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At the heart of Paul’s Corinthian correspondence is a historical puzzle. How did the relative calm of 1 Corinthians deteriorate into the chaos of 2 Corinthians, and what role did the so-called Jewish “super-apostles” play in that conflict? This book proposes a new solution: it was Paul, not his rivals, who shot the first volley in the Corinthian conflict.

Paul’s claims of unique authority—for instance, as the architect atop whose foundation all others must build (1 Cor 3:10) and the Corinthians’ father while others are mere pedagogues (4:15)—would relegate other leaders to lesser positions. His contention that accepting financial support put an obstacle before the gospel (9:12) would jeopardize the livelihood of apostles who relied on such support. Finally, Paul’s claim that he becomes “lawless to the lawless” (9:21) or that “circumcision is nothing” (7:19) could throw into question Paul’s own Jewishness (cf. 2 Cor 11:22). By reading the Corinthian correspondence against the grain—imagining how Paul’s letter might have backfired for an audience who did not yet take him as scripture—this book explores how misunderstandings and misinterpretations can fracture church communities and cause a ripple effect of conflict and accusation.

John is often perceived as a spiritual gospel that is primarily about the salvation of believers; creation becomes a marginal topic. The study breaks such anthropocentric thinking patterns by examining creation as a whole. By applying a comprehensive understanding of creation, Shoukry illuminates a Christ-centered creation theology in John, expanding beyond creation at the beginning to an ongoing process, and culminating in a new creation.

How early Christian gospels were written is an old question that continues to engage scholars. Moving beyond the traditional approach of reading Luke as a "gentile" gospel composed primarily using Greco-Roman methods of history and biography writing, this book argues that Luke’s use of the earlier Gospel of Mark should be understood in the context of contemporaneous early Jewish writings known as "Rewritten Scripture." Texts like the Book of Jubilees and Josephus’s Antiquities interpret Scripture by rewriting it in such a way that ambiguities and contradictions are diminished, while also adapting it to contemporary beliefs and practices. A similar strategy of interpretation through rewriting best explains Luke’s reworking of Mark. Even if Mark is not yet "Scripture," Luke’s manner of rewriting Mark suggests that Luke views the earliest gospel as an authoritative narrative about Jesus that merits interpretive clarification and expansion rather than rejection or critique. This approach offers solutions to various "problems" in the composition of Luke, such as the combination of expansion and omission, verbatim repetition and free paraphrase, and it also places Luke’s compositional process within a plausible ancient literary context.

The Gospel of Mark ends in fear and horror at the empty tomb. This volume is the first to explore this emotional vocabulary in detail using a combination of narratological and semantic methods. It reveals that, in Mark, "fear" is clearly more significant than "reverence" and is linked to themes of distrust and misunderstanding. This can be explained as a reaction to circumstances at the time the text was written.

The present contributions examine three modes of interpretation—rewriting, appropriation, and commentary—within early Jewish and Christian texts. As is well known, scriptural interpretation was important, even central, for the process of identity formation in early Jewish and Christian communities. The modes of scriptural interpretation covered in the present volume not only betray deep commonalities in their approach and discursive field, but also illuminate the practical side of interpretation to which communal and/or polemical application is intrinsic. These different modes co-exist, operating side by side across the early period, rather than conforming to any clear developmental scheme. In the end, the category of interpretation itself turns out to be capatious, including material from sectarian Halakhah to Valentinian mythology to Rabbinic heresiological discourse. Further, contributors note that in a myriad of ways we remain the heirs of the interpretive projects explored here. Attending to the reception of scriptural texts in their ancient interpretation offers the opportunity for scholars to highlight their possibilities, promises and difficulties, opening them for others with ears to hear.

The Gospel of John is a book that tantalizes and disturbs in equal measure. Its sublime imagery makes spirits soar. Its positive portrayal of women such as the Samaritan woman, the Bethany sisters, and Mary Magdalene, tickle the imagination when it comes to the roles of women in the early church. Its disparagement of the Jews, however, reverberates through the long history of anti-Judaism and antisemitism to this very day.

Adele Reinhartz has been one of the foremost interpreters of the Gospel of John for the past thirty years and more. This volume contains a selection of her essays on the Fourth Gospel, originally published from 1991 to 2020. The collection focuses on four major themes. Essays on Gender consider the Gospel’s portrayal of female characters, its christological use of female imagery, and the possibility of reading social history into or out of the Fourth Gospel. Essays on "the Jews" explore the representation of the ioudaioi, and respond to approaches employed by scholars to address the fraught question of anti-Judaism. The section on Method includes essays that apply different approaches, such as trauma theory, postcolonial theory, and literary and rhetorical criticism to issues in Johannine studies. The final section, on Ethics, considers ethics from two perspectives: the ethical stance(s) that a reader brings to her reading of John, and the question of whether the Gospel portrays Jesus as an ethical actor.

The gospel of Mark purposefully employs characters with specific and nuanced representations of dis/ability to portray the unique authority, the engaging message, and the mission of the Markan Jesus.
Based on hermeneutical insights from Dis/ability Studies, this monograph is a contribution to the research of culturally and historically normalized corporeality in the biblical scriptures. At the core of the investigation are the healing narratives: passages that explicitly deal with a transformation from a described deviant bodily state to a positively valued corporeality. Lena Nogossek-Raithel not only analyzes the terminological and historical descriptions of these physical phenomena but also investigates their narrative function for the gospel text. The author argues that the images of dis/ability employed are far from accidental. Rather, they significantly influence the narrative’s structure and impact, embody its theological claims, and characterize its protagonist Jesus.
With this thorough exegetical analysis, Nogossek-Raithel offers a firm historical foundation for anyone interested in the critical interpretation and theological application of the Markan healing narratives.

More than any other author of the New Testament, Paul makes a truly unique and creative use of the terminology of crucifixion. Why is that? This study, analyzing the First Epistle to the Corinthians (1–4) and the Epistle to the Galatians, makes use of a number of different methods and successfully demonstrates that Paul’s "language of the Cross" aims to specify and strengthen the evolving identity of the Churches.

This study examines how the Deutero-Pauline Epistle to the Ephesians constructs an early Christian understanding of community. At the end of the epistle's introductory eulogy in Eph. 1:3–14, it becomes clear that the creation of a narrative context is of fundamental significance in this regard. It provides an overview of Christian existence in the world and in history, and is intended to be appropriated by the recipient.

The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles are nearly always attributed to a single gentile author writing for a gentile audience. Many studies thus concentrate on how Luke and Acts as gentile Christian texts relate to Hellenistic culture or the Roman Empire, with little to no consideration to their ancient Jewish context. Attention to Luke and/or Acts in relation to Judaism is often limited and tends to focus on either the author’s familiarity with Jewish scripture and tradition or the author’s perspective on Torah obedience for gentile followers of Jesus. Even then, scholars assume that “Luke,” as one of the first writers to designate Jesus’ followers as “Christian” (Acts 11:26; 26:28), situates Christianity outside of Judaism.

This volume resituates Luke and Acts with(in) Second Temple Judaism. Several contributions make a case for Luke and Acts being written by a Jew for an audience that included Jews. Various kinds of Jewish settings and intellectual traditions are accordingly appreciated for interpreting key topics in Luke and Acts (e.g., Torah observance, messianism, and eschatology). Additionally, the volume includes discussions on how Luke and Acts might be appreciated within their Greco-Roman environment in light of their Jewish heritage and possibly even as ancient Jewish texts. Finally, Luke and Acts are compared to other early Christian writings as they concern Judaism and Jews, including Jewish followers of Jesus, based on more nuanced and recent understandings of the complexity of early Jewish-Christian relations.

Though a majority of commentators have admitted or naturally assumed that there were many divergences amongst the Pauline churches, many tend to concentrate on similarities more than dissimilarities (contra John M. G. Barclay; Craig de Vos). Especially, the previous scholarly treatments of divergences in the Pauline churches have shed little light on certain areas of study, in particular the early Christians’ socio-economic status.

The thesis, therefore, underlines the conspicuous differences between the Thessalonian and Corinthian congregations concerning their socio-economic compositions, social relationships, and further social identities, while extrapolating certain circles of causality between them through socio-economic and social-scientific criticism.

This study concludes Paul’s teachings of grace, community, and ethics were manifested and modified in different communities in different ways because of these different socio-economic contexts.

Ist der autobiographische Abschnitt Gal 1,11-2,21 apologetisch motiviert? Diese forschungsgeschichtliche Mehrheitsmeinung wurde seit den 1980er Jahren zwar mehrfach, aber bislang nicht nachhaltig hinterfragt, daes bisherigen Studien an einer überzeugenden Gesamtschau auf Gal 1,11-2,21 mangelte.
Diese Studie will die Abfassungsmotivation des autobiographischen Abschnitts durch eine detaillierte exegetische Gesamtschau auf Gal 1,11-2,21 sowie den ganzen Brief neu beleuchten. Eine umfangreiche epistolographische Analyse des gesamten Galaterbriefes liefert zunächst keine Spuren einer apologetischen Abfassungsmotivation. Die Untersuchung der Verknüpfung von Gal 1,11-2,21 mit der Briefcorpuseröffnung Gal 1,6-10 zeigt auf, dass Paulus in der Eingangsthese des autobiographischen Abschnitts Gal 1,11-12 das εὐαγγέλιον-Motiv argumentativ aufnimmt.
In einer stringenten exegetischen Untersuchung von Gal 1,11-2,21 zeigt sich, dass Paulus mit Gal 1,13-2,21 in der Hauptsache eine autobiographische Argumentation zur Bestätigung der Eingangsthese Gal 1,11-2,21 führt, womit er die göttliche Herkunft seiner Evangeliumsverkündigung bestätigt. Gleichzeitig ermöglicht diese Argumentation ihm, sein eigenes Ethos gegenüber den Briefadressaten zu stärken.

The contributions in this volume are focused on the historical origins, religious provenance, and social function of ancient Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature, including so-called ‘Gnostic’ writings. Although it is disputed whether there was a genre of ‘apocalyptic literature,’ it is obvious that numerous texts from ancient Judaism, early Christianity, and other religious milieus share a specific view of history and the world to come. Many of these writings are presented in form of a heavenly (divine) revelation, mediated through an otherworldly figure (like an angel) to an elected human being who discloses this revelation to his recipients in written form. In different strands of early Judaism, ancient Christianity as well as in Gnosticism, Manichaeism, and Islam, apocalyptic writings played an important role from early on and were produced also in later centuries. One of the most characteristic features of these texts is their specific interpretation of history, based on the knowledge about the upper, divine realm and the world to come.

