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A Kingdom of Priests
According to the account in the Book of Exodus, God addresses the children of Israel as they stand before Mt. Sinai with the words, \"You shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation\" (19:6). The sentence, Martha Himmelfarb observes, is paradoxical, for priests are by definition a minority, yet the meaning in context is clear: the entire people is holy. The words also point to some significant tensions in the biblical understanding of the people of Israel. If the entire people is holy, why does it need priests? If membership in both people and priesthood is a matter not of merit but of birth, how can either the people or its priests hope to be holy? How can one reconcile the distance between the honor due the priest and the actual behavior of some who filled the role? What can the people do to make itself truly a kingdom of priests? Himmelfarb argues that these questions become central in Second Temple Judaism. She considers a range of texts from this period, including theBook of Watchers, theBook of Jubilees, legal documents from the Dead Sea Scrolls, the writings of Philo of Alexandria, and the Book of Revelation of the New Testament, and goes on to explore rabbinic Judaism's emphasis on descent as the primary criterion for inclusion among the chosen people of Israel-a position, she contends, that took on new force in reaction to early Christian disparagement of the idea that mere descent from Abraham was sufficient for salvation.
eBook
Holy Love in Ezekiel 36:16–32
This article demonstrates that intrinsic to the manifestation of Yahweh’s
in Ezekiel 36:16–32 is a manifestation of
for his people. The paper first lays groundwork by summarizing Costecalde’s lexical work of שדק (holiness) and briefly surveying OT texts speaking of God’s holiness as his care and deliverance. The heart of the article begins by studying Yahweh’s holiness in Ezekiel 36:16–32: Strong connections to the story and language of Exodus, plus a contrast between Yahweh’s and Marduk’s divine abandonment narratives, indicate that Yahweh’s holiness includes not only his unrivaled power but also his unrivaled commitment to his people. The article then assesses the presence of divine love in the passage. Contra scholars who critique Ezekiel’s alleged lovelessness, the article finds that the lavishness of Yahweh’s promises, the wife and shepherd imagery which link to Ezekiel 36:16–32, and the mention of „mercy” confirm that love is indeed part of the manifestation of Yahweh’s holiness. For Yahweh to vindicate his holy name in the sight of the nations and to show that „I am Yahweh,” the nations must see his love and not merely his power or judgment. The article concludes that in Ezekiel 36:16–32 Yahweh’s holiness is revealed to be a „love-holiness,” or a „holy love.”
Journal Article
Holiness and Pentecostal Movements
Since the 1830s, Holiness and Pentecostal movements have had a significant influence on many Christian churches, and they have been a central force in producing what is known today as World Christianity. This book demonstrates the advantages of analyzing them in relation to one another.
The Salvation Army, the Church of the Nazarene, the Wesleyan Church, and the Free Methodist Church identify strongly with the Holiness Movement. The Assemblies of God and the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World identify just as strongly with the Pentecostal Movement. Complicating matters, denominations such as the Church of God (Cleveland), the International Holiness Pentecostal Church, and the Church of God in Christ have harmonized Holiness and Pentecostalism. This book, the first in the new series Studies in the Holiness and Pentecostal Movements, examines these complex relationships in a multidisciplinary fashion. Building on previous scholarship, the contributors provide new ways of understanding the relationships, influences, and circulation of ideas among these movements in the United States, the United Kingdom, India, and Southeast and East Asia.
In addition to the editors, the contributors are Kimberly Ervin Alexander, Insik Choi, Robert A. Danielson, Chris E. W. Green, Henry H. Knight III, Frank D. Macchia, Luther Oconer, Cheryl J. Sanders, and Daniel Woods.
eBook
Two Moments in the Biography of Qedushah (a.k.a. Holiness)
This paper analyzes two transformative conceptions of qedushah (holiness) in medieval Jewish thought, Moses Maimonides’s and Moses Nahmanides’s. Maimonides reduces qedushah to the Mosaic commandments which he reconceives as communal institutions to constrain bodily desires and promote intellectualist values and as training for perfected individuals to de-corporealize themselves in imitation of God. Nahmanides argues that Maimonides’s legal reduction of qedushah leads to the absurd conclusion that the perfectly scrupulous law-abiding scoundrel who exploits loopholes in the law is qadosh! He therefore reconceives qedushah as a complement to the Mosaic commandments intended to counter the problem of the scoundrel. Thus qedushah is re-born as a corrective to abuse of the Law. Nahmanides then proposes two ways to achieve this goal: i) by rabbinic enactment of more laws to fill in (loop) holes in the Law and ii) by cultivating a virtue-oriented, non-legal conception of holiness as a character-trait that leads agents to act properly and spontaneously without legislation. For Maimonides the ultimate state of qedushah is the dis-embodied state of the intellect, for Nahmanides it is a state in which the whole person, body and soul, clings to the deity.
Journal Article
Holiness
Be holy because I am holy. Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.
The Christian life includes many demands, but perhaps none are as challenging or as misunderstood as the biblical command to \"be holy\" (Leviticus 11:44 and 1 Peter 1:16) or to \"be perfect\" (Matthew 5:48). How should we understand these charges?
In this volume, three scholars from the Wesleyan tradition offer a collective treatment of the theme of holiness that includes:
* exegesis of key biblical passages
* a survey across church history
* theological reflections on the relationship between entire sanctification and other doctrines
In addition, the coauthors constructively argue for a \"neo-holiness\" model that encourages the pursuit of Christian perfection but avoids the pitfalls of Pelagianism by incorporating historic understandings of grace and the work of the Holy Spirit with the best of the Wesleyan tradition.
Here, the commands to \"be holy\" and to \"be perfect\" take on new meaning. What may have been a burden becomes a blessing.
eBook
A holy people : Jewish and Christian perspectives on religious communal identity
This volume deals with the various ways in which Jews and Christians define their religious identity, people or community, as being holy. This is done throughout history to the present time and in an interdisciplinary perspective.
eBook
Building Charisma: The IPost-Mortem/I Sanctity Attributed to the Prince of Viana
This article aims to address the issue of post mortem charisma from the case of Carlos de Viana, crown prince of the kingdom of Navarre (1421–1461). Although he did not have a reputation for sanctity in life, from the moment of his death, miracles attributed to his intercession transformed devotion to ‘san’ Carlos de Viana into a mass phenomenon. The alleged sanctity of the Prince of Viana was part of a complex political process in which agents of the different peninsular states were involved in the second half of the 15th century and which led to the opening of a canonization process that would never see the light of day. But, at the same time, it is a good example of the notion of the charismatic figure, the miracle being one of the clearest manifestations of charisma, and of how it is possible to ‘build’ a charism post mortem.
Journal Article
Holiness and Unity
Drawing on the International Methodist – Catholic report on
, this article identifies
as both a divine attribute and as a Christian imperative, inextricably linked with the unity of Christians and of humanity. For humanity to be in the image and likeness of this holy God implies a participation in God’s holiness. Because human life is inescapably social, it implies that this holiness must be expressed in social interaction. For the life of the Christian Church to reflect the holiness of God requires a commitment to unity and actions that echo that commitment. This paper traces the biblical basis of the Judaeo-Christian belief in the holiness of God. It goes on to examine the obstacles and opportunities for Christian unity, particularly between the churches of the Wesleyan tradition and the Church of Rome.
Journal Article