My SBL Paper on November 19, 2011

In two weeks, I'll be reading a paper at the 2011 SBL Annual Meeting in San Francisco titled Is "Righteousness" a Relational Concept in the Hebrew Bible?

This is for the Biblical Lexicography Program Unit, the theme of which this year is "50 years of Barr's Semantics of Biblical Language (1961)."

To see the other papers for this unit, go to

http://www.sbl-site.org/meetings/Congresses_ProgramBook.aspx?MeetingId=19

And search for "Irons."

Comments

[John Thomson]

Lee

That 'righteousness' was relational was being taught by J N Darby and W Kelly as far back as the 1850's. They did not mean by it simply covenant faithfulness however. Rather for sentient creatures righteousness was living consistently with the relationships of life into which God placed them. God, as utterly sovereign, is not bound by relationships unless he places himself under obligation. Righteousness in God is his consistency with all he is in himself.

Righteousness is not properly an attribute but an action; righteouness is a verdict in relation to an activity; he that does right is righteous.