Designed as an introduction to the topic of „The Bible in Culture", this article is, by its very nature, synthetic. The author merely wanted to signal the necessity of a new approach to the Biblical literature which was by no means being created in isolation, independently of rich cultural milieu. For Israel, such an environment was not only a great civilization of Egypt, Anatolia or Mesopotamia but also traditional religions of Syria and Palestine. The metaphor of the seed sown into the soil, to which the Gospel so often refers, has its deep meaning also when applied to the Old Testament. Biblical authors were firmly rooted in the culture of their era, transgressing the borders of the chosen nation. However, with time a tendency would appear of Israel closing itself to the influence of the pagan world. Christ, neverthe- less, addresses his good news to all peoples (Mt 28,19), which presupposes its inculturation depending on the milieu of a given epoch.
The article gives a brief presentation of the identity of Septuagint and its history. The issues dealt with are: the literary unity of LXX, its basic terminology and origins, its canon as well as its significance for Judaism and for modern biblical studies.
There are three Latin texts of the Bible. The ancient vetus latina version used by the Christian writers before Jerome, the Vulgate of st. Jerome and the Neo-Vulgate. Our article deals with the formation and the characteristic features of each version and a special impact the Vulgate had on the Christian literature. We focus our presentation on three periods: the golden age of the patristic literature in the IV- V centuries; the transitional period in the VI-VII centuries and the middle ages, mainly XII-XIII centuries. We present the authors of the most important commen- taries, sermons and other works connected with the Bible and approach some problems connected with the interpretation and meaning of Scripture.
A study of the Quran makes it clear, that the New and Old Testament traditions are manifest in various forms in the sacred book of Muslims. This paper presents the phenomenon of these biblical borrowings, giving the references in the Quran to the biblical persons and main themes. One finds many of the Old and New Testament stories of the prophets sometimes in precise forms where the Quranic records are relative identical with the Biblical versions. On other fragments the Quranic narra- tives contain elements of Biblical traditions mixed with folklore and fables extracted from the Talmud and in some cases (such as the story of Abraham and the idols) the sources are entirely Midrashic-Haggadic or Apocryphal. It is worth to be pointed out that the influence of orthodox Christianity on the Quran was slight but apocryphal and heretical Christian legends are clearly visible in the various Quranic fragments. Probably it is a result of Muhammad’s journeys between Syria, Hijaz, and yemen.
Scholars have adopted a number of different theories explaining the phenomenon of the biblical borrowings found in the Quran. For example it is said about Muham- mad’s dependence upon Jewish teachers and thus an overarching Jewish influence on Islam. It is generally admitted that Muhammad had opportunity to come into contact with yemenite, Abyssinian, Ghassanite, and Syrian Christians, especially heretic.
Analyzes of the Quran in the light of parallel passages in the Bible, Talmud and Apocrypha permits us to formulate an idea that early Islamic revelations were com- pilation of Muhammad inspiration with repetition of information coming to his ears, some of it Biblical and true to history, the rest predominantly mythical and fictitious. This thesis is not accepted by Muslim scholars, who maintain that the Qur’an is the divine word of God without any interpolation.
The main aim of this article is to present necessary relations between the Bible (and biblical studies) - understood as a source of theology - and theology. At the beginning the author has shown a wide historical perspective of the main problem, which is changes in the ways of understanding the Bible and theology and relations between them. Than he has said about some modern ways of resolving this difficult problem, mostly from methodological perspective. He included also the reality of the Divine Revelation, the Church and her Tradition.
The topic „The Bible and Christian Morality" was thoroughly studied by the Papal Biblical Commission. The article's author presents the originality of this concept. He proves why we ought to speak of „revealed morality" and not about Gospel ethics, the writings of St. Paul or OT and NT ethics. Morality - as opposed to ethics - does not rely on freely accepted initial assumptions, but is man's response to the gifts received from God: creation, covenant and fullness of revelation in Christ. It brings to light the criteria resulting from the Bible itself, which contemporary Christians should apply when dealing with problems that contemporary sciences, techniques and culture present, but about which the inspired books do not directly speak of. He stresses that the Bible itself, revealing what is unique and which does not undergo discussion, at the same time calls the faithful of God to dialogue with the world in which we live, particularly with believers of other religions.
