Search results for ""author paul f."

Najeeb Awad aims at defending the personhood of the Holy Spirit by proposing answers to these questions: What is the Holy Spirit in relation to God? Is He a spirit-like presence of a monistic deity; is He merely a charismatic, supernatural power bestowed upon Jesus; or is He rather the third divine person in the Trinity, who is co-influential in and co-constitutive of the Godhead? The author re-examines the validity of both Western and Eastern trinitarian theologies and corrects their reduction of the Spirit either to a mere 'relationship' or 'mode of presence', or to a semi-subordinate hypostasis in a hierarchical divine Godhead that exists by virtue of the Father alone. He argues that viewing the Godhead as a 'reciprocal koinonia' offers a balanced attention to the Spirit's person and actions. He then shows that the claim of the Holy Spirit's particular personhood provides new dimensions for understanding God's unfathomable and mysterious personal being.

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Accompanying an exhibition at the Frist Art Museum, this lavishly illustrated catalogue is the first major study in English about manuscript illumination, painting, and sculpture in the northern Italian city of Bologna between the years 1200 and 1400. By focusing on Bologna, Europe’s first university city, this publication aims to expand our understanding of art and its purposes in the medieval world.Universities are a medieval invention, and Bologna has the distinction of having the oldest one in Europe. Its origins have been traced to the late 11th century, when masters and students started gathering in the city to study Roman law. The academic setting gave rise to Bologna’s unique artistic culture. Professors enjoyed high social status and were buried in impressive tombs carved with classroom scenes. Most importantly, teachers and students created a tremendous demand for books. By the mid-13th century, the city had become the preeminent center for manuscript production in Italy. Most books were made outside traditional monastic scriptoria, within a revolutionary commercial system involving stationers, parchment makers, scribes, illuminators, and clients. A new style of script, called the littera Bononiensis, distinguished Bolognese books, and the city’s illuminators were celebrated in Dante’s Divine Comedy. The legal textbooks produced in great numbers in the city are remarkable for their heft and size. In addition to illuminations, which include colorful narrative scenes, these manuscripts often contain in their margins the notes, corrections, and doodles of their original owners.The seven essays in this publication – by academics, a conservator, curators, and a museum educator – create a rich context for the nearly seventy works of art in the exhibition, which are drawn primarily from American libraries, museums, and private collections. Many of these works have never been studied in depth or published before. The authors explore medieval Bologna – its porticoed streets, towers, communal buildings, main piazza, and mendicant churches – and how the city became a center for higher learning at the end of the Middle Ages. They describe the way books were made there, including identifying the pigments used by illuminators. The authors also discuss the illustrious foreign artists called to work in the city, most notably Cimabue and Giotto; the devastating impact of the Black Death; and the political resurgence of Bologna at the end of the 14th century that led to the construction of the Basilica of San Petronio, one of the largest churches in the world, in honor of the city’s patron saint.

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Were there figurines in Yehud during the Achaemenid period, and in particular in Jerusalem? A positive answer to this question disproves the general consensus about the absence of figurines in Yehud, which is built on the assumption that the figurines excavated in Judah/Yehud are chronologically indicative for Iron Age II in this area (aside from a few typological exceptions). Ephraim Stern and others have taken this alleged absence of figurines as indicative of Jewish monotheism's rise. Izaak J. de Hulster refutes this 'no figurines → monotheism' paradigm by detailed study of the figurines from Yigal Shiloh's excavation in the 'City of David' (especially their contexts in Stratum 9), providing ample evidence for the presence of figurines in post-587/586 Jerusalem. The author further reflects on the paradigm's premises in archaeology, history, the history of religion, theology, and biblical studies, and particularly in coroplastics (figurine studies).

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This is the catalogue for the third exhibition in the Tomasso brothers' critically acclaimed series, accompanying a 2010 exhibition at the Otto Naumann Gallery, New York. The content is a further selection of works from the early renaissance to the Neoclassical period.

