Original Research - Special Collection: A.G.van Aarde Festschrift

A son in heaven, but no father on earth: A note in the margin of a ‘Tale of Two Kings’

Joseph Verheyden
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies | Vol 67, No 1 | a928 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v67i1.928 | © 2011 Joseph Verheyden | This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 29 July 2010 | Published: 11 April 2011

About the author(s)

Joseph Verheyden, Faculty of Theology, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria, South Africa, Belgium

Abstract

The article is meant to offer a comment on the thesis of Andries G. van Aarde about the socalled fatherlessness of Jesus. The author argues for a more critical disposition towards a historical-psychological approach of ancient texts. Jesus’ attitude towards children, which is illustrated in Mark 10:13–16, and the story of Jesus’ birth and of Herod’s reaction to it as told by Matthew, are used as test cases.

Keywords

Fatherlessness in antiquity; child abandoned in antiquity; A.G. van Aarde; C. Tuor-Kurth; historical-psychological exegesis; Moses-typology; voluntary humility

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