Eggweg 13 Bolligen, Switzerland Like many other New Testament texts, Paul's letter to Philemon is connected with a long history of Christian guilt. As with the household codes, Philemon too has been misused in order to stabilize systems of domination that despise human beings, and to keep slaves enslaved. This letter was used in an especially terrible way in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as a quarry for arguments against the struggle of African American slaves to attain liberation and human dignity.' I This lends added urgency to the question of how we are to handle this text today. Four basic principles guide the feminist approach that is set out in this essay.
Klaus Bieberstein hat in seinen Forschungen in vielfältiger Weise und unter immer neuen Perspektiven gezeigt, welch zentrale Rolle Jerusalem in den Symbolsystemen von Judentum, Christentum und Islam seit jeher gespielt hat und spielt. Wie sehr Jerusalem als das Zentrum schlechthin galt, zeigt bereits biblisch die Vorstellung, dass Jerusalem am Nabel der Welt liege (Ez 38,(11)(12). Mittelalterliche Weltkarten weisen seit der Zeit des ersten Kreuzzugs bis ins 15. Jahrhundert Jerusalem als Mitte der Welt aus. Spätantike und mittelalterliche christliche, jüdische und islamische Texte suchen in Jerusalem, wenn auch an je unterschiedlichen Orten, den »Nabel« oder die »Mitte« der Welt. 1 6
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