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Although it has become increasingly popular to understand the earliest rural Jesus movement as emerging from a peasant milieu, proponents of this model have not yet taken the time to explore the ramifications for a highly stylized written document being the earliest evidence for this movement. On the contrary, the Sayings Gospel Q, a sophisticated literary text having affinities with other ancient literature and even documentary papyri, does not seem to be a product of a peasant milieu. Even so, Q does not appear to be the product of elites either, for the text is rife with tropes of social and economic marginality. In order to access the elusive "middling stratum" from which Q's authors may stem, Sarah E. Rollens looks cross-culturally at middling figures to understand the ideological project in Q.

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Asle Eikrem strives to develop a systematic philosophical understanding of the constitutive structures of religious discourses. Different philosophical traditions (phenomenology, hermeneutics, pragmatics, metaphysics or analytical philosophical thinking) have articulated these structures in their own distinctive ways. The author aims to show how insights from partly conflicting traditions can be coherently reconstructed within the framework of a comprehensive philosophical presentation. The central thesis guiding his work is inspired by the deep-metaphysics of German philosopher Lorenz B. Puntel, and states that the relation between the pragmatic, semantic and ontological structures of religious discourses must be understood as internally necessary. They cannot be thought independently from each other. The pragmatic and semantic structures of religious discourses must be understood as substructures in a comprehensive ontological dimension (Being) that is characterized as practicable and expressible.

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Ilmari Karimies investigates Martin Luther's understanding of reality and faith. He examines Luther's understanding of reality from three perspectives: firstly God as the self-giving highest good uniting opposites and hiding beneath them; secondly the visible and invisible world; and thirdly human beings as tripartite (body, soul, spirit) and bipartite (flesh-spirit). The author explores the cognitive conflict between these in relation to spirit's grasping of God and the invisible world with reference to Augustinian Platonism. He analyses aspects of faith from the perspective of the theory of divine illumination and shows that Luther represents a realistic Augustinian view. Faith functions as the theological intellect, grasping the invisible world and showing human beings the future good in a manner similar to the medieval notion of ecstatic knowledge. It differs from vision in glory because of sin, as mixed with humanity, and as partial knowledge.

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Ra'anan S. Boustan traces the historical emergence of the specific form of 'mystical' discourse found in Heikhalot Rabbati. He argues that the creators of Heikhalot Rabbati sought to fashion a myth of origins for their distinctive brand of heavenly ascent practice by radically reworking the narrative framework of the widely disseminated post-talmudic martyrology The Story of the Ten Martyrs. Heikhalot Rabbati not only renders redundant the notion of atoning self-sacrifice that is central to the martyrology, but also ascribes to the Heikhalot visionary the intercessory function of the martyr - here achieved bloodlessly through heavenly ascent and liturgical performance. Heikhalot Rabbati emerged as a part of a broader effort to fashion a distinct social identity for the Heikhalot visionary. In parsing the complex relationship between rabbinic martyrology and Heikhalot literature, the author illuminates how the figures of the rabbinic martyr and the Merkavah mystic came to play parallel, yet competing, roles within the highly influential conceptions of history that were bequeathed to medieval Jewish communities by late antique Judaism.

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In this volume, Francesco Arena investigates false prophecy and prophetic conflicts, taking Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Micah as the three books in the Bible most concerned with prophesying falsehood and false prophets. By building on the studies of G. Auld, R. Carroll, and G. Garbini, who first posited that the Writing Prophets were not prophets at all, but rather intellectuals or poets, the author puts the vexed question of false prophecy into a new perspective. If we accept that Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Micah were not originally true prophets (or prophets at all) what should we do with their quarrels with the alleged false prophets? Can we still consider prophetic conflicts as expressions of a socio-religious phenomenon? Or should we instead consider them as some later creations to serve ideological purposes?

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In this work, J. D. Atkins employs a combination of reception-history analysis and redaction criticism to challenge modern theories that Luke 24 and John 20 are apologetic responses to incipient docetism. He subjects second-century parallels used to support these theories to the same redaction-critical scrutiny as the Gospels and finds that the editorial and apologetic concerns of the evangelists differ fundamentally from those of antidocetic writers: neither Luke nor John aims to prove the physicality of the resurrection. Both instead draw attention to the fulfilment of prophecy. The author also argues that the apostles' doubt was not an apologetic device and that the bodily demonstrations of touching and eating predate docetism. Early docetists appeal to the Gospels as apostolic testimony but insist on a non-literal hermeneutic in which Christ performs physical actions "in appearance only."