Against this background the volume deals with a wide range of apocalyptic texts from different periods and various religious backgrounds.

This study offers a comprehensive presentation of the formal and content-related redactional characteristics of the Evangelist Matthew. It examines the editorial treatment of the Gospel of Mark and the line sources of the texts. It considers in particular a special connection to one of the sources and a possible direct connection to the Gospel of Luke.

This study offers fresh insight into the place of (non)violence within Jesus' ministry, by examining it in the context of the eschatologically-motivated revolutionary violence of Second Temple Judaism.

The book first explores the connection between violence and eschatology in key literary and historical sources from Second Temple Judaism. The heart of the study then focuses on demonstrating the thematic centrality of Jesus’ opposition to such “eschatological violence” within the Synoptic presentations of his ministry, arguing that a proper understanding of eschatology and violence together enables appreciation of the full significance of Jesus’ consistent disassociation of revolutionary violence from his words and deeds.

The book thus articulates an understanding of Jesus’ nonviolence that is firmly rooted in the historical context of Second Temple Judaism, presenting a challenge to the "seditious Jesus hypothesis"—the claim that the historical Jesus was sympathetic to revolutionary ideals. Jesus’ rejection of violence ought to be understood as an integral component of his eschatological vision, embodying and enacting his understanding of (i) how God’s kingdom would come, and (ii) what would identify those who belonged to it.

Given the dearth of non-messianic interpretations of Psalm 110:1 in non-Christian Second Temple Jewish texts, why did it become such a widely used messianic prooftext in the New Testament and early Christianity? Previous attempts to answer this question have focused on why the earliest Christians first began to use Ps 110:1. The result is that these proposals do not provide an adequate explanation for why first century Christians living in the Greek East employed the verse and also applied it to Jesus’s exaltation. I contend that two Greco-Roman politico-religious practices, royal and imperial temple and throne sharing—which were cross-cultural rewards that Greco-Roman communities bestowed on beneficent, pious, and divinely approved rulers—contributed to the widespread use of Ps 110:1 in earliest Christianity. This means that the earliest Christians interpreted Jesus’s heavenly session as messianic and thus political, as well as religious, in nature.

Luke-Acts is not a consistent book, but a much-discussed problem. This study presents its discourse history from the eighteenth century to the present, traces its ancient reception, examines the relationship between Luke’s writings, the unity of the author, the site of the Luke-Acts in the Marcion debate, its media innovations, and the role it played in shaping the early Christian view of history.

Luke/Acts and the End of History investigates how understandings of history in diverse texts of the Graeco-Roman period illuminate Lukan eschatology. In addition to Luke/Acts, it considers ten comparison texts as detailed case studies throughout the monograph: Polybius's Histories, Diodorus Siculus's Library of History, Virgil's Aeneid, Valerius Maximus's Memorable Doings and Sayings, Tacitus’s Histories, 2 Maccabees, the Qumran War Scroll, Josephus's Jewish War, 4 Ezra, and 2 Baruch.

The study makes a contribution both in its method and in the questions it asks. By placing Luke/Acts alongside a broad range of texts from Luke's wider cultural setting, it overcomes two methodological shortfalls frequently evident in recent research: limiting comparisons of key themes to texts of similar genre, and separating non-Jewish from Jewish parallels. Further, by posing fresh questions designed to reveal writers' underlying conceptions of history—such as beliefs about the shape and end of history or divine and human agency in history—this monograph challenges the enduring tendency to underestimate the centrality of eschatology for Luke's account. Influential post-war scholarship reflected powerful concerns about "salvation history" arising from its particular historical setting, and criticised Luke for focusing on history instead of eschatology due to the parousia’s delay. Though some elements of this thesis have been challenged, Luke continues to be associated with concerns about the delayed parousia, affecting contemporary interpretation. By contrast, this study suggests that viewing Luke/Acts within a broader range of texts from Luke's literary context highlights his underlying teleological conception of history. It demonstrates not only that Luke retains a sense of eschatological urgency seen in other New Testament texts, but a structuring of history more akin to the literature of late Second Temple Judaism than the non-Jewish Graeco-Roman historiographies with which Luke/Acts is more commonly compared. The results clarify not only Lukan eschatology, but related concerns or effects of his eschatology, such as Luke’s politics and approach to suffering. This monograph thereby offers an important corrective to readings of Luke/Acts based on established exegetical habits, and will help to inform interpretation for scholars and students of Luke/Acts as well as classicists and theologians interested in these key questions.

In recent Pauline research, the critical importance of implicit narratives for understanding the apostle’s Epistles gained importance. The study examines this in a critical analysis using narrative theory and text linguistics. Heilig’s text analysis lines out a new narratological approach to Pauline exegesis.

The Parables that Jesus narrates in the Gospel of Thomas are an important part of this apocryphal scriptural text. In relation to a reflection on the specific hermeneutics of the Gospel of Thomas, the Parables are interpreted in their literary context. Building upon this, the study demonstrates that these miniature narratives are an important and substantive contribution to the theology of this text.

The volume deals with interpretations of Paul, his person and his letters, in various early Christian writings. Some of those, written in the name of Paul, became part of the New Testament, others are included among „Ancient Christian Apocrypha", still others belong to the collection called „The Apostolic Fathers". Impacts of Paul are also discernible in early collections of his letters which became an important part of the New Testament canon. This process, resulting in the „canonical Paul", is also considered in this collection.

In the Gospel of Matthew, the universal inclusion of the Gentiles in salvation in relation to the lasting Election of Israel can only be understood by considering the broad reception of Jewish scripture. The study shows that the well thought-out and coherent correlation of references opening up salvation to the Gentiles is scripturally prescribed and theologically explained by Matthew, and interpolated with Christology.

Is the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs merely a set of ethical instructions, or are there overarching perspectives that unite them? What is the role of the unusual number of anthropological statements and how do they relate to the ethics of the text? This study carefully examines the testaments to show that here, ethics and anthropology are deliberately interconnected.

Ulrich B. Müller’s work is distinguished above all by his profound knowledge of early Jewish and ancient Christian prophecy and apocalypticism. This compilation of essays written between 2004 and 2014 by the New Testament scholar is published in honor of his 80^th birthday. The first part includes studies on the historical Jesus and his self-understanding, followed by essays on the theological lines of development of early Christianity.

This book, dedicated to the Galatian crisis, combines socio-rhetorical analysis with methods drawn from cultural anthropology. It engages in critical debate with the “New Perspective on Paul,” a scholarly trend that, for a generation now, has been altering the parameters of Pauline studies. Accepting the idea defended by this group of scholars, namely that Paul’s communicative context is one based on social identity, the author sees a change of perspective in Galatians. In the Gospel of his opponents, Paul identifies a perilous anthropological problem: the ancient culture of honor.

Linked to the particular issue of a reversion to the Torah, the conflict in Galatia highlights a potentially universal theological problem: the opposition of "the Gospel of Christ" (Gal 1:7) to the anthropology of honor found throughout the ancient Mediterranean. The Epistle to the Galatians, which addresses the preaching of the so-called “advocates of circumcision,” sketches out a human identity (both in its foundation and in its morality) based on grace and removed from worldly principles. It foreshadows the universalizing message that Paul would send to the Romans. A fundamental connection between these two letters thus becomes apparent.

Dedicated to the Galatian crisis, the book combines socio-rhetorical analysis with methods drawn from cultural anthropology. It engages in debate with the “New Perspective on Paul” (NPP). Accepting the idea defended by the NPP, namely that Paul’s rhetorical context is one based on social identity, the author sees a change of perspective in Galatians. In the Gospel of his opponents, Paul identifies an anthropological problem: the culture of honor.

Paul’s use of λογικὴ λατρεία in Rom 12.1 has long fascinated and puzzled interpreters. This study proposes a new explanation of Paul’s reason language in Rom 12.1 based on a detailed investigation of ancient philosophical texts on the role of human beings in the cosmos, in which reason language and the idea of a vocation of human beings are closely connected. It argues that Paul here appeals to the idea of a human vocation in order to claim that Christ-followers are able to fulfil their human vocation by living in such a way that their lives produce signs of the new creation inaugurated in Christ.
This case is made by establishing the central role of reason in ancient discourse on what it means to be human more broadly, and in particular in Epictetus, who provides the clearest parallel for Romans. These contextualisations allow for a fresh reading of Paul’s argument in Romans, where the relevance of these traditions is shown, not least for how Rom 12.1–2 frames Rom 12–15.
The study thus contributes to the recent scholarly trend of exploring Paul in ancient philosophical contexts and advances the discussion on the integration of Paul’s “theology” and “ethics” within an ancient cultural encyclopedia.

The Acts of the Apostles include multiple episodes that narrate contentious encounters between Paul and the Gentiles. Its author uses these narratives as an opportunity to clarify the theological position of Luke’s Acts of the Apostles. What exactly is his position? The book addresses this specific question in the context of the thesis that Luke views Christianity as an integral part of Israel, linked to Old Testament tradition.

The study examines St. Paul’s self-presentation in First Corinthians. It shows the Apostle presenting himself throughout the Letter as a man of wisdom in a community seeking wisdom. The author interprets Paul’s self-presentation in the context of Hellenistic popular philosophy. Since Paul also offers himself to the Corinthian community as a model worthy of personal imitation, he becomes his own "exemplar."

While there have been various studies examining the contents of the evangelistic proclamation in Acts; and various studies examining, from one angle or another, individual persuasive phenomena described in Acts (e.g., the use of the Jewish Scriptures); no individual studies have sought to identify the key persuasive phenomena presented by Luke in this book, or to analyse their impact upon the book’s early audiences.

This study identifies four key phenomena – the Jewish Scriptures, witnessed supernatural events, the Christian community and Greco-Roman cultural interaction. By employing a textual analysis of Acts that takes into account both narrative and socio-historical contexts, the impact of these phenomena upon the early audiences of Acts – that is, those people who heard or read the narrative in the first decades after its completion – is determined.

