Divinity thesis and dissertation collection
Recent Submissions
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Transforming the finite: toward a Jacobi-ian ecological critique of big bang cosmology’s new German romantic philosophy of nature
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-12-01)Big bang cosmologists appear to utilize a neo-German romantic philosophy of nature, reinventing in the context of a modern science the critical monism through which Hölderlin, Schelling, Schlegel, and Novalis thought nature ... -
Faith-based social activism in Edinburgh: meaning, motive and definition
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)This thesis is a research investigation of the ways in which faith-based organisations (FBOs) engage in social activism with the goal of discovering how UK welfare reforms, including cuts in welfare provision and welfare ... -
First Christian ‘magicians’: early Christian afterlives of Matthew’s Magi (Matt 2:1-12)
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)Matthew’s magi (Matt 2:1-12) travel great lengths in the first three centuries CE. This thesis analyzes the early Christian afterlives of Matthew’s magi in the first three centuries in light of early Christian Wirkungsgeschichte ... -
Reconceptualising conversion: a phenomenological analysis of religious conversion, with particular reference to Maurice Merleau-Ponty
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)Religious conversion is often understood as a sudden, dramatic, emotionally intense, one-off experience which utterly revolutionises a convert’s life and religious worldview. This conception of conversion is driven by the ... -
Impact of the Keswick and Cambridge Holiness Movement on British Protestant Missions in Asia (1881- 1906), with special reference to the Church Missionary Society and the China Inland Mission
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)The religious revivals in later nineteenth-century Britain promoted significant commitment to the cause of overseas mission. One outgrowth of these revivals was the holiness movement, and particularly its expressions ... -
Marxism and Christianity: taking Roger Garaudy's project seriously
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)Roger Garaudy occupied a position at the centre of the debate with Louis Althusser, Lucien Sève and others over Marxist humanism within the French Communist Party. That, and his active participation in the Marxist–Christian ... -
Apostle to the foreskin: circumcision in the Letters of Paul
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)This thesis offers a comprehensive examination of the topic of circumcision in Paul’s epistles. Historically, Paul has been understood as abandoning the practice of circumcision due to his supposed abandonment of Judaism ... -
Kingdom of God in the New Testament
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)This thesis addresses a central problem in the field of New Testament and Christian Origins: the early Christian syntagm βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ, “kingdom of God.” It approaches the question by means of a series of case studies, ... -
Conservative in theology, liberal in spirit: modernism and the American Presbyterian Mission in Thailand, 1891-1941
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)The thesis examines to what extent, and in what ways, modernism impacted the American Presbyterian Mission (APM) in Thailand between 1891 and 1941. At the end of the nineteenth century, an American Protestant missionary ... -
Spiritual turn. On the commitment to God and the good in epistemology
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)It is commonly held that the search for truth is successful in proportion to the readiness of truth searchers to put aside their original beliefs and to accept whatever belief will appear to be proven. This view is taken ... -
Beloved Disciple as interpreter and author of scripture in the Gospel of John
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)This study explains the Gospel of John’s emphasis on its written medium as a literary text by proposing that the authoritative text of the Jewish scriptures is appropriated as model for the gospel’s likewise textual ... -
Revelation and divination in the Letters of Paul
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)This thesis examines Paul's claims to divine knowledge from the perspective of divination in the Graeco-Roman world. Throughout his letters Paul claims to convey the words and will of a deity (usually his ancestral ... -
Narrative spirituality and the infrapolitical self in the Dark Goddess intertext
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)In the last three decades a discourse on the ‘Dark Goddess’ has arisen in the context of the Anglo-American ‘spiritual milieu’, and more specifically in the Goddess Spirituality and contemporary Pagan movements. Between ... -
'A Christian dogmatic does not yet exist': the influence of the nineteenth century Historical Turn on the theological methodology of Herman Bavinck
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)It has long been recognized that the nineteenth century’s turn to history signaled an inflection point not only in historical studies, establishing its place as a ‘science’ (Wissenschaft) in the university but in the ... -
Church of Scotland periodicals and the shaping of Scottish opinion regarding South African apartheid and the Central African Federation, c. 1912–c. 1965
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)Using textual and visual material from Scottish Christian periodicals, this thesis examines the role of Christian humanitarianism in influencing Scottish public opinion relative to empire and race between c. 1912 and ... -
Implicit dimensions of explicit faith: inquiring into the centrality of belief by attending to the holistic character of Christian believing
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)This thesis is first and foremost a work of Christian systematic theology that brings in interdisciplinary resources as is deemed fit for its inquiry into why believing is centrally significant in and for Christianity ... -
Critical hermeneutics: contemporary philosophical perspectives in Turkey on the understanding and interpretation of the Qur'an
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)From the moment of its revelation, the Qur’an has held a pivotal importance for Muslims. However, reverence for the Qur’an did not by default mean an indiscriminate application of its message. On the contrary, as old as ... -
Semantics of ַרע (bad) in Ancient and Mishnaic Hebrew
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)From the 1960s on, linguistic theory has become increasingly integrated into the analysis of Biblical Hebrew. As a result of Biblical Hebrew being analysed as language, it has increasingly been studied as a portion of ... -
Public theology in post-1997 Hong Kong: the perspectives of Anglican theologians, scholars in Sino-Christian theology, and evangelical theologians, and a critical engagement with Stanley Hauerwas's theology
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)This thesis offers the first major study of the developments of Protestant public theology in Hong Kong. The thesis evaluates some of the major expressions of public theology that have arisen since 1997, referring to the ... -
Did Mark’s Jesus ‘live like a king?’: the Rex and Roman Imperial ideology in Mark’s Gospel
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)The Gospel of Mark stands out uniquely from the other gospels in its understanding and presentation of Jesus’ kingship. Matthew, Luke, and John’s gospels positively assign Jesus the title “king” (βασιλεύς) and in fact such ...
