Cosmogonic presuppositions in Hebrews and its first-century philosophical context

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation aims to consider the relationship between Hebrews' cosmogonicpresuppositions and its first-century philosophical context. It is a multimethodologicalresearch focusing on the historic-grammatical, socio-rhetorical, andcontent analysis methodologies applied to biblical studies. In addition, this researchdevelops a methodology that allows the discovery of a document's position on topicsother than its main topic, i.e. a methodology that could be termed a 'Text-linguisticexclusion and which consists of four steps.This dissertation comprises eight chapters: Chapters I–III tackle the problem of someof the introductory issues pertaining to Hebrews and analyse the cosmogonicpresuppositions found in first-century philosophy. Chapters IV and V analyseHebrews' text and provide the foundational analysis of the Greek text upon which thecosmogonic presuppositions in Hebrews were established, i.e. it displays themechanics of the Greek text, as well as its grammatical, textual, and literary issues.Chapter VI presents the cosmogonic presuppositions in Hebrews, and Chapter VIIcompares these with the cosmogonic presuppositions present in first-centuryphilosophy by focusing on four main aspects: 1) the literary component; 2) theCreator; 3) the procedure of creating; and 4) the creation itself. Chapter VIII followsas both a comprehensive summary and conclusion of this research.The main finding of this dissertation is that Hebrews embraces a new cosmogonicperspective for its time, built on coherent presuppositions developed mostly in itsreading of Jewish literature, among which the Old Testament, and particularlyGenesis 1-3, takes a predominant place. This new perspective stands apart from firstcentury cosmogonic presuppositions which were a plethoric mixture of thoughts.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University