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Who is the "God of this age" in 2 Corinthians 4:4?
Includes bibliographical references
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Department of Religious Studies
2016
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| _version_ | 1867613200258695168 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Poobalan, Ivor Gerard |
| author2 | Wanamaker, Charles A |
| author_browse | Poobalan, Ivor Gerard Wanamaker, Charles A |
| author_facet | Wanamaker, Charles A Poobalan, Ivor Gerard |
| author_sort | Poobalan, Ivor Gerard |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | Includes bibliographical references |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/16936 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:32:21.936Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| publishDateRange | 2016 |
| publishDateSort | 2016 |
| publisher | Department of Religious Studies |
| publisherStr | Department of Religious Studies |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/16936 Who is the "God of this age" in 2 Corinthians 4:4? Poobalan, Ivor Gerard Wanamaker, Charles A Religious studies Includes bibliographical references The Pauline phrase, … "the god of this age", that occurs in 2 Cor 4:4 is unique in that it is not found in Greek literature preceding the writings of Paul. The majority of English versions of the Bible render the noun … using the lower case 'g' ("god"), but some are explicit, translating as "devil" and "Satan". Most modern commentaries on 2 Corinthians explain that the phrase is a clear reference to Satan, and argue that Paul's conceptualization of the devil and his views of "this age" grew out of categories used in Second Temple Judaism, especially apocalyptic literature. They also assert that the act of blinding people from seeing the light of the gospel can only be attributed to the enemy of God. This thesis is based on a socio-rhetorical interpretation of 2 Cor 4:1-6 and concludes that the phrase … refers to the supreme God of Judeo-Christian thought, in keeping with the referential value of … as frequently used in the Pauline corpus. It maintains that in this context Paul is responding to the peculiar problem of Jewish unbelief , and that he argues that in the same way that the "minds" of unbelieving Jews had been divinely "hardened" to the old covenant (3:14), so their "minds" had now been "blinded" to the gospel by the God of this age (4:4). The thesis is supported by a survey of the history of interpretation of 2 Cor 4:4, which shows that the modern preferred interpretation is relatively recent, predominating only over the past six centuries. Prior to the period of the Renaissance, most expositors of Paul preferred to interpret this phrase as a reference to God. The thesis is also based on a reconstruction of Paul's conceptualization of Satan in the light of Jewish speculations on evil, and furthermore undertakes a critical enquiry on the extent to which Paul was dependent on Jewish apocalypticism when he formulated the epithet "the God of this age" 2016-02-09T12:18:44Z 2016-02-09T12:18:44Z 2015 Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/16936 eng application/pdf Department of Religious Studies Faculty of Humanities University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | Religious studies Poobalan, Ivor Gerard Who is the "God of this age" in 2 Corinthians 4:4? |
| thesis_degree_str | Doctoral |
| title | Who is the "God of this age" in 2 Corinthians 4:4? |
| title_full | Who is the "God of this age" in 2 Corinthians 4:4? |
| title_fullStr | Who is the "God of this age" in 2 Corinthians 4:4? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Who is the "God of this age" in 2 Corinthians 4:4? |
| title_short | Who is the "God of this age" in 2 Corinthians 4:4? |
| title_sort | who is the god of this age in 2 corinthians 4 4 |
| topic | Religious studies |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/16936 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT poobalanivorgerard whoisthegodofthisagein2corinthians44 |