The investigation offers some unique and nuanced insights into evangelistic proclamation in Acts; persuasion in Acts, persuasion in the ancient world; each of the persuasive phenomena discussed; evangelistic mission in the early Christian church; and the growth of the early Christian church.

Re-opening the file "Luke and Paul" in a hermeneutic and theological light, far from the historical problems linked to the Acts of the apostles, Christophe Singer picks up throughout the third Gospel the narrative development of a fundamental theme of Paul's Kerygma : justification. Luke's account appears here much closer theologically to Paul's letters than generally conceded by a historico-critical interpretation.

Rouvrant le dossier «Luc et Paul» comme question herméneutique et théologique, dégagée des problèmes historiques liés aux Actes des apôtres, Christophe Singer repère, à travers le troisième évangile, le déploiement narratif d’une thématique fondamentale du kérygme paulinien: la justification. Le récit de Luc y apparaît théologiquement beaucoup plus proche des lettres de Paul que ce que concédait en général l’exégèse historico-critique.

In general, theological terms this study examines the interplay of early Christian understandings of history, revelation, and identity. The book explores this interaction through detailed analysis of appeals to "mystery" in the Pauline letter collection and then the discourse of previously hidden but newly revealed mysteries in various second-century thinkers. T.J. Lang argues that the historical coordination of the concealed/revealed binary ("the mystery previously hidden but presently revealed") enabled these early Christian authors to ground Christian claims - particularly key ecclesial, hermeneutical, and christological claims - in Israel's history and in the eternal design of God while at the same time accounting for their revelatory newness. This particular Christian conception of time gives birth to a new and totalizing historical consciousness, and one that has significant implications for the construction of Christian identity, particularly vis-à-vis Judaism.

How did it happen that 2^nd century Christian authors often cited or alluded to pagan literature? To answer this question, the study examines their works together with those of their predecessors. It shows that the literary practice of quoting pagan texts had strong roots in Jewish-Hellenistic writings as well as in some New Testament texts.

Did Luke formulate a Parousia-free eschatology because early Christianity had experienced a crisis of faith from the delay in the Parousia and abandoned their earlier expectations? This book offers a new interpretative approach to the statements on the Parousia in Luke-Acts. It shows that the Parousia in Luke should be understood as an element of the Christ history associated with the rule of Christ in the present time.

A cursory glance at Hebrews' critique of Israel's fear at Sinai in Heb 12:18-29 suggests that the author has misunderstood or manipulated his sources. In the Pentateuch, the appointment of Moses as Israel's mediator receives explicit approval (Exod 19:9; Deut 5:28), while Heb 12:25 labels their request for mediation a "refusal" to heed the word of God. This book argues that Hebrews' use of the Sinai narratives resides on a complex trajectory established by four points: the Sinai covenant according to Exodus, the reenactment of that covenant according to Deuteronomy, the call for a NEW covenant according to Jeremiah, and the present reality of that covenant established by God and mediated by Jesus Christ.
The basis for Hebrews' critique arises from its insight that while Israel's request established covenant-from-a-distance, Jesus demonstrates that true covenant mediation brings two parties into a single space. The purpose for Hebrews critique lies in its summons to Zion, the mountain on which Jesus sits at the right hand of God as the high priestly mediator of the new covenant.

This book examines the use of the term σήμερον (“today”) in Luke-Acts (22 occurrences), the Pauline letters (Romans 11:8; 2 Corinthians 3:14, 15) and the Epistle to the Hebrews (1:5; 3:7, 13, 15; 4:7 [twice]); 5:5; 13:8). It gives special attention to the possible influence of the Deuteronomic "today" in the New Testament. Two main hypotheses are at the heart of this study. First, the word "today," in Deuteronomy as well as the three New Testament corpora under consideration, becomes a theological theme of its own. Second, in the minds of the three New Testament authors who give attention to this motif, there seems to be an awareness of certain theological associations that are bound up with the Deuteronomic "today." By the end of this investigation, it becomes apparent that Luke’s today, Paul’s today and the today of the Epistle to the Hebrews, while each possessing unique characteristics, all contribute to emphasize the same key theological concepts, such as the fulfillment of Scripture, an inaugurated and progressively realized eschatology, the coming of salvation, the heralding of the good news and the proclaiming of God’s Word.

La présente monographie porte sur l’usage du terme σήμερον («aujourd’hui») en Luc-Actes (vingt-deux occurrences), dans la correspondance paulinienne (Romains 11.8; 2 Corinthiens 3.14, 15) et dans l’épître aux Hébreux (1.5; 3.7, 13, 15; 4.7 [à deux reprises]; 5.5; 13.8). Elle accorde une importance particulière à la possibilité de l’influence de l’«aujourd’hui» du Deutéronome dans le Nouveau Testament.

The notably negative presentation of the Jews is a frequently raised topic of discussion about the Gospel of Peter, but this phenomenon has not been examined in detail until now. This book offers the first detailed narratological analysis of the depiction of the Jews in the Gospel of Peter and examines it in the context of theological history.

Does Paul make use of the Jesus tradition? This question is examined through parallel textual traditions in New Testament texts. The analysis compels revision of the idea of linear continuity in the textual tradition, from Jesus’s annunciation through the Letters of the Apostles. In the light of the Jesus story, Paul and early Christianity formed ethical convictions that were later transferred back to the Gospels as the words of Jesus.

The pre-existence of Jesus is a striking feature of the Gospel According to St. John. The study first defines the linguistic features of pre-existence and then offers a detailed interpretation of the seven times it recurs. These are deliberately structured to occur in a remarkable connection to the narrative drama of Jesus’ death and resurrection. In the “hour,” pre-existence reaches its apex as existence before the creation of the world.

This study is the first to investigate why Paul makes exclusive use of 'epangelia' for the divine pledge when referring to the Abrahamic covenant, a usage of the term never found in the OT-LXX. After examining Jewish writings and Greek literature of the classical and Hellenistic periods, this study demonstrates that Paul is rather unique in his exclusive use of the 'epangelia' word group for the divine pledge and for using the term predominantly in reference to the Abrahamic promises. This exclusive usage is further deemed unexpected in that the 'horkos' and 'omnymi' lexemes are by far the terms most commonly associated with God's promises to Abraham in the OT, the literature with which Paul was most familiar. The study then moves to explain why Paul has chosen this path of discontinuity, where it is argued that Paul's exclusive choice of 'epangelia' for the divine promise is driven by its conceptual and linguistic correspondence with the 'euangelion', one of the terms Paul adopted from the early church that forms the core of his ministry. This conceptual word study of the divine promise will benefit Pauline scholars interested in Paul's use of the OT as well as his association of the 'euangelion' and 'epangelia' word groups.

What accounts for the seemingly atypical pattern of scriptural exegesis that Paul uses to interpret Exodus 34 in 2 Cor 3:7-18? While previous scholars have approached this question from a variety of angles, in this monograph, Michael Cover grapples particularly with the evidence of contemporaneous Jewish and Greco-Roman commentary traditions. Through comparison with Philo of Alexandria's Allegorical Commentary, the Pseudo-Philonic homilies De Jona and De Sampsone, the Anonymous Theaetetus Commentary, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Seneca's Epistulae morales, and other New Testament texts, Paul's interpretation of Exodus emerges as part of a wider commentary practice that Cover terms "secondary-level exegesis." This study also provides new analysis of the way ancient authors, including Paul, interwove commentary forms and epistolary rhetoric and offers a reconstruction of the context of Paul's conflict with rival apostles in Corinth. At root was the legacy of Moses and of the Pentateuch itself, how the scriptures ought to be read, and how Platonizing theological and anthropological traditions might be interwoven with Paul's messianic gospel.

Luke-Acts contains a wealth of material that is relevant to politics, and the relationship between Jesus and his followers and the Roman Empire becomes an issue at a number of points. The author's fundamental attitude toward Rome is hard to discern, however. The complexity of Luke's task as both a creative writer and a mediator of received tradition, and perhaps as well the author's own ambivalence, have left conflicting evidence in the narrative. Scholarly treatments of the issue have tended to survey in a relatively short scope a great amount of material with different degrees of relevance to the question and representing different proportions of authorial contribution and traditional material. This book attempts to make a contribution to the discussion by narrowing the focus to Luke's depiction of the Roman provincial governors in his narrative, interpreted in terms of his Greco-Roman literary context. Luke's portraits of Roman governors can be seen to invoke expectations and concerns that were common in the literary context. By these standards Luke's portrait of these Roman authority figures is relatively critical, and demonstrates his preoccupation with Rome's judgment of the Christians more than a desire to commend Roman rule.

The influence of Isaiah on John's narrative and theology has long been recognized, but it has yet to receive monograph-length attention. This study is a beginning attempt to fill that void through an examination of the use of Isaiah in the crucial hinge of John's gospel - John 12:1-43. Beginning with a reading of Isaiah 40-55 illustrating a way in which early Christians may have read this important section of Scripture, the bulk of the study examines the pericopes in John 12:1-43, seeking to identify and interpret John's use of Isaiah 52-53. It is concluded that a reading of this well-known Isaianic text rooted within its broader context in Isaiah, together with the mediating influence of other texts - notably Isa 6:9-10 and Zech 9:9-10 - has fueled much Johannine theology, Christology, and ecclesiology. Moreover, mirroring the progression of Isa 52:7-53:1 in John 12 is the author's way of underlining Jesus' identity as the Servant of God and announcing that the second exodus prophesied by Isaiah is secured by the rejection (and death) of Jesus.

This book seeks to identify a distinct approach to interpreting Scripture in the New Testament that makes use of assumptions about a text's author or time of composition. Focusing upon the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Acts of the Apostles and the Davidssohnfrage in the Synoptic Gospels, it is argued that in certain cases the meaning of a scriptural text is understood by the New Testament author to be contingent upon its history: that the meaning of a text is found when the identity of its author is taken into account or when its time of origin is considered. This approach to interpretation appears to lack clear precedents in intertestamental and 1st Century exegetical literature, suggesting that it is dependent upon distinctly Christian notions of Heilsgeschichte. The analysis of the Davidssohnfrage suggests also that the origins of this approach to interpretation may be associated with traditions of Jesus' exegetical sayings. A final chapter questions whether an early Christian use of history in the interpretation of Scripture might offer something to contemporary discussion of the continuing relevance of historical criticism.

