Browsing by Author "Wijesinghe, S.L."

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The Garden of Communion and the Ground of Dominion: Genesis 2,4b-3,24 as an Aetiology of Domination
(University of Kelaniya, 2015) Wijesinghe, S.L.
Source-critical studies on Gen 2,4b-3,24 had assigned a very early pre-exilic date to its composition. But recent research has challenged this century long hypothesis. There is a growing consensus that the final text of the second creation narrative was completed during the post-exilic period. There are similarities between in Gen 2,4b–3,24 and late texts in Ezekiel, Second Isaiah and Job. Furthermore pre-exilic texts of the OT hardly refer to the second story of creation. These reasons prompt the exegetes to posit a post-exilic date to the final version of the text. Without excluding the possibility that the text contains redactional layers, it is possible to consider it as a post-exilic work. Interpreting the symbol of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” as “freedom” and the serpent/ground as the unorganised appetite, it is possible to see an evaluation of the Ancient Israelite History in Gen 2,4b-3,24. Israel was expelled from the garden of communion because of the loss of equilibrium between the world of freedom and the world of the appetite. While presenting a historical evaluation, the second story of creation also functions as an aetiology of domination.
Judah and Benjamin : Evolving a Theology of Peace in Sri Lanka
(Théologiques, 18(1), 217–240., Faculté de théologie et de sciences des religions, Université de Montréal, 2010) Wijesinghe, S.L.
This article presents a Sri Lankan hermeneutic of the Joseph Story (Genesis 37-50) in relation to grassroots peacemaking in Sri Lanka. On a global scale, peacemaking at the grassroots level is a rare phenomenon outside of the confines of small groups. Conflicts are often aggravated and even reach the point of armed struggles due to conditions of dispossession. These eventually lead to war economies which are ultimately beneficial to the rich. Sri Lanka could achieve sustainable peace if solidarity could be created among the dispossessed of the ethnic divide. Genesis 37-50 reveals four challenges to peacemaking in Sri Lanka, namely, (i) constituting Benjamin or creating solidarity among the dispossessed of the ethnic divide, (ii) highlighting the importance of brotherhood/ sisterhood for the survival of the nation which is jeopardized by the existing economic policies which are beneficial to the national and global elite, (iii) understanding peace as renunciation, and (iv) understanding and interpreting forgiveness.
දේශයට සරිලන දෙව්දහමක්
(Faculty of Humanities, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2008) Wijesinghe, S.L.