Search

—

Literal meaning of many fragments of Hebrew Bible represents a function of God as the builder, expressed by active participle בנה bōne(h). The paper deals with God’s acting concerning creation of the world as well as his direct and indirect activity as the investor, the designer and the builder of some buildings; mainly Jewish sanctuaries. That biblical representation of God’s acting is closely connected with cosmogony and theology of ancient Hebrews. The paper does not deal with allegoric or symbolic meaning of the biblical fragments analysing here. As the result of the analysis there is draw out the conclusion that the function of God as a builder displays an important aspect of his biblical figure.

This paper aims at evidencing the thesis that Markan interpretative intercalations are a narrative structure that manifests profound theological engagement of the evangelist. This device is defined as an entanglement of two storylines in the A1–B–A2 pattern which by using the notions of simultaneity, contrast, irony, similarity, etc. offers a wholly novel meaning of the stories. Six intercalations of the St Mark’s gospel – 3 : 20–35; 5 : 21–43; 6 : 7–31; 11 : 12–23; 14 : 1–11, 53–72 – merge different episodes with distinct theological purposes and as such cannot be reduced to the rank of a literary or redactional device. All of them are concerned with the most essential topics of the Markan theology, such as Christology, especially in relation to suffering, requirements of true discipleship, vision of the future ecclesiastical community. St Mark in his intercalations reveals his elaborated, clear-cut theology, as well as narrative ingenuity and mastery.

The problem can be stated in the following question: Can a faithful fulfill two obligations of assisting at Mass on one Mass? The regulations are to be applied to answer the difficulty come mainly from two canons of 1983 Code of Canon Law: can. 1247 and can. 1248 § 1. Clarifying the problem the paper describes the canons and interprets norms that come from them. The conclusion is that although law allows to give two quite opposite answers to the question, for practical and for pastoral reasons there must be only one obliging response given by the competent ecclesiastical authority. It would be appropriate if diocesan bishop clearly pronounced what behavior is obliging in his diocese in the matter. Christ’s faithful have the right to know unmistakable what they are expected to do.

The paper presents a study on translations of a Greek word ποταμοφόρητος occurring in Rev 12 : 15. The Greek hapax legomenon ποταμοφόρητος is used in Rev 12 : 15. The part of the sentence containing ποταμοφόρητος is translated as: to sweep her away with the current. G. Schneider suggests a correction of the meaning of the word, concentrating on the conjectural purpose of being taken by water (drowning). In order to analyse this issue we begin with the study of etymology of the ποταμοφόρητος. It comes from the noun ποταμός and the adjective φορητός, which is a derivative of φορέω. Composita (compounds) formed with φορητός did not refer to any idea of a mortal threat. Till the turn of 19th century ποταμοφόρητος, apart from the Bible, was only certified in the Hesychius’ Lexicon (5th or 6th century). The Egyptian papyri, uncovered and analysed on the turn of the 19th and the 20th century, in which the ποταμοφόρητος is related to the overflows of the Nile, let us doubt Schneider’s proposal, however, still do not solve the problem. The next stage of the research consisted of the analysis of the classical and antique translations of Rev (VL, Vg, Syriac and Coptic translations), as well as Latin and Greek patristic commentaries, which support one of the aforementioned interpretations. The commentators understood the river carrying the Woman as the image of Church persecution and a desire to place the Church under the command of evil forces. One of the versions of the translation of Vetus Latina (type I) suggests that the archetype of the water torrent in Rev was the Nile. In the light of classical explanations as to the reasons of the river’s floodings, as well as the parallel in Ezek 29 : 3. 6 we can assume that it was the Nile that served as the archetype of the spewing torrent for the author of the Revelation.

Translation of zoological terms occurring in the biblical texts, from Hebrew or Greek into Polish, may cause difficulties to translators. The aim of this paper is to show what a translator of biblical books should pay attention to, in order to remain faithful to the intentions of the inspired author and to a contemporary knowledge about the fauna of the Holy Land. In case a word in an original text of the Scripture could not be assign clearly to a certain species of animal the inspired author meant, firstly the word should be considered in a wider context of the text that is being translated. This allows, among others, to state whether the text is dealing with a wild or a domesticated animal. Then it should be answered if the natural range of this animal (especially wild species) covered an area of Asia Minor and North Africa in biblical times. Such knowledge brings zoogeography, a field of science which investigate and describe the change of ranges of animal species. As far as domesticated species are concerned, it is important to determine the time and place of domestication and ways of uses of domesticated animals in the area. In this case another branch of zoology, called zooarchaeology, can be helpful. Translation of zoological terms can be facilitated also by referring to structurally related to them words, used in other Semitic languages – Akkadic, Ugaritic, and Arabic, in which similar-sounding names of animals survived. Therefore, a consultation with a biblical linguist is essential to obtain an important completion to an analysis of the word, especially on natural science level. While translating, it is necessary also to take into account literary and historical context of particular biblical pericopes, which contain references to animals, what was presented on the example of translation problems with Hebrew words taḥaš and qippōd.