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Peter-Ben Smit undertakes the first encompassing study of New Testament eschatological meals and scenes of nutritional abundance. His study thus fills a large gap in current research. In terms of its main contributions and emphases, the study challenges the widespread assumption that the origin of the imagery of eschatological meal fellowship and nutritional abundance can be found in Isa 25:6-8 by showing how the images of meal fellowship and nutritional abundance played a significant role in the (utopian) thinking of the Ancient Near East as well as the Mediterranean world. Thus, the book helps to do away with widespread assumptions about these meals with its detailed studies of the individual texts. Furthermore, the typology of eschatological meals and scenes of nutritional abundance presented here will help to differentiate between different kinds of traditions and their various functions and emphases. Through the integration of the various texts in their socio-historical context, the author shows how these texts, particularly the eschatological meals, interact with contemporary "symposiastic ideology." At the same time, the book's synchronic backbone facilitates a demonstration of how the various eschatological meals and scenes of nutritional abundance interact with other meal scenes in the NT books discussed, and this leads to a better understanding of what kind of literary and theological interests the four canonical Gospels and the Apocalypse of John have in their use of these traditions and of banqueting scenes and scenes of nutritional abundance in general.

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In the first part of the book, Karl William Weyde analyses the festival calendar in Leviticus 23 and compares it with other festival calendars in the Hebrew Bible. On this basis, characteristic features of the Leviticus calendar appear, leading to the conclusion that Leviticus 23 presents the latest of the calendars and presupposes them. This holds good also vis-à-vis the priestly legal material in Numbers 28-29. Thus, the legislation for Passover and the festival of unleavened bread in Lev 23:5-8 is short because it builds on the detailed stipulations related in Exodus 12-13 and Deuteronomy 16. But it is also demonstrated that, for the sake of precision, the legislation for the grain festival in Leviticus 23 is more detailed than in other texts. Moreover, it is shown that the sukkôt festival is predominant in this calendar, together with other festivals in the seventh month. Without denying the possibility that the legislation was revised during the process of transmission, the author contends that some of the arguments used by recent researchers for such contention are not tenable. However, the Sabbath command (v. 3) and the sukkôt legislation in vv. 39ff are later additions inserted during the exile in Babylon.The second part of the book deals with texts related to the sukkôt festival in the Hebrew Bible. It gives examples of the significance of this festival in exilic and post-exilic times. Particular attention is paid to the question of whether it is possible to identify sukkôt psalms in the Psalter.

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Freedom of testation allows an individual to make effective on his death dispositions of his property on the event of his death. Dependants' relief legislation in British Columbia and compulsory portion in Germany limit this freedom by providing testator's family members with a portion of the estate. However, out of the two, only the legislation gives courts the discretion to change testamentary provisions, by making them, in some cases, entirely ineffective.A comparative analysis of the application, legal character, history and purpose of the limitations leads to the conclusion that the freedom of testation is significantly more limited under British Columbia's legislation than it is under the German law. The author proposes a solution that increases the freedom, adds predictability and reduces subjectivity of the application of the dependants' relief legislation in British Columbia.

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First published in 1995. This title presents the proceedings of The Second International Conference on Range Management in the Arabian Gulf, 1990. The objectives of the Conference were to: evaluate progress made following the First Conference; exchange information on range management development; review advances in applicable technologies; discuss potential strategies for range enhancement and assemble pertinent recommendations for enactment. As such, these proceedings will serve as a reference base for researchers, professors, lecturers, and students alike, both at advanced undergraduate and graduate levels.

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The New Testament idea of deliverance from the power of Satan has posed special problems and even acute embarrassment for interpreters since the Enlightenment. Often the Gospel exorcisms are rationalized or a demythologizing agenda is pursued which divorces redemption from the world in which we live.Richard H. Bell stresses that if the deliverance from Satan is understood within an appropriate understanding of myth, then it can lead not only to an enrichment of New Testament Theology but also to a deeper understanding of the world in which we find ourselves. A theory of myth is developed which does justice not only to the world of 'narrative' but also to the mysteries of the 'physical world'. This is done by building on the phenomenal distinction as introduced by Kant and further developed by Schopenhauer. The resulting theory of myth is then applied to two seemingly disparate examples of redemption from Satan found in the New Testament: first, the exorcisms of Jesus; secondly, the redemption of the human being from the power of Satan through the cross and resurrection of Christ as found in the Pauline tradition and in the letter to the Hebrews. Then the author makes an attempt to relate these two forms of redemption to each other and to draw some conclusions as to how these myths of deliverance from Satan can be considered true.

