Thomas Römer

Milieux bibliques

Collège de France

Année 2025-2026

Changing Biblical Interpretation?

Conférence - Louis Jonker : Reforming History: The Book of Chronicles and Its Reception in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Louis Jonker

Faculté de théologie de l'université de Stellenbosch, Afrique du Sud

Résumé

The second lecture will focus on the book Chronicles as a rewriting of older historical traditions in changed and changing imperial-political environments. It will be shown that Chronicles was (and is) "reforming history" that contributed immensely to the identity negotiation processes of the communities in the Persian province of Yehud where returnees from the Babylonian exile lived together with remainees who have never gone into exile. It will be shown how this book responded to the new political dispensation on different levels: on the overarching imperial level, on provincial level, on the level of tribal memories of old, on cultic level at the temple in Jerusalem, and on the level with diasporic Jews who never returned to the land after the exile.

Thomas Römer

Milieux bibliques

Collège de France

Année 2025-2026

Changing Biblical Interpretation?

Conférence - Louis Jonker : Socio-Political Transformation and Biblical Interpretation: The Case of Post-Apartheid South Africa

Louis Jonker

Faculté de théologie de l'université de Stellenbosch, Afrique du Sud

Résumé

In the first lecture the issue of changing biblical interpretation in the South African context since the 1990s when Nelson Mandela was released and the ANC party unbanned, and since 1994 when the first democratic post-apartheid elections were held, will be scrutinised. The starting point will be how the Bible was interpreted by South Africans from different political persuasions in the apartheid era. It will further expound the question that came up since the 1990s in particularly white Afrikaans environments (such as in the Dutch Reformed Church): "Why did pastors tell us a few decades ago, with the Bible in their hands, that apartheid was the will of God? And why do they tell us now, with the same Bible in their hands, that apartheid is a sin?"

Thomas Römer

Chaire Chaire Milieux bibliques

Collège de France

Année 2025-2026

Sophie Ramond

Institut catholique de Paris

Séminaire - Sophie Ramond : David dans le livre des Chroniques