In seiner profunden Kenntnis der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaftsgeschichte und dem Verständnis von Exegese als Auslegung im Miteinander von historischer Rekonstruktion und theologischer Interpretation eröffnet der Erlanger Neutestamentler Otto Merk prägnante Zugänge zum Neuen Testament und seiner Erforschung. Der erste Teil der Aufsatzsammlung bietet Studien zur Geschichte der neutestamentlichen Forschung von der Aufklärung bis in das 20. Jahrhundert. Dabei gilt ein besonderes Augenmerk dem Wirken von Adolf Jülicher, Albert Schweitzer und Werner Georg Kümmel sowie der Lage der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft im Umfeld des Zweiten Weltkriegs. Der zweite Teil enthält exegetische Studien zu verschiedenen Themen und Aspekten des Neuen Testaments. Dabei zeigt sich neben dem wissenschaftsgeschichtlichen Impetus das besondere Interesse Merks an den Thessalonicherbriefen sowie dem Bezug der Exegese zur Kirche und ihrer Praxis. Aber auch Aspekte der persönlichen theologischen Existenz sowie des Menschlichen im Bereich von theologischer Forschung und Universität werden thematisiert. So präsentiert der Band wesentliche Erträge des Schaffens Otto Merks aus den vergangenen 15 Jahren.

The Apostle Paul was the greatest early missionary of the Christian gospel. He was also, by his own admission, an Israelite. How can both these realities coexist in one individual? This book argues that Paul viewed his mission to the Gentiles, in and of itself, as the primary expression of his Jewish identity. The concept of Israel’s divine vocation is used to shed fresh light on a number of much-debated passages in Paul’s letter to the Romans.

Private associations organized around a common cult, profession, ethnic identity, neighbourhood or family were common throughout the Greco-Roman antiquity, offering opportunities for sociability, cultic activities, mutual support and a context in which to display and recognize virtuous achievement. This second volume collects a representative selection of inscriptions from associations based on the North Coast of the Black Sea and in Asia Minor, published with English translations, brief explanatory notes, commentaries and full indices. This volume is essential for several areas of study: ancient patterns of social organization; the organization of diasporic communities in the ancient Mediterranean; models for the structure of early Christian groups; and forms of sociability, status-displays, and the vocabularies of virtue.

Although Roman centurions appear at crucial stages in the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, the significance of the centurion’s office for the development of Luke’s story has not been adequately researched. To fill in that void, this study engages the relevant Greco-Roman and Jewish sources that reflect on the image of the Roman military and applies the findings to the analysis of the role of the Roman centurion in the narrative of Luke-Acts. It argues that contemporary evidence reveals a common perception of the Roman centurion as a principal representative of the Roman imperial power, and that Luke-Acts employs centurions in the role of prototypical Gentile believers in anticipation of the Christian mission to the Empire.
Chapter 1 outlines the current state of the question. Chapter 2 surveys the background data, including the place of the centurion in the Roman military organization, the role of the Roman army as the basis of the ruling power, the army’s function in the life of the civilian community, Luke’s military terminology, and the Roman military regiments in Luke-Acts. Chapter 3 reviews Greco-Roman writings, including Polybius, Julius Caesar, Sallust, Livy, Velleius Paterculus, Tacitus, Appian, Cornelius Nepos, Plutarch, Suetonius, Plautus, Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Petronius, Quintilian, Epictetus, Juvenal, Fronto, Apuleius, as well as non-literary evidence. Chapter 4 engages the Jewish witnesses, including 1 Maccabees, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jewish pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Talmudic sources, and non-literary sources. Chapter 5 examines the relevant accounts of Luke-Acts, focusing on Luke 7:1–10 and Acts 10:1–11:18. The Conclusion reviews the findings of the study and summarizes the results.

Among the great mysteries of the Gospel of John is its treatment of the Lord’s Supper. The present study addresses this mystery based on composition-analytic and hermeneutic observations and concludes that the Gospel of John contains a deeply reflected theology of the Lord’s Supper as the culmination of a deep process of transformation rooted in communal history.

This study proposes that both constitutively and rhetorically (through ironic, inferential, and indirect application), Ps 106(105) serves as the substructure for Paul’s argumentation in Rom 1:18–2:11. Constitutively, Rom 1:18–32 hinges on the triadic interplay between “they (ex)changed” and “God gave them over,” an interplay that creates a sin–retribution sequence with an a-ba-ba-b pattern. Both elements of this pattern derive from Ps 106(105):20, 41a respectively. Rhetorically, Paul ironically applies the psalmic language of idolatrous “(ex)change” and God’s subsequent “giving-over” to Gentiles. Aiding this ironic application is that Paul has cast his argument in the mold of Hellenistic Jewish polemic against Gentile idolatry and immorality, similar to Wis 13–15. In Rom 2:1–4, however, Paul inferentially incorporates a hypocritical Jewish interlocutor into the preceding sequence through the charge of doing the “same,” a charge that recalls Israel’s sins recounted in Ps 106(105). This incorporation then gives way to an indirect application of Ps 106(105):23, by means of an allusion to Deut 9–10 in Rom 2:5–11. Secondarily, this study suggests that Paul’s argumentation exploits an intra-Jewish debate in which evocations of the golden calf figured prominently.

Leonhard Goppelt’s groundbreaking commentary on the First Epistle of Peter was first published posthumously in 1978. In honor of the 100^th anniversary of Goppelt’s birth, a collection of essays was compiled by renowned scriptural scholars working in key areas of modern research on the First Epistle. They focus on the First Epistle’s historical and communicative setting, the author’s use of metaphor and rhetoric, and situate the First Epistle in the context of the theological history of early Christianity.

This volume brings together an international group of scholars on Mark and Paul, respectively, who reopen the question whether Paul was a direct influence on Mark. On the basis of the latest methods in New Testament scholarship, the battle over Yes and No to this question of literary and theological influence is waged within these pages. In the end, no agreement is reached, but the basic issues stand out with much greater clarity than before. How may one relate two rather different literary genres, the apostolic letter and the narrative gospel? How may the theologies of two such different types of writing be compared? Are there sufficient indications that Paul lies directly behind Mark for us to conclude that through Paul himself and Mark the New Testament as a whole reflects specifically Pauline ideas? What would the literary and theological consequences of either assuming or denying a direct influence be for our reconstruction of 1st century Christianity? And what would the consequences be for either understanding Mark or Paul as literary authors and theologians? How far should we give Paul an exalted a position in the literary creativity of the first Christians? Addressing these questions are scholars who have already written seminally on the issue or have marked positions on it, like Joel Marcus, Margaret Mitchell, Gerd Theissen and Oda Wischmeyer, together with a group of up-coming and senior Danish scholars from Aarhus and Copenhagen Universities who have collaborated on the issue for some years. The present volume leads the discussion further that has been taken up in: “Paul and Mark” (ed. by O. Wischmeyer, D. Sim, and I. Elmer), BZNW 191, 2013.

The hypothesis that the Gospel of Mark was heavily influenced by Pauline theology and/or epistles was widespread in the nineteenth century, but fell out of favour for much of the twentieth century. In the last twenty years or so, however, this view has begun to attract renewed support, especially in English language scholarship. This major and important collection of essays by an international team of scholars seeks to move the discussion forward in a number of significant ways – tracing the history of the hypothesis from the nineteenth century to the modern day, searching for historical connections between these two early Christians, analysing and comparing the theology and christology of the Pauline epistles and the Gospel of Mark, and assessing their reception in later Christian texts. This major volume will be welcomed by those who are interested in the possible influence of the apostle to the Gentiles on the earliest Gospel.

This monograph examines the place of chapters 3 and 4 in the larger argument of Hebrews, particularly the relationship of the people of God in Heb 3:7–4:13 to the surrounding discussion of the high priest. The connection between the great high priest and the people of God proved a central question for twentieth-century scholars, including Ernst Käsemann. The first chapter of this work examines previous attempts to explain the flow of the argument and revisits the proposal of J. Rendel Harris, who thought attention to the two Joshuas of the Hebrew Bible was the key to connecting Heb 3:7–4:13 to its frame. The second chapter examines reading practices within Second Temple Judaism that shaped those of the author of Hebrews. Two subsequent chapters explore the history of Second Temple interpretation of the texts central to Harris’s proposal: Numbers 13–14 and Zechariah 3. The Levi-priestly tradition receives particular attention. The following chapter provides a careful study of the early chapters of Hebrews that explores allusions and echoes to Numbers and to Zechariah. The monograph concludes with a positive assessment of much of Harris’s proposal.

Why are so many speakers interrupted in Luke and in Acts? For nearly a century, scholars have noted the presence of interrupted speech in the Acts of the Apostles, but explanations of its function have been limited and often contradictory. A more effective approach involves grounding the analysis of Luke-Acts within a larger understanding of how interruption functions in a wide variety of literary settings. An extensive survey of ancient Greek narratives (epics, histories, and novels) reveals the forms, frequency, and functions of interruption in Greek authors who lived and wrote between the eighth-century B.C.E. and the second-century C.E.
This comparative study suggests that the frequent interruptions of Jesus and his followers in Luke 4:28; Acts 4:1; 7:54–57; 13:48; etc., are designed both to highlight the pivotal closing words of the discourses and to draw attention to the ways in which the early Christian gospel was received. In the end, the interrupted discourses are best understood not as historical accidents, but as rhetorical exclamation points intended to highlight key elements of the early Christian message and their varied reception by Jews and Gentiles.

Ever since the work of Heinrich Julius Holtzmann, the pastoral epistles have been regarded as “inseparable triplets”. And yet, if one analyzes these letters as a corpus of literary works, it is hard to find a plausible explanation for the substantive differences between them. Therefore, this study returns to the question of the specific nature of the individual epistles and their literary relationships. In the end, it can be shown that the first Letter to Timothy is the most recent text. Its author had already received the two other pastoral epistles as part of the Pauline tradition.

