Volume 2008, L, Number 2
Author: / Peter MoréeTitle: / Fifty Years Communio viatorum: From a theological program into a platform for theology
Abstract: / In 1958 Communio Viatorum, the foreign language journal of the Protestant Theological Comenius Faculty in Prague was founded. For Czech Protestant theologians under the leadership of J. L. Hromádka the journal was a way to communicate the theological views and perspectives of Christians in the Eastern Bloc withoutdenouncing the one-party rule. For the communist regime – which had to sanction the journal – it was a way to gain legitimacy in the eyes of Christians in other parts of the world. In the field of biblical studies as well as church history the journal published many interesting articles, but the articles with a political focus had a strong tendency of collaboration with the communist regime.
Keywords: / Communio Viatorum – theological journals – J. L. Hromádka – Protestant Theological Comenius Faculty – Communism – contemporary church history
Author: / Viktor Ber
Title: / Moses and Jethro harmony and conflict in the interpretation of Exodus 18
Abstract: / Exodus 18 is the last chapter of the wilderness section in the book of Exodus. Very often its commentators focus on harmonic, positive, and affirmative elements of the narrative in Exodus 18. This article deals with proposed harmonic readings of Exodus 18, but also seriously examines possible motifs of conflict or tension. The conclusion of the author is that the narrative does present harmony. However, this harmony is reached after real or potential conflicts are solved or avoided. An attempt is made to understand this narrative of resolved tensions in Exodus 18 in the context of theology in the book of Exodus.
Keywords: / Biblical studies – Old Testament studies – Exodus – Moses – Jethro – Zipporah – Midianite – conflict – harmony – Wilderness section
Author: / Walburga Zumbroich
Original title: / Die Schöpfung im Spannungsfeld der Theodizee-Frage. Rabbinische Erwagungen zum ersten biblischen Schöpfungsbericht.
English title:
Abstract: / The article examines how the theodicy question was answered by the rabbinic traditions. Some suggest that the experience of evil and suffering is a means of the Creator to bring his creation to deeper insights and to a better life. Not always though is suffering seen in the context of human guilt. Other voices see the existence of suffering as a result of an unfinished aspect in God himself, who has an ambivalent relation to his creation.
Keywords: / Theodicy – rabbinic traditions – midrash – Jewish tradition – suffering
Author: / Anthony Noble
Title: / ‘Choirs of Larks and Tibetan trumpets’: in search of the holy spirit in music
Abstract: / This paper sets out to examine ways in which musical works of art might embody, reflect or analogize aspects of our understanding of the nature of the Holy Spirit, and in particular how a purely musical (that is non-texted) medium attempts this. It begins by looking for musical settings of texts relating to the Holy Spirit, and endeavours to explain why the functional nature of liturgical music both circumscribes such works and has tended to limit the role of music as a discrete signifier of the theology and imagery of its topic. Having briefly discussed the notion that works of musical art may intrinsically embody, or at least ‘anticipate,’ theological truths, regardless of the aim of the composer or the understanding of the listener, this paper looks at one of Bach’s greatest organ works, a piece that stands as a testament to the pure power and art of music, and in it finds a pleasing musical analogy for the Trinity. Moving on to the great twentieth-century composer, Olivier Messiaen, this paper examines the musical imagery of another organ work, one explicitly written by the composer to try to ‘translate into music’ images of the Holy Spirit. Once again, though, it attempts to show that the work functions at a purely musical level whilst simultaneously allowing musical features to carry extra-musical significance.
Keywords: / Religious music – liturgical music – Holy Spirit – Pneumatology – Trinity – Hildegard of Bingen – Johann Sebastian Bach – Olivier Messiaen
Book reviews
Author: / Jiří Piškula
Reviewed book: / Jaroslav Hrdlička, Život a dílo Prof. Františka Kováře, příběh patriarchy a učence (Leben und Werk des Prof. František Kovář, Patriarch und Gelehrte), Brno: L. Marek, 2007, 523 S., ISBN 978-80-87127-05-6
Author: / Peter C. A. Morée
Reviewed book: / Daniel Deme (ed.), The Selected Works of Isaac of Stella, A Cistercian Voice from the Twelfth Century, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2007, 232 p., ISBN 978–0–7546–5366–0.