The article presents the Syriac text of the fragment from the treatise «On Monastic Life» by the West Syrian theologian Athanasios Abu Ghalib (d. 1177), with Russian translation, introduction and commentaries. Athanasios Abu Ghalib was bishop of Jihan and created his works in the period of the «Syriac Renaissance». His writing «On Monastic Life» was not edited and translated up to now. The Syriac text is prepared according to two manuscripts: MS Mingana syr. 118 (20th c.) и MS Mosul 34 (18th c). In the introduction is analyzed the specific of the genre of the Syriac work, its language and rhetoric. There is characterized the way of using of different biblical and non-biblical sources by the Syriac author. In the introduction is also discussed the main topics of the work, e. g., the role of the admonition and punishment in the monastic community, the teaching about ascetism and others. The author emphasizes the importance of this work as a source of theology, ascetism, monasticism, rhetoric of the West Syrian Christian tradition of 12th century.

The published study presents a Russian translation of the Prologue and Introduction of the «Commentary on Genesis» by Procopius of Gaza (between 465–470 — ca. 528), prepared according to the critical edition of Karin Metzler: Prokop von Gaza. Eclogarum in libros histori- cos Veteris Testamenti epitome. T. 1: Der Genesiskommentar / hrsg. von. K. Metzler. Berlin; Munich; Boston (Mass.): W. de Gruyter, 2015. (GCS NF; Bd. 22). The translation is provided with Commentaries, the main discrepancies of the manuscripts are presented. The introduction provides information about the author, his works, and the historical context of their writing. The second part of the paper presents an analysis of the structure and content of the text of the Introduction. This is given in the context of the structure and topics of the introductory parts of the surviving Eastern Christian commentaries on Genesis, created before the 6th century.

The second part of the article continues the review of research approaches to the reconstruction of the doctrine of St. Gregory Palamas on the way of seeing uncreated light and is devoted to the analysis of the research of core representatives of the paradigm of the un- created vision of God: prot. Dumitru Staniloae, protopr. John Meyendorff, Gerhard Podskalsky, pro- topr. John Romanides, Reinhard Flogaus, Anna Ngaire Williams, Georgi Kapriev, Theodor Tollefsen, prot. Porphyrios (Fadi) Georgi, Mikhail Yuryevich Reutin, Cory Hayes. The basic premise of this par- adigm has been identified: God can only be seen / known by God Himself. Two conclusions are drawn from this premise: 1) man cannot see the Divine light (i. e. God) with his natural cognitive abilities; 2) that is why the Divine light itself becomes for man the uncreated ability by which he sees the same Divine light. It is revealed that within the framework of this paradigm, special at- tention is paid to the texts from the second (Tr. 2, 3) and third Triads, while the doctrine of seeing God with the «intellectual perception», described in detail in the first Triad (Tr. 1, 3), remains out of the researchers’ field of vision. The strengths and weaknesses of the paradigm of the uncreat- ed vision of God have also been identified.

The article is devoted to a little-studied question in Orthodox biblical hermeneutics related to the problem of the genesis of the biblical narrative. What general laws govern the emergence of the narrative, including the narration of the events of sacred history? It is proposed to consider this topic using the conceptual and terminological apparatus of philosophical hermeneutics in its cognitive aspect. To do this, the author refers to the monograph Paul Ricoeur’s «Time and Story», in which the French thinker describes the basic principles of the interaction of human consciousness and physical reality, as a result of which a narrative appears. The article pays special attention to how P. Ricoeur, relying on the treatise St. Augustine’s «Confession» analyzes the problem of time and its perception by man. The author also describes how P. Ricoeur, drawing on Aristotle’s treatise «Poetics», borrows elements of the ancient philosopher’s teaching about mythos (intrigue) and mimēsis (creative imitation). Finally, the article contains a description of the synthesis that P. Ricoeur carries out within the framework of his own theoretical model in order to show exactly how time, man and God interact in the process of the emergence of a narrative. According to the author of the article, the conclusions reached by P. Ricoeur are of a fun- damental nature, and can be productively used within the framework of biblical hermeneutics.

In this article we try to describe the most significant features of the exegetic method of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The report «Lecture on Contemporizing New Testament Texts» lies in the center of the narrative. It is perhaps the most systematic presentation of the author’s views on the problems of biblical exegesis and homiletics, which was formulated by himself. The time limits of the study cover the period from 1925 to 1940; the article does not deal with «religion- sless Christianity» problems of the late period. The sources of our research refer to Bonhoeffer’s texts that appeared in the early (1925–1929) and middle (1930–1939) periods (the book «Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible», published in 1940, is an exception here, although its content relates more to the middle period than to the late one). In the first part of the article, we show the way Bon- hoeffer’s sympathy for «neo-orthodoxy» reflects in his early texts: working with the text of the Bible, he tends to neglect scientific tools, paying attention primarily to the narrative, not to the form. Already during this period Bonhoeffer often emphasizes the otherness of the Word of God in relation to human aspirations, and we see the influence of Karl Barth to this phenomenon. After a brief account of the changes that took place in Bonhoeffer’s worldview in the early 30s, we turn to the report «Lecture on Contemporizing New Testament Texts», in which the author speaks about the christocentricity of all Scripture. Bonhoeffer considers it is the aspiration to Christ that makes the sermon relevant and modern, since it is Christ who is the criterion of modernity and relevance. This thesis extends to the interpretation of the Old Testament, which Bonhoeffer considers not just as books about Christ, but as books in which and through which Christ himself speaks. It becomes most clearly obvious in the way Bonhoeffer interprets Psalms. He claims that the psalms not only prophetically testify about Christ, but they themselves are the prayer of Christ, Who spoke through the prophet David. In conclusion of the article, we briefly explain the possibilities of fur- ther research in this area, outlining some perspective directions.

The article deals with a brief history of the southern part of the Eastern Mediterranean (Levant) called «Canaan» in the second millennium BC. The unique location of Canaan on the land bridge between the three major continents and in the center of the «fertile crescent», between Egypt in the south and Syria and Mesopotamia in the north, had a great influence on the history and development of its culture. The small Canaanite lands at the crossroads of the most important Middle Eastern trade and migration routes were constantly being invaded by the armies of the world’s great powers, for whom this region, with its fertile soil, rich pastures and wealth gained through trade and craftsmanship, was a coveted prey. Often the Canaanite city-states, which were feuding among themselves, could not resist the onslaught of strong neighbors. All these exter- nal and internal reasons led to the fact that by the time the Israelite people came here, the once prosperous cities of Canaan were in deep cultural and material decay. It seems that by God’s Providence the Promised Land was prepared for the meeting with ancient Israel.

 The books of Enoch, as well as other apocrypha, mostly remain a marginal field of research, although many prominent scholars, including biblical ones, have worked and are working in this field. The apprehension with which theology treats «repudiated books» is historically understandable and dogmatically reasoned. Nevertheless, it should be borne in mind that the apocrypha contain a lot of intersections both with the canonical biblical tradition and with non- repudiated texts that are not included in the biblical canon, but included in the Sacred Tradition, and therefore their study is not only important for the hermeneutics of these texts, but also it can provide secular researchers with abundant material for their criticism, which does not al- low theologians to ignore them, as well as questions about authorship of apocryphal and pseudepigraphic literature, motivation for its creation, reasons and ways of penetration into the canon of parallels (and even literal coincidences) with it. In this review, the reader is introduced into two recent (2013 and 2023) monographs on the books of Enoch, mainly devoted to the First of them, as the largest and most significant apocrypha in this seria.