Even a brief comparison with its canonical counterparts demonstrates that the Gospel of Luke is preoccupied with the power of spoken words; still, words alone do not make a language. Just as music without silence collapses into cacophony, so speech without silence signifies nothing: silences are the invisible, inaudible cement that hold the entire edifice together. Though scholars across diverse disciplines have analyzed silence in terms of its contexts, sources, and functions, these insights have barely begun to make inroads in biblical studies. Utilizing conceptual tools from narratology and reader-response criticism, this study is an initial exploration of largely uncharted territory – the various ways that narrative intersections of speech and silences function together rhetorically in Luke’s Gospel. Considering speech and silence to be mutually constituted in intricate and inextricable ways, Dinkler demonstrates that attention to both characters’ silences and the narrator’s silences helps to illuminate plot, characterization, theme, and readerly experience in Luke’s Gospel. Focusing on both speech and silence reveals that the Lukan narrator seeks to shape readers into ideal witnesses who use speech and silence in particular ways; Luke can be read as an early Christian proclamation – not only of the gospel message – but also of the proper ways to use speech and silence in light of that message. Thus, we find that speech and silence are significant matters of concern within the Lukan story and that speech and silence are significant tools used in its telling.

Paul’s statements in Romans 9–11 are considered the fundamental texts in the New Testament underlying theological discourse about the possibilities of salvation for Jews who did not believe in Jesus as the Messiah. Meanwhile, the importance of the dual contribution contained in Luke-Acts is often underestimated.

This monograph highlights the potential significance of the Gospel of Luke. It explores the Biblical traditions about Israel’s salvation that were received by Luke and Paul, and uses textual analyses of different portions of Luke-Acts to show that like Paul, Luke also held out eschatological hope for Israel, although this hope was based on a different perspective.

This narrative study uses Mark 3:22–30 as an interpretive lens to show that the Gospel of Mark has a thoroughly apocalyptic outlook. That is, Mark 3:22–30 constructs a symbolic world that shapes the Gospel’s literary and theological logic. Mark utilizes apocalyptic discourse, portraying the Spirit-filled Jesus in a struggle against Satan to establish the kingdom of God by liberating people to form a community that does God’s will. This discourse develops throughout the narrative by means of repetition and variation, functioning rhetorically to persuade the reader that God manifests power out of suffering, rejection, and death. This book fits among literary studies that focus on Mark as a unified narrative and rhetorical composition, and uses narrative analysis as a key tool. While narrative approaches to Mark generally offer non-apocalyptic readings, this study clarifies the symbols, metaphors and themes of Mark 3:22–30 in light of the religious and social context in which the Gospel was produced in order to understand Mark’s persuasive aims towards the reader. Accordingly, a comparative analysis of Jewish apocalyptic literature informs the use of Mark 3:22–30 as a paradigm for the Gospel.

It has often been observed that Jesus’ filial obedience is an important Matthean theme. In this work the author argues that the articulation of Jesus as Son of God in Matthew is significantly influenced by the Deuteronomic concept of obedient sonship.
After noting the complexities of Matthew’s use of Scripture – including the subtle ways he engages texts – Deuteronomy’s pervasive influence in ancient Judaism and Christianity is considered. It is argued that the requirement of Israel’s covenantal obedience as God’s son(s) is a major concern in Deuteronomy, as well as in other Jewish and Christian texts that appear to echo Deuteronomy. Indeed, it is argued that a pattern can be detected in which the sonship of Israel is invoked either to summon Israel to obedience, or to rebuke the nation for disobedience.
The author concludes that the necessity of Israel’s obedient sonship is an important part of Matthew’s interpretive milieu that derives ultimately from Deuteronomy, and our understanding of Matthean Christology is greatly enhanced when viewed in this context. This study may further help us understand why Matthew’s concern with obedient sonship applies not only to Jesus uniquely, but also to the early Christian community.

Can Pauline soteriology be categorized as a form of deification? This book attempts to answer this question by keen attention to the Greco-Roman world. It provides the first full-scale history of research on the topic. It is also the first work to fully treat the basic historical questions relating to deification. Namely, what is deity in the Greco-Roman world? What are the types of deification in the Greco-Roman world? Are there Jewish antecedents to deification? Does Paul consider Christ to be a divine being? If so, according to what logic? How is Pauline deification possible in light of ancient Jewish "monotheism"? How is deification possible with a strong notion of creation? Although a rigorously historical study, no attempt is made to avoid theological issues in their historical context. Deification, it is argued, provides a new historical category of perception with which to deepen our knowledge of the Apostle's religious thought in its own time. This book is intended for an academic audience. The range of topics discussed here should interest a wide-array of scholars in the fields of Hebrew Bible, New Testament, Classics, and Patristics.

Most historical Jesus and Gospel scholars have supposed three hypotheses of unidirectionality: geographically, the more Judaeo-Palestinian, the earlier; modally, the more oral, the earlier; and linguistically, the more Aramaized, the earlier. These are based on the chronological assumption of'the earlier, the more original'. These four long-held hypotheses have been applied as authenticity criteria. However, this book proposes that linguistic milieus of 1st-century Palestine and the Roman Near East were bilingual in Greek and vernacular languages and that the earliest church in Jerusalem was a bilingual Christian community. The study of bilingualism blurs the lines between each of the temporal dichotomies. The bilingual approach undermines unidirectional assumptions prevalent among Gospels and Acts scholarship with regard to the major issues of source criticism, textual criticism, form criticism, redaction criticism, literary criticism, the Synoptic Problem, the Historical Jesus, provenances of the Gospels and Acts, the development of Christological titles and the development of early Christianity. There is a need for New Testament studies to rethink the major issues from the perspective of the interdirectionality theory based on bilingualism.

“An End to Enmity” casts light upon the shadowy figure of the “wrongdoer” of Second Corinthians by exploring the social and rhetorical conventions that governed friendship, enmity and reconciliation in the Greco-Roman world. The book puts forward a novel hypothesis regarding the identity of the “wrongdoer” and the nature of his offence against Paul. Drawing upon the prosopographic data of Paul’s Corinthian epistles and the epigraphic and archaeological record of Roman Corinth, the author shapes a robust image of the kind of individual who did Paul “wrong” and caused “pain” to both Paul and the Corinthians. The concluding chapter reconstructs the history of Paul’s relationship with an influential convert to Christianity at Corinth.

After a survey of recent approaches to the study of Paul’s use of Scripture, the four main chapters explore the use of Isa. 54:1 in Gal. 4:27, the catena of scriptural texts in 2 Cor. 6:16–18, Hos. 1:10 and 2:23 in Rom. 9:25–26 and Isa. 57:19 in Eph. 2:17.
In each case, the ancienwriter seeks to place the letter in its historical context and rhetorical situation, identify the significance of any conflations or modifications that have taken place in the citation process, analyse the citation’s function within its immediate context, compare its use by Paul with the various ways in which the text is interpreted and appropriated by other Second Temple writers, and evaluate the main proposals offered as explanations for the riddle posed by the citation. That done, he offers his own account of the hermeneutic at work, based on an analysis of the explicit and implicit hermeneutical pointers through which the letter guides its readers in their appropriation of Scripture.
This book compares the hermeneutical approaches of the four letters and draws conclusionsconcerning the interplay of continuity and discontinuity between Scripture and gospel in Paul's letters and the relationship between grace and Gentile inclusion in his theology.

The phrase “the communion of saints” is known from the creed. ‛The saints’ refers to all Christians – a sense already used by Paul. This study presents a comprehensive account of Paul’s use of the term ‌‘the saints’, as well as a detailed analysis of what he meant by ‘saintliness’. The conclusion is that for Paul saintliness was an identifying characteristic of all Christians, very different to the current usage referring to remarkable individuals.

David Moessner proposes a new understanding of the relation of Luke’s second volume to his Gospel to open up a whole new reading of Luke’s foundational contribution to the New Testament. For postmodern readers who find Acts a ‘generic outlier,’ dangling tenuously somewhere between the ‘mainland’ of the evangelists and the ‘Peloponnese’ of Paul—diffused and confused and shunted to the backwaters of the New Testament by these signature corpora—Moessner plunges his readers into the hermeneutical atmosphere of Greek narrative poetics and elaboration of multi-volume works to inhale the rhetorical swells that animate Luke’s first readers in their engagement of his narrative. In this collection of twelve of his essays, re-contextualized and re-organized into five major topical movements, Moessner showcases multiple Hellenistic texts and rhetorical tropes to spotlight the various signals Luke provides his readers of the multiple ways his Acts will follow "all that Jesus began to do and to teach" (Acts 1:1) and, consequently, bring coherence to this dominant block of the New Testament that has long been split apart. By collapsing the world of Jesus into the words and deeds of his followers, Luke re-configures the significance of Israel’s "Christ" and the "Reign" of Israel’s God for all peoples and places to create a new account of ‘Gospel Acts,’ discrete and distinctively different than the "narrative" of the "many" (Luke 1:1). Luke the Historian of Israel’s Legacy combines what no analysis of the Lukan writings has previously accomplished, integrating seamlessly two ‘generically-estranged’ volumes into one new whole from the intent of the one composer. For Luke is the Hellenistic historian and simultaneously ‘biblical’ theologian who arranges the one "plan of God" read from the script of the Jewish scriptures—parts and whole, severally and together—as the saving ‘script’ for the whole world through Israel’s suffering and raised up "Christ," Jesus of Nazareth. In the introductions to each major theme of the essays, this noted scholar of the Lukan writings offers an epitome of the main features of Luke’s theological ‘thought,’ and, in a final Conclusions chapter, weaves together a comprehensive synthesis of this new reading of the whole.

Private associations organized around a common cult, profession, ethnic identity, neighbourhood or family were common throughout the Greco-Roman antiquity, offering opportunities for sociability, cultic activities, mutual support and a context in which to display and recognize virtuous achievement. This volume collects a representative selection of inscriptions from associations in Attica, Central Greece, Macedonia, Thrace, published with English translations, brief explanatory notes, commentaries and full indices. This volume is essential for several areas of study: ancient patterns of social organization; the organization of diasporic communities in the ancient Mediterranean; models for the structure of early Christian groups; and forms of sociability, status-displays, and the vocabularies of virtue.

