV) Bible of 1919, a venerated translation that is simply ‘the Bible’ for Chinese Christians. As a result of being mainly the work of Western translators, however, the CUV has lexicalised and sacralised a distinctly Western and Protestant understanding of sin as ‘crime’ which has become conventional usage among Chinese Christians. Even so, the linguistic potential for defamiliarising the concept of sin and recasting it in a more contextual manner for Chinese readers already lies within the cuv. Greater attention to the CUV's concreteness in rendering Old Testament sin-idioms, as opposed to the standard Protestant abstractions, would therefore refresh the voice of Chinese Christianity.
The past decades have seen many calls for Asian contextual theology that is both recognizably Asi... more The past decades have seen many calls for Asian contextual theology that is both recognizably Asian and true to the Bible's message. Given the lack of consensus on how to do such theology, however, the present study proposes that the Old Testament itself provides a worthy example to follow. Using the book of Jeremiah as a case study, it is suggested that the prophet's engagement with the historical situation and theological issues of the sixth century BCE—fatalism, the identity of the divine vis-à-vis monism, prosperity theology, and cosmic suffering—offers a hermeneutical model for engaging modern Asian religious issues such as Islam, Hinduism, folk religion, and Buddhism.
Christians have historically taken several approaches to the contested question of whether the Go... more Christians have historically taken several approaches to the contested question of whether the God of Christianity and the God of Islam are the same deity. In the most recent round in 2015, Wheaton College became embroiled in controversy after Larycia Hawkins, a professor of political science, stated that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. By contrast in the following year, Nabeel Qureshi, a Christian apologist who had converted from Islam, continued to frame the choice between Allah and Jesus in either-or terms, as seen in his book’s title, No God But One: Allah Or Jesus? (itself a sequel to his Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus). These debates have continued during the last several years with systematic theologians, philosophers of religion, and missiologists all weighing in on the “Same God Question” (SGQ).
Notably missing from this discussion has been the contribution of OT specialists regarding the SGQ. The OT had long ago addressed what missiologists call the Term Question (TQ)—the proper way to denote a given deity. In statements such as “Yahweh your God ... is a lord of lords and a great and awesome El” (Deut 10:17) and “El, God, Yahweh has spoken” (Ps 50:1), Israel’s deity is identified by a fourfold combination of (1) personal name (“Yahweh”), (2) category and epithet (“god/God,” Heb. ’ĕlōhîm), (3) title (“lord,” Heb. ’ādôn), and (4) a term which is both a Semitic high god’s name as well as a general Hebrew term for deity (“El/god,” ’ēl). In this earliest of answers to the TQ, the OT portrays Yahweh’s uniqueness within the ancient Near Eastern pantheon as both similarities to and differences from deities such as El and Baal. The Semitic term ’ēl also underlies the Arabic terms ’ilah (“god, God“) and allāh. These factors make the OT’s solution to the TQ an instructive precursor to modern debates about the SGQ. Thus, the present article also applies the OT’s contextualization of the TQ to modern languages for which translators have wrestled with the SGQ such as Arabic, Chinese, Korean, and Malay/Indonesian.
In his 1934 overview of Chinese Bible versions, Marshall Broomhall observed that the translators ... more In his 1934 overview of Chinese Bible versions, Marshall Broomhall observed that the translators of the Chinese Union Version (CUV) into Mandarin surprisingly found Wenli easier to work with than vernacular Mandarin. Their struggle in using Mandarin is belied by the fact that the Mandarin CUV produced by the translators is a work of literary beauty which Chinese Christians still esteem today. However, it also means that its linguistic limitations in using Mandarin have remained an under-examined area of research. Thus, this article explores the CUV's translation methodology at the intersection of semantics and pragmatics, particularly in its renderings of irony, sarcasm, and rebuke-three communicative devices which require consideration of both semantic and pragmatic elements to understand correctly.
Kontextualisierung ist mehr als ein Set von Methoden, die Missionare in ihrem Bemühen um die Über... more Kontextualisierung ist mehr als ein Set von Methoden, die Missionare in ihrem Bemühen um die Übersetzung der biblischen Botschaft in fremde kulturelle Kontexte erfunden haben. Schon die Bibel selbst ist nicht nur kontextuell zu verstehen, sondern in ihr geschieht Kontextualisierung – und zwar nicht erst im Neuen Testament, sondern schon im Alten Testament. Dieser Artikel zeigt Grundzüge der Kontextualisierung im Alten Testament und schaut anschließend auf drei Themenbereiche, die von besonderer Bedeutung für asiatische Kontexte sind und eine wichtige Vorbildfunktion für heutige Kontextualisierung haben.
