NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion - Volume 41, Issue 1, 1987

The purpose of this article is to focus attention on what might prove to be the most important discovery of our time in the field of biblical studies: the structural use of numbers as a compositional technique. The insight that biblical texts are numerical compositions, i.e. texts of which the structure is fundamentally governed by certain (symbolic) numbers, has gradually been gaining ground the last couple of years. The phenomenon ‘numerical composition’, not unknown among classical and medieval scholars, has been little known, if not totally unknown, among biblical scholars until quite recently. Reviewing the most recent major publication on the subject, the Amsterdam dissertation of M. J. J. Menken, Numerical Literary Techniques in John. The Fourth Evangelist’s Use of Numbers of Words and Syllables, Supplements to Novum Testamentum, Vol. LV, Leiden 1985, the author sets it in the wider framework of research done in this respect. Trying to distinguish scholarly sound work from pseudo-scientific publications he gives a brief survey of what has been written on the subject so far and illustrates the importance of numerical structural analysis in biblical scholarship.

‘Sabbath is not frequently found in the Nag Hammadi texts (§ 1:1), but it has a clearly negative aspect in the ‘Exposition of Knowledge’ and the ‘Apocryphon of John’. Com-mentators of the ‘Gospel of Philip’ and the ‘Gospel of Truth’, however, find a very positive understanding of the word in these gnostic texts (§ 1:2-3). This contribution is an attempt to demonstrate that the usual interpretation of the latter treatise is not justified, and in order to pursue the precise meaning of Sabbath in Ever it is necessary to examine the meaning of the complicated digression on the parable of the Shepherd in this text (§ 2:4-5) with its distinctly gnostic interpretation (§ 3:7-9, 4: 10),sand its intertwining of (Jn 10: 1-) Mt 18:10ff. and Mt 12:11f. (-Jn 5:17) (§5:11-13) — a combination of texts which has nothing to do with the Diatessaron (§ 5:14). The elaboration on the theme of the lost sheep which has fallen into the pit (§ 6:15) is a clear instance of gnostic associative exegesis of the parable of the shepherd. In this exegesis the Sabbath is contrasted with the Perfect Day, the Sabbath denoting the cosmos or world of the Demiurge (6:17). The exegesis of the author is in close agreement with that of the Exposition of Knowledge.

The article sets out to analyse the validity of current opinions about the nature of Samaritan religion in the fourth century A.D. and to show the consequences for scholarship of changing perceptions of those ideas. In the first place it suggests that Baba Rabbah the Samaritan warrior-hero lived rather earlier than is currently accepted and, therefore, the changes that were ushered in by Baba were well in place before the fourth century.

It is argued that, until the time of Baba, Samaritanism was still seen to be a Jewish sect, albeit that there were differences within Samaritanism between the country-folk and the urban dwellers. The latter were probably more remote from Judaism than the former, and the difference in the attitude of Jewish and Christian observers towards the Samaritans may have been coloured by whether they were speaking of urban dwellers or country-folk.

After the time of Baba Samaritanism began to diverge rapidly from Judaism. One of the factors that triggered this divergence was probably the adoption of a text of the Pentateuch that had readings which supported developments in Samaritan theology. Thus the rise of the Samaritan Pentateuch is seen to be a feature of Baba’s activity.

Against the background of recent philosophical and theological discussions, the aim of this article is to find a viable way to speak coherently about (special) providence. It is suggested that the doctrine of providence should be worked out within a trinitarian framework: God’s agency in the world is to be characterized (1) as the revelation (in Jesus Christ) of his purposes of love and salvation; (2) as the inspiration of man (by the Holy Spirit) to pursue these purposes; and (3) as the (re-)creation of the conditions that enable human beings to participate in God’s providential agency. Within the context of this interpretation, on the one hand real contingency is presupposed as a necessary condition for human freedom. On the other hand, belief in providence is to be seen as an expression of trust: Whatever happens, God will eventually realize his purposes of love and salvation, and human beings are called to participate in his providential agency.