Noah's Vineyard: Its Narrative Significance and New Creation Trajectory (original) (raw)
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The creation mandate reveals God’s intentions, which precede the fall into sin, for humanity to gloriously transform creation, pointing to a definitive, eschatological end, when humanity has finished subduing the earth. Redemptive history unfolds these intentions for humanity from creation to new creation. The redemptive-historical movement toward the new creation is driven by the creation mandate and is often symbolized by vineyards and wine, which exist at the convergence of the relationships among God, humans, and the earth established by the creation mandate. This dissertation studies the vineyard motif’s contribution to and communication of the theme of creation to new creation in the OT, revealing that vineyards are localized and temporary signs of the completed creation mandate, that is, the consummated creation. Part I provides an overview of the theme of creation to new creation (ch. 2) and a detailed look at creation, Canaan, and new creation (chs. 2–5), providing the redemptive-historical context within which to understand the vineyard motif. Part II examines vineyards and wine as they relate to “creation.” Chapter 6 argues that Noah’s vineyard reflects his role as a new Adam, fulfilling the creation mandate in a new creation. Chapter 7 considers God’s provision of vineyards and wine as the Creator for creation, the “hungry,” and his people Israel (Psalm 104 and 107, Hosea 2). Part III considers vineyards in relation to “Canaan,” specifically examining the function of vineyards in the Pentateuchal descriptions of the Promised Land (ch. 8), the Sabbath and Jubilee year regulations (ch. 9), and the Deuteronomic futility curses (ch. 10). Finally, Part IV considers vineyards that are associated with the eschatological future, including the “vine and fig tree” phrase (ch. 11), the twice-repeated promise that the “mountains will drip sweet wine” (ch. 12), and the eschatological visions in Isaiah 25 and Isaiah 65 (ch. 13). Chapter 14 summarizes the dissertation, noting that, throughout the OT, vineyards and wine represent God’s highest blessing on humanity and humanity’s highest agricultural achievement, symbolizing the new creation. Thus, vineyards and wine express God’s desire to encourage human joy and to facilitate fellowship between God and humans.
A Biblical Theology of Wine: How Viticulture Manifests the Salvation of God Through Judgment
The vine is one of the staple features of Israel’s rich agricultural bounty and a ready metaphor for the biblical writers. Throughout the canon, the dual symbolism of wine functions as a vivid way to express a prominent theme in redemptive history: salvation through judgment in blessing and curse. The prophets consistently use viticulture imagery to express both the riches of Yahweh’s blessings toward his people and the severe judgment he executes upon the wicked. This trajectory finds its fulfillment in the sin-bearing death of Jesus Christ, where he becomes a curse for God’s people so they might receive his blessing.
Green - Vineyards and Wine from Creation to New Creation.pdf
The creation mandate reveals God's intentions, which precede the fall into sin, for humanity to gloriously transform creation, pointing to a definitive, eschatological end, when humanity has finished subduing the earth. Redemptive history unfolds these intentions for humanity from creation to new creation. The redemptive-historical movement toward the new creation is driven by the creation mandate and is often symbolized by vineyards and wine, which exist at the convergence of the relationships among God, humans, and the earth established by the creation mandate. This dissertation studies the vineyard motif's contribution to and communication of the theme of creation to new creation in the OT, revealing that vineyards are localized and temporary signs of the completed creation mandate, that is, the consummated creation.
In the search for symbolic meaning of the Genesis "fruit
2020
The desire to determine what the Genesis "fruit" was comes from both its mystery and the fact that it became the source of the fall – as a result of being picked and consumed by a human. Generally speaking, all the known proposals of the interpretation of "the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil" can be divided into a literal interpretation, which refers to a particular natural fruit, and symbolic interpretations, in which the "fruit" is a symbol. The strictly theological proposal of understanding the "fruit" is maintained in the mainstream of moral theology, because it directs the symbolism of the "fruit" to the moral dimension of human behavior and leads to a situation of non-compliance of the prohibition, and so breaking the right given to man by God. This article is attempt to interpret the early chapters of the Book of Genesis which in hermeneutic and biblical philosophy seek deep and universal meanings of the Genesi...