Old Testament scholarship increasingly recognizes that honor and shame were ubiquitous cultural v... more Old Testament scholarship increasingly recognizes that honor and shame were ubiquitous cultural values in ancient Israel. While this development has led to several full-length studies on honor and shame in OT prosaic books, OT poetic books in which honor-shame terminology features even more prominently have yet to be studied in detail, especially the lament psalms and the related penitential prayers of the post-exilic era. This article therefore explores the semantic fields of honor and shame in the various kinds of OT lament—individual laments and communal laments in poetry, as well as penitential prayers in prose. Though distinctive in their own way, each lament tradition closely links the suffering supplicant’s shame to the honor of YHWH. This entwinement of divine and human identities empowers the supplicant to lean into shaming experiences—a cultural uniqueness of OT lament traditions when considered in the light of psychology and anthropology.
This is the front matter for a new OT textbook that I had the privilege of co-editing with Dr Ang... more This is the front matter for a new OT textbook that I had the privilege of co-editing with Dr Angukali Rotokha. Here is the description from the back cover: "Exploring the Old Testament in Asia is the first evangelical Old Testament textbook written both from and for an Asian cultural context. Rooted in the theological conviction that God still speaks through the Old Testament in all its fullness, the twelve essays in this book address key theological issues pertinent to the diverse cultures and contexts of Asia. Touching on topics from polytheism and kinship bonds to Scripture translation and the biblical conception of wisdom, the writers position themselves in conversation with Asia's rich spiritual, cultural, and literary heritage. The result is a theological contribution that is both contextually relevant and biblically faithful."
This is the pre-pub front matter for my new book, Contextualization and the Old Testament: Betwee... more This is the pre-pub front matter for my new book, Contextualization and the Old Testament: Between Asian and Western Perspectives (Asia Theological Association/Langham, 2022). Here is the description from the back cover: "Christianity is often viewed in Asia as a Western imposition. Challenging this, Dr. Jerry Hwang examines the Old Testament’s cultural engagement of its ancient Near Eastern context, arguing that Scripture itself provides the ultimate model for contextualizing theology in Asia. While it is common for missiological studies to ignore the Old Testament in their discussion of contextualization, truly biblical contextualization must include the whole Bible, not simply the New Testament. This study provides insightful discourse between the Old Testament and various Asian contexts, while demonstrating how Asian perspectives can help overcome the Eurocentrism prevalent in Old Testament scholarship. This is an ideal resource for scholars and practitioners interested in a biblical perspective of contextualization, especially as related to constructing theology that honors the truth of Scripture in the context of Asia."
"[From Eisenbrauns website]
To whom is Moses speaking in Deuteronomy? This question is controver... more "[From Eisenbrauns website]
To whom is Moses speaking in Deuteronomy? This question is controversial in OT scholarship. Some passages in Deuteronomy indicate that Moses is addressing the first exodus generation that witnessed Horeb (Deut 5:3–4), while other passages point to the second exodus generation that survived the wilderness (Deut 1:35; 2:14–16). Redaction critics such as Thomas Römer and John Van Seters view the chronological problems in Deuteronomy as evidence of multiple tradition layers. Although other scholars have suggested that Deuteronomy's conflation of chronology is a rhetorical move to unify Israel's generations, no analysis has thus far explored in detail how the blending of "you" and the "fathers" functions as a rhetorical device. However, a rhetorical approach to the "fathers" is especially appropriate in light of three features of Deuteronomy.
First, a rhetorical approach recognizes that the repetitiveness of the Deuteronomic style is a homiletical strategy designed to inculcate the audience with memory. The book is shot through with exhortations for Israel to remember the past. Second, a rhetorical approach recognizes that collective memory entails the transformation of the past through actualization for the present. Third, a rhetorical approach to Deuteronomy accords well with the book's self-presentation as "the words that Moses spoke" (1:1). The book of Deuteronomy assumes a canonical posture by embedding the means of its own oral and written propagation, thereby ensuring that the voice of Moses speaking in the book of Deuteronomy resounds in Israel's ears as a perpetually authoritative speech-act.