This study analyzes an oral performance of the entire Gospel of Mark, with emphasis on involvement with characters and events, the emotional effects of such involvement, and how these processes maintain or shape the identity of those who hear the Gospel. Insights from cognitive poetics and psychonarratology are employed to illuminate the complex, cognitive processes that take place when audience members experience an oral performance of the Gospel. Consequently, this study expands previous research on the Gospel of Mark which was conducted on the basis of narrative criticism, orality criticism, and performance criticism by including cognitive aspects. Cognitive poetics and psychonarratology have to my knowledge not been extensively employed to illuminate an oral performance of the Gospel of Mark previously.

This investigation provides: (1) An original, coherent theoretical and methodological framework; (2) An analysis of mechanisms which promote involvement with characters and events in the Markan narrative; (3) An examination of the prospective emotional effects of such involvement; (4) Reflections on the potential of these mechanisms with regard to identity maintenance or formation through cultural memory; (5) A cognitive poetic commentary on the entire Gospel of Mark.

Recent scholars have tended to interpret 2 Corinthians 12:1–10 as an attempt to belittle ecstatic experiences, such as Paul’s ascent to paradise, in favor of suffering in the service of the gospel. This study offers an alternative. An analysis of ascent traditions in the Greco-Roman and Jewish worlds investigates ascent as both a literary motif and a religious practice. This analysis probes several issues relevant to 2 Cor 12:1–10, including dynamics of ascent and suffering. The study turns next to religious experiences Paul believes he and his communities have undergone. A pattern emerges in which extraordinary experiences provide the basis for suffering and service. Moreover, Paul expects his communities to have had experiences similar to, if less dramatic than, his ascent to heaven. The author argues that in its context in 2 Corinthians, Paul’s ascent should be understood as an encounter with Christ that transcends human language and endows Paul with divine power, which must be refined through suffering. With the help of four premodern interpreters, the study further explores the theological relevance of Paul’s ascent. For Paul, mystical encounter with Christ forms the precondition for suffering and service because it enables self-transcending love for God and neighbors.

This monograph provides a fresh perspective on judgment according to works by challenging both the majority scholarly view and the new perspective advocated by E. P. Sanders, James D. G. Dunn and N. T. Wright. Employing intertextuality and early Jewish mediation of scripture, this study examines the idea of judgment according to works with reference to Psalm 62:13 in early Jewish literature and the New Testament. The originality of this study is to highlight the significance of Psalm 62:13 in the context of judgment according to works and to argue that the texts dealing with judgment according to works in the New Testament are to be understood as interpretations of Psalm 62:13 and its broad context.

In the web of cultural processes of late antiquity ablution rites and initiation rites were performed in different forms and in different contexts. Such rites existed in Early Judaism and Greco-Roman cults and were also applied in early Christianity under the label “baptism”, however, not as one fixed rite uniformly performed and interpreted. Baptismal rites developed diversely corresponding to the diversity among Christian groups of which some later came to be perceived as heretical.
Remains of art, architecture and texts from these contexts were discussed in two conferences gathering scholars who are excellent within their respective fields: text studies, studies of rites, archaeology, architecture, history of art, and cultural anthropology. These different fields of research have in recent years generated new knowledge that is relevant for the discussion of ablution and initiation rites and their function in late antiquity. At the same time interests of research have altered in favour of a growing cooperation across discipline borders.
The present volumes are the outcome of two conferences in Rome 2008 and at Metochi (Lesbos) 2009.

This book examines Paul’s use of temple, priesthood, and sacrificial metaphors from a cognitive and socio-literary perspective. The final conclusion of a number of scholars in this area of research is that Paul’s cultic metaphors have the theological and rhetorical purpose of encouraging community formation and moral living. Such evaluations, however, often take place without paying sufficient attention to the complexity of Paul’s cultic imagery as well as, from a methodological standpoint, what metaphors are and how they are used in thinking and communicating.
Utilizing the tools and insights of conceptual metaphor theory, this study seeks to approach this topic afresh by attending to how metaphors constitute a necessary platform of cognition. Thus, they have world-constructing and perception-transforming utility. In this study, we conclude that, far from being merely about ethics or ecclesiology, Paul’s cultic metaphors act as vehicles for communicating his ineffable theology and ethical perspective. By anchoring his converts’ new experiences in Christ to the world of ancient cult, and its familiar set of terms and concepts, he was attempting to re-describe reality and develop a like-minded community of faith by articulating logikē latreia – 'worship that makes sense'.

The present monograph is the slightly modified publication of a doctoral thesis in theology presented in November 2009 at the University of Lausanne (CH). It results from a pressing question in New Testament: an appraisal of the relationship of the work of Luke, more precisely of his Acts of the Apostles, to the Jewish faith. This problem, to which an unwavering consensus attached until the nineteen-sixties, has become a storm centre of New Testament research over the last three decades. The originality of this study is the reassessment of the Jewish question from the point of view of the acknowledged purpose of Lucan historiography as focused on identity, providing it with a differentiated approach.

Since Origen and Chrysostom, John’s Gospel has been valued as the most spiritual among the New Testament writings. Although Origen recognizes the Stoic character of John’s statement that “God is pneuma” (4:24), an examination of the gospel in light of Stoic physics has not yet been carried out. Combining her insight into Stoic physics and ancient physiology, the author situates her thesis in the major discussions of modern Johannine scholarship – e.g. the role of the Baptist and the function of the Johannine signs – and demonstrates new solutions to well-known problems.
The Stoic study of the Fourth Gospel reveals a coherent narrative tied together by the spirit. The problem with which John’s Gospel wrestles is not the identity of Jesus, but the transition from the Son of God to the next generation of divinely begotten children: how did it come about? A reading carried out from a Stoic perspective points to the translation of the risen body of Jesus into spirit as the decisive event. The provision of the spirit is a precondition of the divine generation of believers. Both events are explained by Stoic theory which allows of a transformation of fleshly elements into pneuma and of multiple fatherhood. In fact, in his Commentary on John, Origen described Jesus’ ascension as an event of anastoixeiôsis, which is the Stoic term for the transformation of heavily elements into lighter and pneumatic ones.

Informed by the understanding that all texts are intertexts, this work develops and employs a method that utilizes the concept of intertextuality for the purpose of exploring the history of interpretation of a biblical text. With Day One, Genesis 1.1–5, as the primary text, the intertextuality of this biblical text is investigated in its Hebrew (Masoretic Text) and Greek (Septuagint) contexts. The study then broadens to take up the intertextuality of Day One in other Hebrew and Greek texts up to c. 200 CE, moving from Hebrew texts such as Ben Sira and the Dead Sea Scrolls to Greek texts such as Josephus, Philo, the New Testament, and early Christian texts. What emerges from this is a new glimpse of the intertextuality of Day One that provides insight into the complexity of the intertextuality of a biblical text and the role that language plays in intertextuality and interpretation. In addition to the methodological insights that this approach provides to the history of interpretation, the study also sheds light on textual and theological questions that relate to Day One, including the genesis of creatio ex nihilo.

Gustav Adolf Deissmann (1866–1937) was an extraordinary German theologian who gained considerable international repute during his lifetime for his many pioneering contributions in the widely divergent fields of postclassical Greek philology, lexicography, the archaeological excavations of ancient Ephesus, international conciliation and the ecumenical movement. He was the recipient of numerous national and international distinctions, including eight honorary doctorates from six different countries, and was nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet until recent years this once celebrated intellectual has largely been overlooked by modern scholarship, or, if mentioned, often tended to be misrepresented. Although a pleasing upsurge of interest in Deissmann has occurred during the past decade – driven primarily by research from German theological faculties – this comprehensive book from the Antipodes is the first authorized biographical analysis of his multifaceted academic career.

Gerber’s thorough research is based on an impressive range of hitherto unpublished sources – drawn from some 25 archives, scattered over 3 continents – as well as much privately held material which includes Deissmann’s personal diary. An important added feature of this source-rich work is the substantial collection of relevant appendices and addenda, as these consist of transcribed documentary material that would otherwise remain largely unknown or inaccessible to most readers.

In the New Testament polemics plays an important role, both as objective dispute and as literary strategy. To reconstruct the character of Jesus it is necessary to thematically deal with polemics in oral and written form. The same applies to Paul, who was a great polemicist. This book aims to analyze the literary and objective forms of New Testament polemics, also in the writings of the second and third generation of Early Christianity, and to integrate them into the theoretical and historical contexts of literature in Antiquity and of the church writers.

This book is dedicated entirely to the interpretation of Paul’s Letter to Philemon. The letter is approached from a wide variety of perspectives, thus yielding several new insights into its interpretation. In a first essay the tendencies in the research on the letter since 1980 are outlined. This is followed by essays devoted to the epistolary analysis and to a rhetorical-psychological interpretation of the letter; as well as an essay devoted to the rhetorical function of stylistic form in the letter. After this there are two essays devoted to situating the letter in its ancient context: one views the letter against the background of ancient legal and documentary sources and another one against the background of slavery in early Christianity. The next two essays focus on theological aspects, namely on the letter as ethical counterpart of Paul’s doctrine of justification and on the role that love plays in the letter. Three essays focus on ideological issues: the contextual interpretation of the letter in the US, a post-colonial reading of the letter and the letter’s legacy of hierarchy and obedience. The volume concludes with four essays on the way in which the letter was interpreted by the some of the Church Fathers: Origen, Jerome, Chrystostom, Augustine and Theodore of Mopsuestia.

Scholars have long recognized the importance of Paul’s citations from the Pentateuch for understanding the argument of Galatians. But what has not been fully appreciated is the key role that Isaiah plays in shaping what Paul says and how he says it, even though he cites Isaiah explicitly only once (Isaiah 54:1 in Galatians 4:27). Using an intertextual approach to trace more subtle appropriations of Scripture (i.e., allusions, echoes and thematic parallels), Harmon argues that Isaiah 49-54 in particular has shaped the structure of Paul’s argument and the content of his theological reflection in Galatians. Each example of Isaianic influence is situated within its original context as well as its new context in Galatians. Attention is also paid to how those same Isaianic texts were interpreted in Second Temple Judaism, providing the larger interpretive context within which Paul read Scripture. The result is fresh light shed on Paul’s self-understanding as an apostle to the Gentiles, the content of his gospel message, his reading of the Abraham story and the larger structure of Galatians.