Bible and liturgy are the main sources of the Church's life. The Bible tells us about God saving man and the liturgy makes present the salvation given by God. The presentation of the Bible in the liturgy begins with the description of the syna- gogue worship at the time of the early Church. Since the beginning Christians read the Bible during the liturgy. The liturgy of the word was formed gradually, until it reached its final shape in he antiquity. That form was preserved till the Second Vatican Council. The Council resolved to enrich the table of the Divine Word and to read the Scripture in a cycle longer than one year. For Sundays and festivities has been introduced a triennial cycle, the readings of the liturgy of the hours have been changed, biblical readings have been added to the liturgy of the sacraments and the Psalms have been distributed in a 4-weeks cycle.
The words of the Bible are not only read but they become prayer and song. The liturgical prayers draw their inspiration, words and expressions from the Scripture. It is Christ who proclaims the gospel, God speaks to his people and the Church listens to the Divine Word. The liturgy of the Word is closely connected with the liturgy of the Eucharist. During the Mass, the table of the Divine Word and the table of the Eucharist are spread.
This article tries to give an answer to the question: how much did the development of catechetics as a theological discipline have influence on the presence of the Bible in catechesis? Thus we find here presented a history of the changes that have taken place in catechetics from its beginnings up to today. Changes in catechetics went from seeing it as the methodics of teaching religion to catechetics as a theolo- gical discipline. On each stage of the development of catechetics, the Bible was present in catechetical practice, where in the earlier stages it had a ancillary and auxiliary role. The drawing near of catechetics to theology also was the cause of a very substantial change in the assignment of the place of the Bible, which was acknowledged as the source of catechesis. Even though this situation is directly connected to the kerygmatic movement, the Bible is also the source of catechesis today.
The reflection taken up in this article allows to see the close connection between catechesis and biblical theology. Thus a valid assumption emerges that in the pre- paration of catechists of today it is necessary to be more open to a collaboration with theologians working on the Bible and making attempts to carry over the fruit of their studies to the field of pastoral theology, above all to catechetics.
Five major phases of interrelation between the Bible and literature may be distinguished in German literary history. During the Middle Ages, when the Church and Christian faith played the dominant role, the Bible was treated in literary circles as a work in itself. Authors of the abundant biblical epic poetry, affirmatively paraphrasing Scripture texts, initiated the emergence and development of national literature. The works of that period had a propagandist character and served Christianization as well as the deepening of the faith. The original sense and meaning of the Bible was challenged - in the name of science and the social idea - during the period of the Enlightenment. The Bible seen as poetry endowed with wonderful rhythm, having powerful imaginative impact, and containing elements of Eastern folklore became popular and enjoyed its renaissance in the 19th century, mainly on Herder's account. Contemporary literature employs the language of the Bible not as ornamentation but as key element of poetic expression, and biblical characters serve either auto-reflection or the presentation of archaeological archetypes. 20th century German literature tends to have critical and negating biblical stylization. Such sty- lization results when the author's intentions and value system do not agree with what the biblical text contains, and when the word of God is used for the purpose of alienation and parody. Affirmative biblical stylization occurs sporadically in contemporary literature. The most common kind of biblical stylization, typical of modernist and postmodernist lyric poetry, is partial stylization, serving polemic purposes or alternative solutions.
In France, as well as in other countries of the French language, the relationship between the Bible and literature mirrors the dilemma facing the European culture, a culture founded on the Greek and Roman civilization, when it was becoming Christianized. The Christians in the French speaking Europe confront the problem of 'double-fidelity': either to the Bible as the Truth, or to the Greek and Roman culture representing Art. Two trends can be observed. Some would try to prove the artistic superiority of the Bible over pagan literature. Others would attempt to show that even in that kind of non-Christian literature it is possible to observe the presence of supernatural truth. The dilemma abates and loses its importance starting with the XVIII century when literature as such emancipates and becomes an autonomous reality of esthetic character.
Unsurprisingly, in the Middle Ages, the Bible constitutes the crucial source of inspiration for French literature. Authors compose paraphrases and long poems based on Biblical motifs. There appear mystery plays, with their performance often spread over a number of days. In the XVI century, both Catholics and Protestants produce a number of translations of the Holy Scriptures. There appear poetic pa- raphrases of psalms, and also extensive epic poems adopting various Biblical threads. In the XVII century, the genre of poetic meditation appears in addition to the genres already mentioned. On the other hand, the kind of drama based on Biblical themes is in retreat; it finds refuge in the academic theater, when it becomes superseded by works of the classicist character. In the beginning of the XVIII cen- tury, some scholars try to demonstrate the religious character of the works of Antiquity.