The Rhetoric of Remembrance demonstrates that Deuteronomy depicts the corporate solidarity of Israel in the land promised to the "fathers" (part 1), under the sovereignty of the same "God of the fathers" across the nation's history (part 2), as governed by a timeless covenant of the "fathers" between YHWH and his people (part 3). In the narrative world of Deuteronomy, the "fathers" begin as the patriarchs, while frequently scrolling forward in time to include every generation that has received YHWH's promises but nonetheless continues to await their fulfillment.
Hwang's study is an insightful, innovative approach that addresses crucial aspects of the Deuteronomic style with a view to the theological effect of that style."
Hosea 7–8 contains one of the more potent but overlooked statements of political theology in the ... more Hosea 7–8 contains one of the more potent but overlooked statements of political theology in the Hebrew Bible. While it is common to view “politics” narrowly in terms of government and diplomacy, Hosea and other eighth-century prophets offer a “theopolitics” (to borrow Martin Buber’s term) that traces the holistic connections between religious, political, and economic sins on the international scene with their counterparts on the domestic scene. Particularly in chapters 7–8, the theopolitics of Hosea uses a remarkable combination of metaphor and wordplay to confront toxic leaders and their enablers among the people. Rather than engaging in power politics, Israel must learn to embrace weakness and recognize Yahweh as sovereign over the entire order of creation and empires, against all appearances, even as his own people and land are shrinking. This results in a national identity for Israel which defies the usual categories, making Hosea 7–8 a model of creativity, boldness, and misdirection for resistance literature and protest politics today.
Scholars of the Hebrew Bible tend to dismiss Deuteronomy’s “Law of the King” (17:14–20) as a utop... more Scholars of the Hebrew Bible tend to dismiss Deuteronomy’s “Law of the King” (17:14–20) as a utopian construct that was never realistic and/or historical. Underlying these views, however, are certain assumptions about what is culturally plausible in a world dominated by sacral kingship. Since this has been the most common form of government in human history (as shown by Francis Oakley, David Graeber, and Marshall Sahlins, among other comparativists), any generalizations about the historicity of the “Law of the King” must engage in a broader intercultural analysis of theopolitics, divine right of kings, and separation of powers. This article sets the “Law of the King” in the larger context of sacral kingship in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. What emerges from such a descriptive comparison is the bridging of a notable false dichotomy in Old Testament scholarship—Israel’s particular form of sacral kingship is both distinctive as well as realistic in nature. This conclusion suggests that skepticism about the historicity of sacral kingship in Deuteronomy is beholden to a Eurocentric frame of reference which, somewhat ironically, is also skeptical of Western-style absolute monarchy.
In the hierarchical structures that characterize Asian societies (and Asian American subcultures ... more In the hierarchical structures that characterize Asian societies (and Asian American subcultures by extension), the concept of grace is typically presented as a form of unmerited favor which places the recipient into some kind of debt-relationship with the giver. Ironically, grace can become a guilt trip that leads Christians of Asian and Asian American descent to conceive of God as a cosmic Patron who can never be repaid. On a similar note, Western missiologists have recently advocated the recovery of patronage concepts in the Bible which are supposedly nearer to non-Western cultures, without realizing how their misapplication has often created and reinforced the very kinds of hierarchy in Asian Christian communities that the Bible subverts. This article engages the latest work on gift-giving, patronage, and covenant to reexamine how the concept of grace can be truly good news for Asian and Asian American Christians in a manner that is biblically accurate and culturally relevant.
The label of “model minority” for Asian Americans has rightly come under scrutiny due to its role... more The label of “model minority” for Asian Americans has rightly come under scrutiny due to its role in constructing a new cultural narrative that repositioned them as desirable immigrants. Among Asian American Christians, the construct of “model minority” has often been mirrored in the biblical book of Ruth since she, as ancient Israel’s most famous daughter-in-law, is portrayed as compliant, loyal, and industrious despite being a “perpetual foreigner.”
Recent global developments have mounted a challenge to this account of the submissive “model minority.” Since Ruth’s character is ambiguous and has been (mis)used at times among Asian American Christians as a “biblical” example, the real “model minority” is found in Jeremiah’s portrayal of Ebed-Melech. He intervenes on behalf of a prophet about to be killed and speaks truth to power (Jeremiah 38). However, Ebed-Melech is frequently overlooked because of the unfounded assumption that, as a black Cushite, he must have been a slave and/or eunuch.