Expelled from the Garden Again: Eve and the Shekhinah in Genesis Rabbah
Midrashic interpretation of Genesis 3, Adam and Eve's sin and banishment from the Garden of Eden, runs in two general directions. In one stream of tradition, the rabbis of the Tannaitic and Amoraic periods quite naturally focus on the narrative of the first couple: How is it that the serpent came to speak to Eve rather than Adam; why does Eve tell the serpent that she can't touch the tree; what kind of fruit did the couple eat? However, another strand of interpretation underscores the relationship between the Shekhinah and the Garden. Its focus is on the sin of eating the fruit as the cause for the Shekhinah's ascent into heaven. Once there, the indwelling of the Divine does not return to earth until Moses finishes construction of the Tabernacle. Within these two categories we find the repetition and development of several sub-themes, interpretive elements, biblical verses, and key words. In only one source, Genesis Rabbah, do the two main categories come together. I argue here that the overall force of the interpretations is in the direction of the Shekhinah's ascent and return; and this is true even for interpretations that focus on Adam and Eve. Along the way, the garden image from Song of Songs 4:16 through 5:1 becomes a metaphor for the Tabernacle and its sacrificial cult. As a result, habitation in the Tabernacle by the Divine signifies re-habitation of Eden—or, perhaps, the Tabernacle as a new Eden. Such an understanding eventually construes the covenant as the means by which the righteous can access Paradise; not the direct subject of this paper, but one that, along with this paper, is part of a larger study on gardens and their representation in Jewish literature from the Bible through the Amoraic period.
Tilling the garden again (Genesis 1-3 rediscovered)
1990
Each not only helped greatly in this dissertation finally appearing in one piece, but ensured that it did not, as it so often threatened, become so broad as to be unmanageable. My thanks must also go to Val Holtom who very foolishly offered to proofread the drafts. She needed all her skills in the English language to cope with my 'style' and her commitment in the face of great odds is much appreciated. Finally my thanks go to my long-suffering parents, particularity to my father's word processor, for their help and support, not only in this piece of work, but for the last ten years as I have slowly progressed towards my final objective of ordination.
Convivial Gardens: Genesis 2–3 in Agrarian and Space-Critical Perspective
Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology, 2023
Genesis 2–3 is among the most beloved yet misunderstood texts in the Hebrew Bible. Many biblical and post-biblical interpretations focus on themes of sin, death, and God’s banishment of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. These have fostered misapprehensions regarding the value of God’s creation and the dangerous image of an “Old Testament God of wrath.” This essay uses space-critical analysis to focus on the spaces of Eden—from ground to bodies to gardens—to show that Ivan Illich’s notion of “conviviality” best captures Eden’s true ethic of cooperation, environmental caretaking, and the positive portrait of a gentle God who makes humans by hand.
• On the Agricultural Imagery in Biblical Descriptions of Catastrophes
This article examines the use of agricultural imagery in biblical literature to embody the destructive force of war and other mass catastrophes. Activities such as vintage, harvest, threshing, and wine-pressing serve as metaphors for the actions of slaughtering, demolition and mass killing. The paper discusses the Ancient Near Eastern origins of the imagery under discussion, and resents the relevant examples from the Hebrew Bible, tracing the development of this absorbing metaphor, and analyzing the different meanings attached to it in different contexts. It shows that the use of destructive agricultural imagery first emerges in ancient Israel as an instance of popular phraseology. In turn, the imagery is employed as a common prophetic motif. The prophetic books examined demonstrate how each prophet appropriates earlier uses of the imagery in prophetic discourse and adapts the agricultural metaphors to suit specific rhetorical needs.