Together with the rationalism of Enlightenment, there appears a new attitude towards the Bible. In Voltaire, the Bible is an object of attacks and of ridicule. In Rousseau, it is a paradigm for the kind of discourse that is supposed to take its place. In Romanticism, we can observe the influence of the Bible over both Christian and non-Christian writers. In the works of the latter, the poet becomes a mystagogue interpreting the old myths. The Bible influences poetry; it serves as a stylistic and esthetic model, as a source of themes and motifs, and also as a point of reference for poems in the philosophy of history with the pantheistic or else progressist and utopic message, and for non-Christian apocrypha. In Symbolism, the Bible becomes completely despoiled of its religious value. It is being used in entirely atheistic and subjectivist ways. By the end of the XIX century, and in the first half of the XX century, we observe in France some kind of Catholic renaissance. The Bible is present in the prophetic works of Le'on Bloy. It becomes the object of the exegetical work of Claudel, of the poetry of Jouve and P. Emmanuel. In non-Christian writers in loses its function of the book of faith and becomes a book of myths.
This article covers a complex relationship between the Bible and English literature from, to quote D.L. Jeffrey, ,,the swift Christianization of Britain in 7th CE [...] down to the present 'post-Christian' era". The author concentrates on and discusses the most essential results of more than thirteen centuries of this spiritual insemination, dealing mainly with a depiction of the most essential motifs and themes and occasionally commenting on various works' generic and technical aspects. Although we see that almost every writer explored biblical allusions in one way or another, emerging as the most significant developments are Anglo-Saxon poetry, Medieval drama, works of the Metaphysical poets as well as those of J. Milton, J. Bunyan and W. Blake. Having reached this peak, literature seems to have started losing interest in the Bible, or rather instead of the mission to evangelize, it preferred filling the old purport with new words and ideas, the most notorious 'deconstructionists' being Blake and his Romantic followers, decadent Swinburne and such modernists as D.H. Lawrence or J. Joyce.
The main issues of this article are various references of Russian writers to the Bible that has a huge meaning and status in Russian culture. Such writers as representatives of „first wave" of emigration Boris Zaitsev, Ivan Shmelov, Aleksei Remizov, they use biblical material in orthodox, canonical way, what means that they do not change intention of the source. As well they paraphrase the Bible what means that they interpret and change semantical meaning of source. To the first group of writers belong Zaitsev (The Travel of Gleb) and Shmelov (The Year of Our Lord). To the second groupbelongs Remizov, who uses various techniques to transform the canonical text (Sisters of the Cross). Remizov, however, does not change the Christian meaning of text even when he modifies the text itself. Another writer, who was mentioned in the article, is Mikhail Bulhakov. He as well uses method of paraphrase in the biblical text. On account of lack of metaphysical horizon as well as not reli- gious meaning of the work The Master and Margarita, the writer illustrates humanistic and cultural reception of the Bible, her apocryphal version.
Since the adoption of Christianity in Poland, the Bible has actively shaped the culture and religiousness of the Polish people. Translations of the Bible into the Polish language, as was the case with translations into national languages in other countries, counted among the most important areas of writing. Appearing as early as the Middle Ages, they mainly covered the Book of Psalms (St. Florian's Psalter, the Pulawy Psalter, and the Cracow Psalter). The first translations of the entire Holy Bible into Polish were the Catholic Leopolita Bible and the Protestant Brest Bible. The Wujek Bible, published in Cracow in 1599, exerted the broadest and most powerful influence, defining the Polish culture and biblical language, and was effectively superseded with the publication of the Millennium Bible (1965). For the Protestants, the Brest Bible was replaced by the Gdansk Bible, which remained in use until as late as 1975, when the Warsaw Bible appeared. Today, the Millennium Bible plays the role of the Polish Bible, although it profoundly lacks the authority and impact of the Wujek Bible. For its influence to become comparable to that of the Wujek Bible, it would have to become a reference translation, and the five consecutive editions have hardly reinforced its position.
The paper concerns biblical heritage in Polish medieval and early modern literature. In it's first section the author presents the first Polish psalters and their influence upon religious poetry of the time. The second part focuses on the development of biblical scholarship in medieval and Renaissance Poland, presents the most important old translations of the Bible and shortly discusses their impact on Polish literary culture. The last part of the study shows how various types of biblical plots and characters were present in old Polish drama and theatre, in religious hymns and epics, how biblical patterns inspired certain literary genres; it also stresses cer- tain significant differences between Protestant and Catholic authors of the time. The conclusion of the paper points out serious need for more systematic researches and studies in the subject of biblical tradition in old Polish literature.
