Sunday Seminar – God Does Not Punish

New Testament scholar Herman C. Waetjen will lead a three-part Sunday Seminar series entitled God Does Not Pun­ish, beginning Sunday February 3, and continuing the following two Sundays.

Dr. Waetjen writes, “The Old Testament abounds in prophetic denunciations of Israel’s disobedience and faithlessness, accompanied by pronouncements of punishment. In our first session on Feb 5, two sets of Old Testament passages will be examined. First, various pre-ex­ilic texts will disclose Israel’s continued violation of God’s law and the prophetic vision of a divine resolution in the fu­ture, and, secondly, various post-exilic texts will reveal a more radical way in which God will resolve the human con­dition of sin and transgression. That will lead into the unexpected enun­ciation of the Apostle Paul in Galatians 3:15-19 that God is not the author of the law that was given to Israel at Sinai, but it was nevertheless incorporated into the testament of inheritance that God had established with Abraham. The third and final session will be de­voted to passages in Paul’s letter to the Romans which make it very clear that God does not punish human beings, and the law, that the angels constituted at Mount Sinai, was intended for no other purpose than to make human beings aware of their infection of sin and prepare them for God’s salvation, a salvation that is primarily intended for this life in the world, but with the bonus of everlasting life.”

Biography

Herman C. Waetjen received his Dok­tor der Theologie from the University of Tübingen in 1958. His writings in bibli­cal scholarship include four books: The Gospel of the Beloved Disciple: A Work in Two Editions (T&T Clark Interna­tional, 2005), Praying the Lord’s Prayer: An Ageless Prayer for Today (Trinity Press International, 1999), A Reorder­ing of Power: A Socio-Political Reading of Mark’s Gospel (Fortress Press, 1989), and The Origin and Destiny of Humanness, a Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Crystal Press, 1976). He also has con­tributed articles and essays to numerous journals, as well as exegetical resource material to the New Proclamation, Year A, 2004-2005 (Fortress Press, 2004).

After 3 years at the School of Religion at University of Southern California, he became Professor of New Testament at San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo and at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, where he taught for 34 years. From the early 1970s, his interest in the issues facing the developing world drew him into regular periods as a visiting scholar and professor at several African institutions of higher learning: the University of Nai­robi, Kenya (1972-73); Federal Theolog­ical Seminary in Edendale, South Africa (1979-80); the University of Zimbabwe (1986-87); and the University of Na­mibia (1993-94). He also taught briefly in South Korea and Russia.

Retiring in 1996 as the Robert S. Dol­lar Emeritus Professor of New Testament, Herman continues to teach and write. He resides in San Anselmo, California with his wife Mary, who is a member and elder of First Presbyterian Church of San Anselmo. Both Herman and Mary are active participants in our congrega­tion’s ministry.