Lamin Sanneh has influentially observed that translating the Bible is always a seminal act of doi... more Lamin Sanneh has influentially observed that translating the Bible is always a seminal act of doing contextual theology. While this has been well demonstrated for the African context, it has rarely been explored for the Asian context. This article examines the Chinese Union Version (CUV) Bible of 1919, a venerated translation that is simply ‘the Bible’ for Chinese Christians. As a result of being mainly the work of Western translators, however, the CUV has lexicalised and sacralised a distinctly Western and Protestant understanding of sin as ‘crime’ which has become conventional usage among Chinese Christians. Even so, the linguistic potential for defamiliarising the concept of sin and recasting it in a more contextual manner for Chinese readers already lies within the cuv. Greater attention to the CUV's concreteness in rendering Old Testament sin-idioms, as opposed to the standard Protestant abstractions, would therefore refresh the voice of Chinese Christianity.
The past decades have seen many calls for Asian contextual theology that is both recognizably Asi... more The past decades have seen many calls for Asian contextual theology that is both recognizably Asian and true to the Bible's message. Given the lack of consensus on how to do such theology, however, the present study proposes that the Old Testament itself provides a worthy example to follow. Using the book of Jeremiah as a case study, it is suggested that the prophet's engagement with the historical situation and theological issues of the sixth century BCE—fatalism, the identity of the divine vis-à-vis monism, prosperity theology, and cosmic suffering—offers a hermeneutical model for engaging modern Asian religious issues such as Islam, Hinduism, folk religion, and Buddhism.
Christians have historically taken several approaches to the contested question of whether the Go... more Christians have historically taken several approaches to the contested question of whether the God of Christianity and the God of Islam are the same deity. In the most recent round in 2015, Wheaton College became embroiled in controversy after Larycia Hawkins, a professor of political science, stated that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. By contrast in the following year, Nabeel Qureshi, a Christian apologist who had converted from Islam, continued to frame the choice between Allah and Jesus in either-or terms, as seen in his book’s title, No God But One: Allah Or Jesus? (itself a sequel to his Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus). These debates have continued during the last several years with systematic theologians, philosophers of religion, and missiologists all weighing in on the “Same God Question” (SGQ).
Notably missing from this discussion has been the contribution of OT specialists regarding the SGQ. The OT had long ago addressed what missiologists call the Term Question (TQ)—the proper way to denote a given deity. In statements such as “Yahweh your God ... is a lord of lords and a great and awesome El” (Deut 10:17) and “El, God, Yahweh has spoken” (Ps 50:1), Israel’s deity is identified by a fourfold combination of (1) personal name (“Yahweh”), (2) category and epithet (“god/God,” Heb. ’ĕlōhîm), (3) title (“lord,” Heb. ’ādôn), and (4) a term which is both a Semitic high god’s name as well as a general Hebrew term for deity (“El/god,” ’ēl). In this earliest of answers to the TQ, the OT portrays Yahweh’s uniqueness within the ancient Near Eastern pantheon as both similarities to and differences from deities such as El and Baal. The Semitic term ’ēl also underlies the Arabic terms ’ilah (“god, God“) and allāh. These factors make the OT’s solution to the TQ an instructive precursor to modern debates about the SGQ. Thus, the present article also applies the OT’s contextualization of the TQ to modern languages for which translators have wrestled with the SGQ such as Arabic, Chinese, Korean, and Malay/Indonesian.
In his 1934 overview of Chinese Bible versions, Marshall Broomhall observed that the translators ... more In his 1934 overview of Chinese Bible versions, Marshall Broomhall observed that the translators of the Chinese Union Version (CUV) into Mandarin surprisingly found Wenli easier to work with than vernacular Mandarin. Their struggle in using Mandarin is belied by the fact that the Mandarin CUV produced by the translators is a work of literary beauty which Chinese Christians still esteem today. However, it also means that its linguistic limitations in using Mandarin have remained an under-examined area of research. Thus, this article explores the CUV's translation methodology at the intersection of semantics and pragmatics, particularly in its renderings of irony, sarcasm, and rebuke-three communicative devices which require consideration of both semantic and pragmatic elements to understand correctly.