Article The Bible in Polish Modern Literature contains reflections on the period 1945-2009, especially about an essay on the Bible written by laics, staying on more or less catholic position. Almost all were poets: Roman Brandstaetter (1906-1987), Jan Dobraczyński (1910-1994), Anna Kamieńska (1920-1986), Czesław Miłosz (1911- 2004), Marek Skwarnicki (*1930), Anna Świderkówna (1925-2008), Tadeusz Żychiewicz (1922-1994) and others. These authors began to study the Bible in the middle of their lives, when they were ripe to discuss theological and existential problems of the Holy Scripture. In the contrast to them there are the writers staying on the atheistic or agnostic position: Zenon Kosidowski (1898-1978), Artur Sandauer (1913-1989). Only one author, A. Świderkówna, was really a specialist in a biblical branch as the professor of the ancient mediterranean archaeology on the Warsaw University. She could write series her books Conversations on the Bible which became the bestseller in the end of 20th century.
For all biblical essayists a very important issue was the philological question connected to the langauge of the Bible and with the „semantic energy" of translation (Miłosz). The biblical essayists used the old polish Bible (1600) translation of Jacob Wujek SI or modern group translation made 1965 in Benedictiner Abbey in Tyniec (by Cracow). Beyond a communistic censorship in years 1945-1989 all mentioned writers could publish their articles and books. The most important center of these initiatives was Cracow (weekly „Tygodnik Powszechny" and monthly „Znak", also lisher), Warsaw (Publisher Pax), Posen.
Common spoken and written Polish (literary language) belongs to the European languages which have been sufficiently influenced by biblical writings (language). Relationships between literary language and the language of the biblical translations can be described as mutual influence of various intensity as far as the direction, time, intensification, endurance and level of the language are concerned. The article deals with the examples of the influence of the biblical translations on the literary language as for its intellectualisation, lexical and phraseological enrichment as well as stylistic development.
The article presents a relation between a word and a picture against a background of art theology developing in Christianity. Such an assumption releases from the presentation of a selection of illustrations to biblical texts. Assumed deliberations have a form of an outline illustrated by the examples from the field of miniature painting and engraving, depicting in a literal sense a transformation of a word into a picture. The studies from the field of a word function in faith tradition created the whole theological and biblical literature. On the other hand analyses of the analo- gical role of a picture in Christianity are relatively new and only seldom are they conducted by theologians or art historians.
The title of the present dissertation constitutes a travesty of a sentence announced by St. John in the prologue of his Gospel: "And the Word was made flesh" (1:14). When John is talking about the Logos it means in our perspective a written word, that is the Revelation described in the Bible. Based on what St. Paul said in the Letter to the Romans (10:14-18) the expression: Fides ex auditu started to be used in theology. The question of the role of a picture in religion can be encapsulated in a paraphrase of this expression, as: Fides ex visu. Certain people in specific circumstances acquire faith through the sense of sight, through image.
The Prophets attributed to pictures magic forces and the power of influencing human souls. Therefore they pushed them into the field of magic and witchcraft, into the world of dark forces, using signs. According to their teaching a real cult does not need any material signs. A monotheistic religion wants to remain a religion based on reading and not watching „suspicious" pictures. Rejecting visual representations, the Old Testament favours verbal symbols. And not only has the image of a false godbecome the idol, but also a false image of the true God. The invisible God can be described, but not painted. Art is too weak to show the greatness of God. The undescribed God remained invisible. He made himself known to people only through the revealed word and depicting Him in paintings was forbidden because it was a threaten to the primary Plan of Salvation. In such an approach a word becomes a power and the rejected picture becomes weak because it is useless and even harmful. This was well expressed by Re'gis Debray, who wrote that art with its altars, paintings and figures was too heavy to be carried by the Jew, this eternal wanderer, on his way. Thus he took the book.
Despite strict bans we can find in the Old Testament statements containing human longing for watching God, either during the sleepas in the case of patriarch Jacob, or in a „face-to-face" meeting as Moses at Mount Sinai, or in a prophetic seeing as it was experienced e.g. by Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, or the other ones „seeing".
The situation changed in the New Testament, when the eternal Logos - the son of God became a man. It was possible to see God through the incarnate Word, as Jesus Christ became the most ideal icon of God. The incarnation gave a possibility of depicting the one that was so far Invisible. This can be contained in a sentence that „the Word was made a picture". The Mystery of the Incarnation was invoked by the iconodules at the Second Council of Nicea, in 787.