In Christian tradition, sanctification and sanctity are terms often associated with ethical progress and idealism. This study, however, demonstrates that in Paul's First Epistle to the Thessalonians, the earliest extant Christian writing, sanctity refers not to ethical idealism, but exclusively to God's eschatological realm.

Scholars have long noted the prevalence of praise of God in Luke-Acts. This monograph offers the first comprehensive analysis of this important feature of Luke’s narrative. It focuses on twenty-six scenes in which praise occurs, studied in light of ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman discourse about praise of deity and in comparison with how praise appears in the narratives of Tobit and Joseph and Aseneth. The book argues that praise of God functions as a literary motif in all three narratives, serving to mark important moments in each plot, particularly in relation to the themes of healing, conversion, and revelation. In Luke-Acts specifically, the plot presents the long-expected visitation of God, which arrives in the person of Jesus, bringing glory to the people of Israel and revelation to the Gentiles. The motif of praise of God aligns closely with the plot’s structure, communicating to the reader that varied (and often surprising) events in the story – such as healings in Luke and conversions in Acts – together comprise the plan of God. The praise motif thus demonstrates the author’s efforts to combine disparate source material into carefully constructed historiography.

This monograph on John 9 makes extensive use of premodern Christian exegesis as a resource for New Testament studies. The study reframes the existing critique of the two-level reading of John 9 as allegory in terms of premodern exegetical practices. It offers a hermeneutical critique of the two-level reading strategy as a kind of figural exegesis, rather than historical reconstruction, through an extensive comparison with Augustine’s interpretation of John 9. A review of several premodern Christian readings of John 9 suggests an alternative way of understanding this account in terms of Greco-Roman rhetoric. John 9 resembles the rhetorical argumentation associated with chreia elaboration and the complete argument to display Jesus’ identity as the Light of the World. This analysis illustrates the inseparability of form and content, rhetoric and theology, in the Fourth Gospel.

This book suggests that gossip can be used as an interpretive key to understand more of early Christian identity and theology. Insights from the multi disciplinary field of gossip studies help to interpret what role gossip plays, especially in relation to how power and authority are distributed and promoted. A presentation of various texts in Greek, Hebrew and Latin shows that the relation between gossip and gender is complex: to gossip was typical for all women and risky for elite men who constantly had to defend their masculinity. Frequently the Pastoral Epistles connect gossip to false teaching, as an expression of deviance. On several occasions it is argued that various categories of women have to avoid gossip to be entrusted duties or responsibilities. “Old wives’ tales” are associated with heresy, contrasted to godliness in which one had to train one self. Other passages clearly suggest that the false teaching resembles feminine gossip by use of metaphorical language: profane words will spread fast and uncontrolled like cancer; what the false teachers say is tickling in the ear, and their mouth must be stopped or silenced. The Pastoral Epistles employ terms drawn from the stereotype of gossip as rhetorical devices in order to undermine the masculinity and hence the authority, of the opponents.

This volume is a collection of studies on the history of theology and the world of the New Testament. Particular weight is given to the synoptic Jesus tradition, Paul’s letters and John’s Book of Revelation. The contents focus on questions about Israel, traditional-historical preconditions and lines of development in Paul’s theology, in that of his followers and in the Revelation to John.

Luke-Acts is the first early Christian writing to which serious historiographical interest can be attributed. In view of the intense debate in recent years concerning the character and forms of classical historiography, this collection seeks to clarify the relationship of the Gospel to classical historiography, illustrated through the comparison of exemplary texts. In doing so, it reveals connections to early Jewish historiography and the Septuagint, to Greek and Roman historiography as well as further early Christian development up to Eusebius and Theodoret. Furthermore, it includes discussion about the genre of Acts in relation to the epos, the literary novel and the canonical Gospels, and also about the methods of classical historiography and essential aspects of the conception of Lukas’ writing.

While scholars have often found value in comparing Wisdom and Romans, a comparison of the use of personification in these works has not yet been made, despite the striking parallels between them. Furthermore, while scholars have studied many of these personifications in detail, no one has investigated an individual personification with respect to the general use of the trope in the work. Instead, most of this research focuses on a personification in relation to its nature as either a rhetorical device or a supernatural power. The “Powers” of Personification seeks to push beyond this debate by evaluating the evidence in a different light – that of its purpose within the overall use of personification in the respective work and in comparison with another piece of contemporaneous theological literature.

This book proposes that the authors of Wisdom and Romans employ personification to distance God from the origin of evil, to deflect attention away from the problem of righteous suffering to the positive sides of the experience, or to defer the solution for the suffering of the righteous to the future.

Scholars largely agree that the NT term “mysterion” is a terminus technicus, originating from Daniel. This project traces the word in the Dead Sea Scrolls and other sectors of Judaism. Like Daniel, the term consistently retains eschatological connotations. The monograph then examines how mystery functions within 1 Corinthians and seeks to explain why the term is often employed. The apocalyptic term concerns the Messiah reigning in the midst of defeat, eschatological revelations and tongues, charismatic exegesis, and the transformation of believers into the image of the last Adam.

This monograph examines the concept of Jesus’ perfection in the Epistle to the Hebrews in relation to the broader theological themes of divine beneficence and divine “philanthropia”. Three times in Hebrews Jesus is described as being perfected (Hebrews 2:10, 5:9, 7:28), and in two of these instances (Hebrews 2:10, 5:8-9) the author explicitly links the theme of Jesus’ suffering to the content of his perfection. By examining representative selections of Greek non-literary papyri, this study argues that the customary application of the Greek verb τελειόω to denote the idea of legal notarization of a public document suggests the more comprehensive idea of official, definitive attestation. Informed by such a notion of perfection as official, definitive attestation, this study argues that the language of Christ’s perfection in Hebrews functions as a christological grammar for reflecting upon the character of Christ. Far from being remotely transcendent, Jesus is characterized instead by divine beneficence and “philanthropia”, by a motivation to draw near to the community of the faithful gathered around his memory. This study argues for the cogency of this proposal based on exegetical grounds, the literary character of Hebrews as an epistolary homily, and the social setting of Hebrews as one characterized by social distress and/or persecution in or near the vicinity of Rome.

In previous exegesis of the Epistle to the Romans, God has scarcely ever been presented as a separate object of study. The present study is devoted to this central topic, and by analysing important sections of the Epistle to the Romans demonstrates that it is neither Jesus Christ nor anthropology that provides the decisive pattern of argument, but God. This has consequences both for Paul’s self-image and for the question of whether Paul’s thinking and his image of God are to be regarded as still being Jewish or already being Christian.

St. Thomas’s Gospel is one of the most hotly debated documents from Early Christianity. No other piece of extra-canonical scripture has given rise to such controversy about whether it presents Jesus’ message in a more original and less theologically sophisticated form than the New Testament Gospels. The papers collected in the present volume give an insight into the present state of research and demonstrate new perspectives on the question of the status of the various texts and traditions of St. Thomas’s Gospel in the history of religion.

The Zechariah Tradition and the Gospel of Matthew is a comprehensive study of the ways Matthew utilizes Zechariah texts and traditions. Against the background of materials from Qumran, and apocryphal and deuterocanonical writings Matthew’s explicit citations of Zechariah are examined; the influence of Zechariah elsewhere in the First Gospel is identified; and the extent to which Matthew alludes to characteristic Zechariah themes, alone or in combination with other prophetic traditions, is explored. Zechariah traditions appear in Matthew’s distinctive materials, as well as in texts Matthew has transmitted, or altered, from Mark and Q.
The impact of Zech 9-14 is not limited to the Passion Narrative but extends through Matthew’s Infancy and Galilean healing narratives, as well; important concepts from Zech 1-8 are also discerned in the Infancy and Passion Narratives. Moss works through the canonical order of Matthew; this enables readers to appreciate the cumulative effect of Zechariah’s influence at each stage of the Gospel story.
Two appendices, one arranged according to Zechariah and the other to Matthew, list possible references to Zechariah in Matthew.
This monograph is useful for Matthean studies and it is an insightful investigation of how one set of Old Testamental traditions are appropriated in one canonical Gospel and in the New Testament.

Though the Epistle to the Romans repeatedly mentions the issue of evil, suffering, and oppression (Rom 5, 8, 12, etc), one rarely finds studies of its contribution to this issue. Yet the context of Hab 2:4 deals with suffering, oppression, and a promise of deliverance (Hab 1.1-4). This quote starts Paul’s demonstration of the Gospel, the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises (1:2). For Paul the Scripture’s function in Romans is to give hope to the believers (4:23 5; 15:4-13).
This study investigates the contribution of Rom 1-3 to the issue of evil and suffering and its link with the theme of the righteousness of God. After a brief survey of recent scholarship it offers a commentary of Rom 1-3 that pays attention to the LXX context of all the explicit Old Testament quotations. This commentary is followed by a study of the use of the Old Testament in Rom 1-3, a justification for taking the LXX contexts into account using data from the history of reading and writing, the use of memory in composition in the first century, and of the role of the figure of David as a model for the believer. The following chapters summarize the relevant theological data of Rom 1-3, survey Rom 4-16 with the same issue in mind and conclude with an interaction with some theological and philosophical literature.

This study is concerned with the genesis and theology of St. John’s Gospel. It demonstrates firstly that John based the second part of his work, that dealing with Jesus’ final days, death and resurrection, on a source independent of the corresponding accounts in the other three New Testament Gospels. Thus it illuminates not only the specific theological character of this source text, but also John’s specific understanding of Christ’s Passion and Resurrection.

No other text in the New Testament uses Old Testament quotations so explicitly in its arguments as the Letter to the Hebrews. The present study examines this reception of the Old Testament. In it, the link becomes clear between exegesis and Christology – the manner and way in which reference is made to Jesus Christ (Son, High Priest, Sacrifice) is influenced by Old Testament texts and motifs. At the same time, the Christology of the Letter to the Hebrews determines the choice and interpretation of these texts. They are exclusively interpreted with reference to Jesus Christ.

For Luke the Evangelist, God’s encounter with Man is a salutary event. But what exactly does he mean when he speaks of “Salvation”, and how does this salutary encounter come about? Luke thinks differently from Paul here, but his position can only be deduced indirectly from his accounts (St. Luke’s Gospel and The Acts of the Apostles). The present study is the first to succeed in reconstructing in an overall framework the content of the ideas of “salvation” which Luke presupposes as an author and to demonstrate their consistency.

