Browsing by Author "Chan, Ken"

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    Conspectus Volume 15
    (South African Theological Seminary, 2013-03) Asumang, Annang; Aucamp, Andrew; Chan, Ken; Chua, Alton; Lessing, Pelham; Curle, Neville; Erdey, Zoltan L.; Smith, Kevin G.; Joubert, Callie; Lioy, Dan T.; Domeris, William R.; Atterbury, Vincent E.; Brodie, Robert; Domeris, William R.; Erdey, Zoltan L.; Jabini, Frank; Kunhiyop, Samuel W.; Lessing, Pelham; Lioy, Dan T.; Mahlangu, Elijah; Malherbe, Johannes S.; Maré, Leonard; Peppler, Christopher; Pretorius, Mark; Smith, Kevin G.; Song, Arthur; Woodbridge, Noel B.; Wyngaard, Peter; Zoltan, Erdey L.; Smith, Kevin G.
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    John 19:38-20:31 : Discipleship After the Death of Jesus Conspectus : The Journal of the South African Theological Seminary, Volume 15, Issue 03, Mar 2013, p. 57 - 83
    (South African Theological Seminary Press Johannesburg, South Africa) Chan, Ken
    Most commentaries see John 19:42 as the end of the description of Jesus' death and burial, and 20:1 as the beginning of his resurrection account. While this is true of the chronology in the life of Jesus, how does the narrative account of Jesus contribute to John's aim in 20:30-31? This article suggests that the narrative after the death of Jesus in 19:38-20:31 presents two patterns of discipleship: (a) those whose faith is based on seeing the resurrected Jesus, and (b) those who follow him even without having seen his resurrected body. A detailed investigation in the Johannine text of the responses of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, Peter, the beloved disciple, Mary Magdalene, and Thomas to the death of Jesus shows that the passage in question is structured chiastically. John 19:38-42 is tied to John 20 and balances 20:30-31. The intent of this chiasm is to emphasise the fact that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus are disciples par excellence. Their willingness to follow Jesus after his death, even when they did not have the chance to see him resurrected, is exactly the kind of faith called for by John in 20:30-31. The beloved disciple fits this mould to a lesser extent, whereas Thomas and Mary Magdalene do not.
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    The Information Structure of the Book of Esther in the Septuagint
    (South African Theological Seminary Johannesburg,South Africa) Chan, Ken; Smith, Kevin G.; Jabini, Franklin
    A comparison of studies on the book of Esther shows that there are diverse opinions of what constitutes (a) the purpose, and (b) the discourse boundaries of the book.This is discussed in chapter one.This study seeks to answer these two questions for the book of Esther in the Septuagint by analyzing its information structure through the perspective of functional linguistics. In particular, this is achieved by employing the concepts of language typology, rules of information flow, topic, focus, thetic clauses, point of departure, topicality, points of view, mainline, offline, background, prominence,coherence, discourse boundaries, and information markedness. The methodology is justified in chapter two.Chapter three presents the results of this analysis clause-by-clause, along with a literal translation and the labels of the information structure of the text. This is anon-traditional commentary that only addresses the discourse aspects of the text.Similarities and differences with the understanding of the literature are compared and contrasted.The conclusions of this study are given in chapter four. It is found that the purpose of the book of Esther in the Septuagint concerns the dates of the festival of Purim.The text itself is divided into 32 major discourse sections (summarized in Table 3 of this study). The structure of the text is based on a plot with (a) an instigating incident, (b) a narrative reversal, and (c) a didactic conclusion. The coding of the study corpus does not justify the existence of chiasms. The unity of the text is justified by the study results.One implication of this study is that a text-centered reading of the study corpus is preferred over a reader-centered approach. An accidental finding is that the data overwhelmingly emphasizes the authority of the king.Translations of three selected portions of the text (taken from the three major genres in the text, namely narrative, hortatory, and didactic) is compared with the translation of this study. This comparison shows that the clarity and the relative emphases of the translation is improved by this research.Finally, the applicability of this method for bible translation and biblical studies is outlined.