Christianity is a religion of a word and a picture, but Protestants are different from Catholics in their approach to pictures. Taking a doctrinal assumption on the sole primacy of a word (sola Scriptura), certain sections of the Reformation rejected a picture as a form of superstition. The specific character of Protestant art became the custom of placing citations from the Bible on paintings, or even placing the sole citations or the sentences of the Reformation in altar reredos.
The use of canticles in liturgical monody goes back to the early Middle Ages when the practice of canonical hours began to be used extensively. The canticles of the Gospel (Benedictus, Magnificat and Nunc dimittis) were successively incorpora- ted into the structure of the canonical hours and became in time the most important chants of the Liturgy of the Hours (Laudes, Vesperae, Completorium).
Some shorter canticles of the Old Testament books were also included in the Divine Office but it was only after the Second Vatican Council that shorter canticles of the New Testament books came into Vespers. They replaced the final (i.e. the third) psalm.
The designation „song" which was used to describe „canticle" in the Polish translation of the revised Liturgy of the Hours appeared to be highly controversial and inadequate. Thus, it was necessery to explain such definitions as: canticle, psalm, hymn, song. Based on the studies it is possible to definitely determine that a return to the original designation (canticle) is necessary and inevitable, in order to avoid confusion in terminology. Benedictus and Magnificat have received the primary thrust of poetic translations of canticles into Polish. In the latter case there are as many as five different Magnificat translations in Polish church song-books; only two versions of the Benedictus have been found. These canticles have a wide liturgical application; their use is not limited to the Divine Office alone.
They have been introduced into the Roman Catholic Order of Mass as the chants after Communion, or as the responsorial psalms, or as the verses sung before Gospel. Some of them have become independent processional chants for Mass, especially the ones intended for Lent. As far as the number of musical settings is concerned, it can be said that the Magnificat canticle seems to be highly favored. Nevertheless the melodies connected to other canticles, including the ones with the texts from „non-Gospel" biblical books, deserve attention as well. The melodies originated either in the Gregorian chant, or in the ecclesiastical songs, or in foreign sources, or, finally, in indigenous pieces of original compositions.
Thus, the repertoire of the New Testament canticles exhibits itself as a rich resource of new chants which have been included in the official liturgy in Poland since the Second Vatican Council. Clearly, further research is required in the aera.
The presence of the Bible in the movies is a complex reality: besides direct interpretations of the stories from the Holy Scriptures, a number of films has been inspired by other cultural sources (passion-plays, arts, literature, music, other films). By reason of its subject and its non-religious origin, a biblical film is important for theologians: numerous audiovisual adaptations of the Gospel have raised the issues of the faithfulness of this particular kind of translation (transmediatization) of the Bible. A particular attention should be paid to Jesus-movies because of their impact on the audiences and very different ways of portraying of Jesus (from a relatively simple „historical" Jesus till elaborated Christ-figures).
The article The Influence of the Bible on Civilization (The Bible and Natural Sciences) shows us the importance of the Holy Bible in relation to the forming of Western civilization. The Bible is at the foundation of the heritage of European civilization. Written down during the period of almost 1500 years, it contains truths that concern all fields of life, both on the individual and the social level. As a work of literature it had its role, together with the civilization of Ancient Greece, in the origins of sciences. Science and religion are two very important elements of human culture. All reflections on the subject of the genesis of the world have their roots in these two basic aspects of seeing reality. Everything that exists needs an explanation of its origin. Thus the basic question that gave the beginning to philosophy was the question of the human being about himself and about the Universe. The relation of the science of creation, originating from the biblical description showing God as giving existence to everything, came into conflict with the empirical description of the beginning of the Universe and man in it. The questions that Latin civilization took from Greek philosophy and Christianity, based on biblical foundations, were transformed during the course of history to a conflict between science and faith, which began with the Copernican revolution and the Galileo issue. It had its greatest inflammation in the 19th century, as the result of the discoveries in the field of bio- logy, mainly connected with the theory of evolution of C. Darwin. One of the basic aspects of this conflict is the question of the origin of the world, which issue is, so to say, a natural place of meeting of theology with natural sciences. This conflict began as a result of trying to discover the essence of God's message contained in the Bible, by natural sciences. This discovering was an interpretation of the inspired text in relation to the eternal truth and to cultural variables, and also to civilization frames.
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