In the early 1970’s, due to serious epistemological flaws, the demise of traditional New Testament research paradigms became imminent. A new generation of scholars started the search for a fresh approach, based on scientifically sound principles. Working within the stimulating atmosphere of the New Testament Society of South Africa, the author was one of the pioneers in developing a new, multi-dimensional research approach for New Testament studies. The articles in the present volume, written over a period of 25 years, reflect part of this journey, as viewed from a Pauline perspective. Combining the positive aspects of the traditional biblical research paradigms with the important insights of modern linguistics, literary science, semantics and pragmatics, particularly rhetoric, the author investigates the convergence of various influences in Paul’s pre-christian career. He proposes new possibilities of understanding Paul’s language and style, such as hyperbolical contrasts, typical of his Semitic background. Various aspects of his strategies of persuasion are investigated, such as creating an ethos, vilification, alienation and re-identification. The majority of articles concentrate on central elements in Pauline theology: belief in the resurrection of Jesus, the centrality of grace, the in Christ and related formulae, faith and obedience, justification in Romans, Christian identity, ethics and ethos, as portrayed in Romans.

The exegetic studies on the Epistle to the Romans presented here arose partly during the preparation of the commentary “The Epistle to the Romans” (Göttingen 2003). The others are a digest of studies written in recent years in the course of further thinking about the theology of St Paul the Apostle and which first appeared in various publications.

Christianity is generally seen as differing from Judaism in that, rather than being the religion of a specific people, it is open to all peoples. It is St Paul the Apostle who above all is regarded as overcoming Jewish particularism and preparing the way for Christian universalism. G. Holtz shows that a contrast of this kind does justice neither to Paul nor to the Judaism of his age. A detailed comparison of the Letters of St Paul with contemporary Jewish writings, especially the literature of Qumran and the work of Philo of Alexandria shows that on both sides there were tendencies towards openness and towards delineation.

The vision of the millennium in the Book of Revelation is not intended to offer comfort to Christians in a time of persecution, but to serve as a warning to them not to be too ready to participate in the life of their pagan environment, for such participation is not possible without contact with the cult of pagan gods. However, he who is contaminated by the pagan cult will not be part of the “Resurrection” and the “Thousand Year Reign” but at the Last Judgement will suffer the “Second Death” in the “pit of fire and sulphur”.

In two places in the First Gospel (Matt 10:5b-6; 15:24) the Messianic mission of Jesus and his disciples is limited to a group called ‘the lost sheep of the house of Israel’. In light of Matthew’s intense interest in Jesus’ Davidic Messiahship and the Jewish Shepard-King traditions surrounding King David it is argued that the 'lost sheep of the house of Israel' refers to remnants of the former northern kingdom of Israel who continued to reside in the northern region of the ideal Land of Israel.

The persecution of the Church ordered by the Roman State, whether it was by local magistrates or on imperial command, was the most visible manifestation of the hostility directed against Christians during the first three centuries of our era. In reality however, this persecution, more virulent in some of its episodes than in others, was merely the crystallisation of the rejection of Christianity already expressed by the population at large. Christianity, spreading rapidly beyond its original Jewish context, was perceived by Graeco-Roman society through the deforming lens of ideas and values entirely foreign to it. For this reason, Christians became the victims of religious and social categorisations which forced them into the margins of society. Christianity's assimilation with superstition (Jewish origins, irrational doctrine, recruitment from the masses, doubtful practices [magic, anthropophagy, ritual murder, sexual debauchery, Christ-worship, cross-worship, sun-worship, ass-worship]) and the accusations against it of atheism (a reaction against its exclusive monotheism) and of ‘hatred of mankind’ (non-adherence to the common values [civil, familial or political]) reveal that public opinion played a crucial role preceding the measures taken against Christians, and that the anti-Christian hostility was a reactionary movement against a group that threatened the basic structures of the City.

Middle Platonism explained how a transcendent principle could relate to the material world by positing an intermediary, modeled after the Stoic active cause, that mediated the supreme principle’s influence to the world while preserving its transcendence. Having similar concerns as Middle Platonism, Hellenistic Jewish sapientialism, early Christianity, and Gnosticism appropriated this intermediary doctrine as a means for understanding their relationship to God and to the cosmos. However, these traditions vary in their adaptation of this teaching due to their distinctive understanding of creation and humanity’s place therein. The Jewish writings of Philo of Alexandria and Wisdom of Solomon espouse a holistic ontology, combining a Platonic appreciation for noetic reality with an ultimately positive view of creation and its place in human fulfillment. The early Christians texts of 1 Cor 8:6, Col 1:15-20, Heb 1:2-3, and the prologue of John provide an eschatological twist to this ontology when the intermediary figure finds final expression in Jesus Christ. Contrarily, Poimandres (CH 1) and the Apocryphon of John, both associated with the traditional rubric “Gnosticism”, draw from Platonism to describe how creation is antithetical to human nature and its transcendent source.

The study deals with a difficult and much-debated text in Paul’s Letter to the Romans, 9:30-10:21. The study in particular analyses Paul’s use and interpretation of Deuteronomy 30:12-14 in Romans 10:4-17. Scholars have characterized Paul’s exegesis here as idiosyncratic, fanciful, baffling, and arbitrary. By a comparison with Jewish writings near Paul in time, such as the writings of Philo of Alexandria and Baruch, the thesis is argued that Paul’s treatment of Deuteronomy 30:12-14 can be located within Jewish exegetical method, expository structure, terminology as well as content and context.

In comparison with Baruch and Philo, it has been shown that Paul’s handling of Deuteronomy 30:12-14 can be placed within a Jewish context as to the way the biblical quotations are rendered. The thesis is substantiated that Paul’s expository rendering of Deuteronomy 30:12-14 follows the method of exegetical paraphrase of a biblical quotation. So, in comparison with Baruch and Philo, Paul’s interpretative rendering of Deuteronomy 30:12-14 falls within a form of exposition, in which words, phrases and sentences from the Old Testament quotation are either repeated or replaced by interpretative terms and supplemented with other qualifying terms. Thus, Paul’s christological exposition of Deut 30:12-14 can be located within the method of exegetical paraphrase, with a parallel in Baruch’s application of this OT Scripture to the personified ‘Wisdom’.

This monograph examines the problem of universally inclusive language in the book of Revelation and the resulting narrative tension created by narrowly exclusive language. Analysis is conducted by placing relevant texts within their literary-narrative context and through consideration of how the author understood and appropriated biblical traditions. A key feature of this study is its examination of four early Jewish documents with significant similarities to the problem being examined in Revelation. From these documents (Tobit; Similitudes of Enoch [1 Enoch 37-71]; 4 Ezra; and, Animal Apocalypse [1 Enoch 85-90]) a contextual picture emerges which allows a fuller understanding of Revelation’s distinctive approach toward the problem of the fate of the nations. This study contends that the interpretive strategies applied to biblical traditions in Revelation have their roots in the wider early Jewish milieu. From this comparative analysis, identifiable patterns with regard to the role of ‘universal terminology’ in the communicative strategy of John’s Apocalypse emerge.

The Greek term paraklêtos (“paraclete”) appears four times in the Gospel of John (Jn 14, 16.26; 15, 26; 16, 7) and once in the First Epistle (1 Jn 2, 1). In the Gospel, its meaning is enigmatic. After a status quaestionis, a detailed analysis of paraklêtos in ancient literature reveals two different degrees of lexicalization: a) an embryonic stage conveying the idea of movement associated with a mandate, to be found in the Gospel (common usage in the Greek language); b) the meaning of “intercesseur”, associated with a stereotyped triangular semantic structure, to be found in the Epistle (Jewish tradition). This term demands a moral qualification, supplied by the adjective “righteous” in 1 Jn and by the title “the Spirit of truth” in Jn; an evolution from the Epistle to the Gospel has taken place. The latter uses a term with a minimal semantic value to include it in the mission theme, by means of a recurrent prepositional strategy linked to the preverb para.

The book deals with the relation between identity, ethics, and ethos in the New Testament. The focus falls on the way in which the commandments or guidelines presented in the New Testament writings inform the behaviour of the intended recipients. The habitual behaviour (ethos) of the different Christian communities in the New Testament are plotted and linked to their identity. Apart from analytical categories like ethos, ethics, and identity that are clearly defined in the book, efforts are also made to broaden the specific analytical categories related to ethical material. The way in which, for instance, narratives, proverbial expressions, imagery, etc. inform the reader about the ethical demands or ethos is also explored.

This study addresses the centrality of Christ in Paul’s thought, recognizing at the same time that he does not express the meaning of Christ as an existing teaching. Christ as a person, not a teaching, determines Paul’s thinking, for himself and in his reasoning with his readers. Christ comes to expression in Paul as the explication of the fundamental reality for himself and for his readers. He develops his thoughts about Christ in each case anew as expressions of the Lord who determines his life and the lives of his readers. In his reasoning with his readers, he expects them to become aware of Christ as the one who determines them in their new lives as believers.

Despite the striking frequency with which the Greek word kyrios, Lord, occurs in Luke's Gospel, this study is the first comprehensive analysis of Luke's use of this word. The analysis follows the use of kyrios in the Gospel from beginning to end in order to trace narratively the complex and deliberate development of Jesus' identity as Lord. Detailed attention to Luke's narrative artistry and his use of Mark demonstrates that Luke has a nuanced and sophisticated christology centered on Jesus' identity as Lord.

This study identifies and explores texts of restoration in a wide selection of Early Jewish Literature in order to assess the variety of ways in which Jews envisioned Israel’s future restoration. Particular attention is given to the expression of restoration in what is identified in the present study as the exilic model of restoration. In this model, Israel’s restoration is characterized by the features of (a) a future re-gathering, (b) the fate of the nations, and (c) the establishment of a new Temple. The present work focuses primarily on the first two features. Through this framework Jews in the Greco-Roman period could draw on Israel’s history and legacy, but re-appropriate ‘exile and return’ in new and creative ways. Finally, the writing of Luke-Acts is investigated for its ideas of restoration and its indebtedness to Early Jewish traditions.