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The contributions collected here discuss the emergence, transfer and transformations of theoretical and practical gynaecologic knowledge in ancient medical and other traditions. The authors investigate the cultural practices and socio-religious norms that enabled and constrained the production and application of gynaecologic knowledge and know-how - for example, concepts of the female body, ritual im/purity, or myth. Some studies focus more on the role and function of female patients and medical specialists - female doctors, healers, midwives or wet-nurses - as objects and subjects within ancient medical discourses.The interdisciplinary nature of the studies provides ample opportunity for a comparative exploration of female bodies and medical expertise on them across the geographically diverse but culturally often closely entangled Ancient Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Graeco-Roman, Persian, Byzantine, early Christian, Jewish-Talmudic, and Syriac cultures. Similarities and differences can be discerned in the various realms - ranging from the adoption of medical terminology or development of loanwords/calques, and the transfer and appropriation of certain gynaecologic theories, metaphors and concepts to more structural questions about the discursive representation of such knowledge and its (con)textual incorporation.The volume aims to help stimulate a fruitful interdisciplinary and trans-generational exchange about the topic, drawing on a wide range of methodological and theoretical tools, including philology, linguistics, narratology/close reading, literary and discursive analysis, material culture, socio-historical perspectives, gender studies, or cultural and religious history.

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Seth L. Sanders offers a history of first-millennium scribes through their heavenly journeys and heroes, treating the visions of ancient Mesopotamian and Judean literature as pragmatic things made by people. He presents each scribal culture as an individual institution via detailed evidence for how visionary figures were used over time. The author also provides the first comprehensive survey of direct evidence for contact between Babylonian, Hebrew, and Aramaic scribal cultures, when and how they came to share key features. Rather than irrecoverable religious experience, he shows how ideal scribal "selves" were made available through rituals documented in texts and institutions that made these roles durable. He examines how these texts and selves worked together to create religious literature as the world came to be known differently: a historical ontology of first-millennium scribal cultures. The result is as much a history of science as a history of mysticism, providing insight into how knowledge of the universe was created in ancient times.

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Jan G. van der Watt analyses in detail the ethics of John's Letters against their respective socio-historical backgrounds. He then compares the ethics of the Gospel and Letters, showing that the basic core narrative overlaps in these writings, although some ethical material is applied in different ways to different situations. A rich ethical landscape is revealed, addressing issues like the importance of inter-personal relations, which results in co-operation through mutual love. The author shows that the focus in 1 John is pastoral, aiming at convincing the addressees not to be deceived by the schismatics but to strengthen their relationship with the eyewitness group. In 2 John, advice is given about visitors who threaten the church with false teachings, while 3 John deals with a conflict about receiving travelling missionaries. In both cases ethical guidelines are given which aim at protecting the group.

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In this work, Edda Wolff analyses how a more subtle and nuanced understanding of 'non-sense' can enhance the study of liturgy and its contribution to a broader theological discourse. The study is divided into two parts: the first outlines the methodological starting point for a dialogue between liturgical studies and philosophical-hermeneutical approaches, while the second applies negative hermeneutics to analyse the liturgy of Holy Saturday through case studies. The choice of Holy Saturday reflects the broader interest of the work in the 'in-between' spaces, the gaps, paradox and negative structures within liturgy. Holy Saturday thus serves as a paradigm for the liturgical engagement with the experience of a loss of sense, as well as the formal lack of pre-given structures. On this basis, the author reflects on the methodological challenges and potential of a negative liturgical hermeneutics for the dialogue with other theological subjects.

