Costley, Angela
(2018)
Creation and Christ. An Exploration of the Topic of
Creation in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
PhD thesis, St. Patrick's College, Maynooth.
Abstract
This work is a revised version of my PhD thesis, completed at St. Patrick’s College,
the Pontifical University, Maynooth between 2013 and 2018, under the
supervision of Rev. Dr. Jeremy Corley. It was inspired by a course undertaken at
the same university, taught by Rev. Anthony O’Leary CP, in which I examined
the theme of creation in Heb 1 – 2 as part of the assessment process. As part
of the course on Hebrews at Maynooth, we naturally covered the more commonly
discussed theme in the Epistle, the high priesthood of Christ. However,
as I began to look at Hebrews more closely, I saw that the term high priest is
not so common in the first four chapters of Hebrews, occurring only four times
with a further reference to sacrifice in 1:3. Rather than emphasising the sacrificial
activity of Christ, the opening section is replete with a number of references
to creation: 1:2 – 3,10 – 12, 2:5 – 9, 10; 3:1 – 6; 4:3 – 4 and 4:9 – 10. This prompted
me to ask why creation was being referenced so many times, and, indeed, in so
many different ways. There was no one word that connected all the mentions of
creation and Hebrews was not making references only to the Genesis account,
but also to psalms, most notably 102, 8 and 95, in that order. This prompted an
essay of around 2,000 words to begin with, but it only covered chapters 1 – 2, and
it became clear that a much bigger investigation was needed. The result is this
study, and a close analsysis of Hebrews’ discourse in its opening four chapters
that is contained herein.
The research proceeds by examining Hebrews’ references to creation sequentially,
hoping to gather insights into the purpose of the references to creation
from the point of view of linearization. In the course of this investigation, I try
to grapple with interpretational questions from a discourse analysis perspective,
including intertextual analysis, and thus hope to contribute to a scholarly
understanding of the discourse of Hebrews. I highlight important connections
between the topic of creation and the Son’s salvific activity and look at the
impact of taking seriously the references to creation on some of the questions
long posed of the text, such as the meaning of “rest” in Heb 3 – 4. It is hoped that
this investigation will prompt further discourse analysis investigations into this
topic in the later chapter of Hebrews and perhaps even into the theme of creation
in other New Testament books.
| Item Type: |
Thesis
(PhD)
|
| Keywords: |
Creation; Christ;
Exploration; Epistle; Hebrews; |
| Academic Unit: |
St Patrick's College, Maynooth > Faculty of Theology |
| Item ID: |
14087 |
| Depositing User: |
IR eTheses
|
| Date Deposited: |
26 Feb 2021 10:37 |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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