Kontextualisierung ist mehr als ein Set von Methoden, die Missionare in ihrem Bemühen um die Über... more Kontextualisierung ist mehr als ein Set von Methoden, die Missionare in ihrem Bemühen um die Übersetzung der biblischen Botschaft in fremde kulturelle Kontexte erfunden haben. Schon die Bibel selbst ist nicht nur kontextuell zu verstehen, sondern in ihr geschieht Kontextualisierung – und zwar nicht erst im Neuen Testament, sondern schon im Alten Testament. Dieser Artikel zeigt Grundzüge der Kontextualisierung im Alten Testament und schaut anschließend auf drei Themenbereiche, die von besonderer Bedeutung für asiatische Kontexte sind und eine wichtige Vorbildfunktion für heutige Kontextualisierung haben.
Old Testament scholarship increasingly recognizes that honor and shame were ubiquitous cultural v... more Old Testament scholarship increasingly recognizes that honor and shame were ubiquitous cultural values in ancient Israel. While this development has led to several full-length studies on honor and shame in OT prosaic books, OT poetic books in which honor-shame terminology features even more prominently have yet to be studied in detail, especially the lament psalms and the related penitential prayers of the post-exilic era. This article therefore explores the semantic fields of honor and shame in the various kinds of OT lament—individual laments and communal laments in poetry, as well as penitential prayers in prose. Though distinctive in their own way, each lament tradition closely links the suffering supplicant’s shame to the honor of YHWH. This entwinement of divine and human identities empowers the supplicant to lean into shaming experiences—a cultural uniqueness of OT lament traditions when considered in the light of psychology and anthropology.
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Books by Jerry Hwang
To whom is Moses speaking in Deuteronomy? This question is controversial in OT scholarship. Some passages in Deuteronomy indicate that Moses is addressing the first exodus generation that witnessed Horeb (Deut 5:3–4), while other passages point to the second exodus generation that survived the wilderness (Deut 1:35; 2:14–16). Redaction critics such as Thomas Römer and John Van Seters view the chronological problems in Deuteronomy as evidence of multiple tradition layers. Although other scholars have suggested that Deuteronomy's conflation of chronology is a rhetorical move to unify Israel's generations, no analysis has thus far explored in detail how the blending of "you" and the "fathers" functions as a rhetorical device. However, a rhetorical approach to the "fathers" is especially appropriate in light of three features of Deuteronomy.
First, a rhetorical approach recognizes that the repetitiveness of the Deuteronomic style is a homiletical strategy designed to inculcate the audience with memory. The book is shot through with exhortations for Israel to remember the past. Second, a rhetorical approach recognizes that collective memory entails the transformation of the past through actualization for the present. Third, a rhetorical approach to Deuteronomy accords well with the book's self-presentation as "the words that Moses spoke" (1:1). The book of Deuteronomy assumes a canonical posture by embedding the means of its own oral and written propagation, thereby ensuring that the voice of Moses speaking in the book of Deuteronomy resounds in Israel's ears as a perpetually authoritative speech-act.
The Rhetoric of Remembrance demonstrates that Deuteronomy depicts the corporate solidarity of Israel in the land promised to the "fathers" (part 1), under the sovereignty of the same "God of the fathers" across the nation's history (part 2), as governed by a timeless covenant of the "fathers" between YHWH and his people (part 3). In the narrative world of Deuteronomy, the "fathers" begin as the patriarchs, while frequently scrolling forward in time to include every generation that has received YHWH's promises but nonetheless continues to await their fulfillment.
Hwang's study is an insightful, innovative approach that addresses crucial aspects of the Deuteronomic style with a view to the theological effect of that style."
Papers by Jerry Hwang
Recent global developments have mounted a challenge to this account of the submissive “model minority.” Since Ruth’s character is ambiguous and has been (mis)used at times among Asian American Christians as a “biblical” example, the real “model minority” is found in Jeremiah’s portrayal of Ebed-Melech. He intervenes on behalf of a prophet about to be killed and speaks truth to power (Jeremiah 38). However, Ebed-Melech is frequently overlooked because of the unfounded assumption that, as a black Cushite, he must have been a slave and/or eunuch.
