| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of this thesis Is to investigate the place
of the Remnant in the development of the Hebrew Religions
with regard to both the secular and theological uses of the
concept, In some recent theological books much attention
has been paid to the significance of the Remnant for Christian
theology. Professor H. H. Rowley has stressed the
close relationship between the Remnant concept and the doctrine
of Election. Professor T, W, Manson finds a development
of the prophetic doctrine of the Remnant through the concept
of the Suffering Servant in Second Isaiah and of the
Son of Man in Daniel to the sufferings and mission of Jesus
Christ who, in Himself, embodies the Remnant. He writes:
Whether we begin with the religion of the Old Testament
and work our way forward through prophecy and
apocalyptic or whether we start from the fact of
the Early Church and try to trace it to its beginnings
the idea of the faithful Remnant in the
Ariadne thread that leads us to the centre of the
labyrinth. There we find the Crucified who took
upon himself the form of a servant and became obedient
unto death:
Recently Eric Heaton has protested against the use
of the phrase "prophetic doctrine of the Remnant." In his
study of the root )NUIp he finds no certain indication that
the prophets themselves used the term remnant for any hope
In the future. In speaking of the remnant of Israel, they
were pointing instead to the greatness of the disaster
which was to overtake their nation. It is only in the secondary
strata of the prophetic books that we find the term
used with a positive, forward-looking significance. While
his work has added to our knowledge of the variety of uses
of the biblical root ýHý, he has failed to penetrate to
the inner meaning of the concept of the Remnant, and to work
out Its relationship to the doom-salvation motif and to the
concept of the People of God, While the identification, of
the various strata of the biblical writings is a necessary
task# Heaton's wholesale assignment of passages to a late day
by-passes the question of the origin of the concept in the
prophetic circles, Each passage should be examined in the
light of the relationship of the concept to the whole of the
prophet's teaching and should not be made to fit a pre-conceived
notion that the prophets could not have held a positive view of the Remnant.
There are four roots used for the Remnant in the Old Testament, ), Sl' 6 ý0 -7 JV) and ýýýV. The
concept will be studied principally in relation to these four
roots. Reference will also be made to places where the idea
of the Remnant, although not found in these roots, is implicit; as, for instance, in the story of the Call of Abraham. | en |
