APAKAH YUDAISME DAN HELLENISME MERUPAKAN DUALISME YANG ANTITETIK DALAM PEMIKIRAN PAULUS? SEBUAH PERDEBATAN BARU

Abstract

This article is a summary and evaluation of an anthology edited by the Danish New Testament Scholar, Troels Engberg-Pedersen (ed.), Paul Beyond The Judaism/Hellenism Divide, (Louisville: Westminster-John Knox Press, 2001). This anthology contains a new debate on the old issue of Judaism and Hellenism as an antithetical dualism in the mind of Paul. A new proposal is stated based on more recent research; that Judaism and Hellenism are two complementary entities in the Mediterranean area, and the one is influencing the other, and vice-versa. “Hebrew thought and “Greek thought” are (ideological) constructs which ought to be acknowledged before we can go on to envisage Pauls’s range of thought.

Here the new proposal is described and related to the theological situation in Indonesia, where very often the Judaism background of Paul is placed in a confrontational stance against Hellenism. There is a proposal to go beyond this traditional stance, for the sake of contextual theology in Indonesia.

In the end David Anne’s interpretation of 2 Corinth 4:16-5:10 is used as an example of an exegesis, which tries to go beyond this dualism.