This paper presents the connection between selected Polish biblical translations and the national and personal history of Polish people (14th–18th century). The history of Florian Psalter (14th/15th century) and that of Queen Sophia’s Bible (15th century) are related to the beginning of the Jagiellonian dynasty. The first printed biblical text in Polish (Prologue to the Gospel according to St. John, 1518/1519) and editions of the New Testament translated by Stanisław Murzynowski (1551–1553) testify to the development of Polish orthography. Both, the woodcuts of the Leopolita’s Bible (1561, 1575/1577) and the notes to the commentary on the Acts of the Apostles by Tomas Falconius (1566) give an account of the tumultuous history of Polish Reformation. The dedication in the second edition of Leopolita’s Bible (1975) and its alteration in 1577 attest to the failure of the first free royal election in Poland. The manuscript notes in Wrocław copy of Simon Budny’s Bible (1572) constitute an eyewitness account of the collapse of Poland at the end of 18th century. Whereas, the manuscript notes in the translation of Psalter by W. Wróbel constitute a chronicle of the Wilieziński family. Therefore, while talking about the history of Polish biblical translations one can talk about the history of Poland as a country, at the same time.

Many books of the Old Testament deal with the theme of human building activity. Among Old Testament narratives it is possible to distinguish the special ones which present a special kind of activity undertaken as a result of divine inspiration addressed to the leader of the Israel community. This way the leader becomes the leader-builder of Israel’s sanctuary (Herod the Great is omitted here because he is not mentioned in the text of the Old Testament). One can specify a few special attributes of the leader-builder of the sanctuary: the obedience and the trust in God, the piety, the prudence, the solicitude, the authority and the courage. The essential goal of the analysis in this paper is to expose those attributes.

The subject matter of the above paper is the role and position of the Church community in the rite of ordination to the priesthood in the byzantine tradition. It has been considered the split of the orthodox ministers into the church ministers (lower ordination) and ordained ministers (higher ordination). The influence of the local community upon the election of the candidates to priesthood has been weakened with time and nowadays within the Orthodox Church only the local bishop decides about the appointment of the new ministers and only the imposition of hands is regarded as the sacramental rite. The contemporary liturgy of ordination, however, has preserved some significant elements reminding us about the former equal importance of the community influence, who used to elect by offering to God and at the same time to accept their shepherds. This role of the Church is expressed by three main parts of the rites: 1) the election of a candidate, 2) the imposition of hands of the bishop and prayer, 3) the reception of ordination and of the newly ordained. Out of the presented liturgy of ordination one can draw the outline of the eastern ecclesiology of the sacrament of ordination, already elaborated by Prof. N. Afanasiev. This kind of liturgical ecclesiology may be of some help to the contemporary Church in regaining her more active role in electing and apointing her ministers and shepherds.

The paper analyzes the 9th century liturgy of the hours on the basis of the Liber officialis by Amalarius of Metz. The main issue is focused on reconstruction of order and prayers that may be found there. In each hour described by the author of the Liber officialis it is possible to find identical elements: explanation of prayer time, listing psalms, verses or other prayers, aim of each prayer and behavior of priest and congregation. Amalarius gave to all mentioned elements the allegorical interpretation.

The church from the beginning of its missionary work tried to substantiate it. Among other things, missionaries kept in their archives artifacts which proved the culture of peoples or nations they evangelized. Not only did they try to preserve local culture but also supported its development. The treasures of culture they collected and kept, in time proliferated and created impressive collections, the cataloguing and exhibiting of which served missionary education. The paper commences with showing the contribution of the church to the preservation of culture of evangelized nations, then it elaborates on the animation and educational role of missionary exhibitions and closes with formal and educational aims which should be accomplished by museums and missionary collections.

It is nowadays clear that Hebrew tradition must have received its material for biblical account of the Flood from some Mesopotamian sources. The XI Tablet of the Gilgamesh Epic is acknowledged by most scholars to be the prototype of biblical account, but also other opinions were presented. The paper deals with interrelationship between the biblical account and Mesopotamian document (tablet) from Nippur The Flood Story. There is shown detailed correspondence – as well as difference – of the two to proof the hypothesis that the author of Yahwistic (J) version in Genesis has adjusted the data of the document to his own needs and concepts.