Notably missing from this discussion has been the contribution of OT specialists regarding the SGQ. The OT had long ago addressed what missiologists call the Term Question (TQ)—the proper way to denote a given deity. In statements such as “Yahweh your God ... is a lord of lords and a great and awesome El” (Deut 10:17) and “El, God, Yahweh has spoken” (Ps 50:1), Israel’s deity is identified by a fourfold combination of (1) personal name (“Yahweh”), (2) category and epithet (“god/God,” Heb. ’ĕlōhîm), (3) title (“lord,” Heb. ’ādôn), and (4) a term which is both a Semitic high god’s name as well as a general Hebrew term for deity (“El/god,” ’ēl). In this earliest of answers to the TQ, the OT portrays Yahweh’s uniqueness within the ancient Near Eastern pantheon as both similarities to and differences from deities such as El and Baal. The Semitic term ’ēl also underlies the Arabic terms ’ilah (“god, God“) and allāh. These factors make the OT’s solution to the TQ an instructive precursor to modern debates about the SGQ. Thus, the present article also applies the OT’s contextualization of the TQ to modern languages for which translators have wrestled with the SGQ such as Arabic, Chinese, Korean, and Malay/Indonesian.
To whom is Moses speaking in Deuteronomy? This question is controversial in OT scholarship. Some passages in Deuteronomy indicate that Moses is addressing the first exodus generation that witnessed Horeb (Deut 5:3–4), while other passages point to the second exodus generation that survived the wilderness (Deut 1:35; 2:14–16). Redaction critics such as Thomas Römer and John Van Seters view the chronological problems in Deuteronomy as evidence of multiple tradition layers. Although other scholars have suggested that Deuteronomy's conflation of chronology is a rhetorical move to unify Israel's generations, no analysis has thus far explored in detail how the blending of "you" and the "fathers" functions as a rhetorical device. However, a rhetorical approach to the "fathers" is especially appropriate in light of three features of Deuteronomy.
First, a rhetorical approach recognizes that the repetitiveness of the Deuteronomic style is a homiletical strategy designed to inculcate the audience with memory. The book is shot through with exhortations for Israel to remember the past. Second, a rhetorical approach recognizes that collective memory entails the transformation of the past through actualization for the present. Third, a rhetorical approach to Deuteronomy accords well with the book's self-presentation as "the words that Moses spoke" (1:1). The book of Deuteronomy assumes a canonical posture by embedding the means of its own oral and written propagation, thereby ensuring that the voice of Moses speaking in the book of Deuteronomy resounds in Israel's ears as a perpetually authoritative speech-act.
The Rhetoric of Remembrance demonstrates that Deuteronomy depicts the corporate solidarity of Israel in the land promised to the "fathers" (part 1), under the sovereignty of the same "God of the fathers" across the nation's history (part 2), as governed by a timeless covenant of the "fathers" between YHWH and his people (part 3). In the narrative world of Deuteronomy, the "fathers" begin as the patriarchs, while frequently scrolling forward in time to include every generation that has received YHWH's promises but nonetheless continues to await their fulfillment.
Hwang's study is an insightful, innovative approach that addresses crucial aspects of the Deuteronomic style with a view to the theological effect of that style."
Recent global developments have mounted a challenge to this account of the submissive “model minority.” Since Ruth’s character is ambiguous and has been (mis)used at times among Asian American Christians as a “biblical” example, the real “model minority” is found in Jeremiah’s portrayal of Ebed-Melech. He intervenes on behalf of a prophet about to be killed and speaks truth to power (Jeremiah 38). However, Ebed-Melech is frequently overlooked because of the unfounded assumption that, as a black Cushite, he must have been a slave and/or eunuch.
Notably missing from this discussion has been the contribution of OT specialists regarding the SGQ. The OT had long ago addressed what missiologists call the Term Question (TQ)—the proper way to denote a given deity. In statements such as “Yahweh your God ... is a lord of lords and a great and awesome El” (Deut 10:17) and “El, God, Yahweh has spoken” (Ps 50:1), Israel’s deity is identified by a fourfold combination of (1) personal name (“Yahweh”), (2) category and epithet (“god/God,” Heb. ’ĕlōhîm), (3) title (“lord,” Heb. ’ādôn), and (4) a term which is both a Semitic high god’s name as well as a general Hebrew term for deity (“El/god,” ’ēl). In this earliest of answers to the TQ, the OT portrays Yahweh’s uniqueness within the ancient Near Eastern pantheon as both similarities to and differences from deities such as El and Baal. The Semitic term ’ēl also underlies the Arabic terms ’ilah (“god, God“) and allāh. These factors make the OT’s solution to the TQ an instructive precursor to modern debates about the SGQ. Thus, the present article also applies the OT’s contextualization of the TQ to modern languages for which translators have wrestled with the SGQ such as Arabic, Chinese, Korean, and Malay/Indonesian.