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In this study, Christopher T. Holmes provides a focused analysis of the rhetorical and stylistic features of Hebrews 12:18-29, their intended effects upon the audience, and the role of the passage in the larger argument of Hebrews. He draws extensively from the first-century treatise, De Sublimitate, arguing that it provides a significant context for interpreting the rhetoric and style of Hebrews. Although New Testament scholars have drawn significantly from the ancient handbooks of Aristotle, Quintilian, and Cicero in the last several decades, this is the first monograph-length study to use De Sublimitate as the primary analytical tool for New Testament interpretation. The result of the study shows that the author's efforts to move the readers "beyond persuasion" shed new light on the thought and genre of Hebrews. Christopher T. Holmes offers both exegetical insights about Hebrews and an additional way to think about the distinctiveness of early Christian rhetoric.

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In this book, Jaeyoung Jeon traces the development of the pentateuchal wilderness story in Exodus and Numbers from its pre-monarchic origin to the formation of the final form. He argues that old memories of YHWH from the southern desert area and the move of the Transjordanian settlers to the west were merged with the memory of Egyptian oppression and that they formed together an early tradition of exodus-wilderness in the Northern Kingdom. Although the tradition further developed in Judah after the fall of Israel, the author argues that the major parts of the narrative story were creatively reinterpreted, reformulated, and composed during the Persian period in the socio-historical contexts of the return from the exile and restoration. He suggests that diverse scribal circles representing different social, political, and religious positions in Yehud and the diaspora participated in its literary formation, resulting in the wilderness narrative as a collection of scribal debates.

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Eva Günther traces the influence of the Jewish wisdom tradition on shaping the earliest Christology. While it is well known that Wisdom's role of a Schöpfungsmittler was transferred to Jesus in early Christian sources such as 1 Cor 8:6 and John 1:1-3, there is another important function of Wisdom, which can be related to the ministry of the earthly Jesus. The author demonstrates that Wisdom had come to be seen as an agent in history in some prominent Second Temple texts, allowing for her function of saving and guiding the people of Israel to be transferred to Jesus in the "Lament over Jerusalem" (Matt. 23:37-39 par.). However, rather than being presented as an incarnation of pre-existent Wisdom, Jesus is portrayed in the saying as a representation of God like the divine Wisdom, who in turn had taken on features of an "older" divine representative, the Angel of the Lord, in Second Temple texts. In the "Lament over Jerusalem" Jesus is presented as the contemporary form of this mediator.

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The first-century C.E. Jewish historian Flavius Josephus is our main source of information for the early history of the Samaritans, a community closely related to Judaism whose development as an independent religion is commonly dated in the Hellenistic-Roman period. Josephus' two main works, Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities, contain a number of passages that purport to describe the origin, character and actions of the Samaritans. In composing his histories, Josephus drew on different sources, some identifiable others unknown to us. Contemporary Josephus research has shown that he did so not as a mere compiler but as a creative writer who selected and quoted his sources carefully and deliberately and employed them to express his personal views. Rather than trying to isolate and identify Josephus' authorities and to determine the meaning these texts had in their original setting, Reinhard Pummer examines what Josephus himself intended to convey to his audience when he depicted the Samaritans in the way he did. He attempts to combine composition criticism and historical research and argues that the differences in Josephus' portrayal of the Samaritans in War on the one hand and in Antiquities on the other are due to the different aims the historian pursued in the two works.

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The consistent presence of juridical diction, legal metaphors, and courtroom imagery reveals that Ezekiel 1-33 is set within a precise juridical framework. In this study, Joel B. Kemp argues that focusing upon these legal elements has two primary benefits for our understanding of the book. First, the juridical framework provides greater clarity and coherence to some passages within Ezekiel 1-33. Second, the book (especially Ezekiel 16) uses its legal elements to articulate a version of Judahite identity under Neo-Babylonian hegemony. To connect these legal elements to identity development, the author uses some insights from the works of Erik Erikson and Urie Bronfenbrenner. According to his analysis, Ezekiel 16 equates the legal status of the city with Judahite identity to prove that the experiences of Neo-Babylonian domination did not nullify or rescind the legal agreement (ברית) between the deity and Judahites. Rather, the punishment this chapter describes demonstrates the continuing validity of the contract and the version of Judahite identity rooted in it. Consequently, the Judahites' acceptance of the legal appropriateness of Neo-Babylonian domination is the sine qua non for remaining in the legal relationship that defines Judahite identity.

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The volume is based on a symposium that took place in the Hamburg Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law. It has to be seen in the context of the international renaissance of the concept of codification. When the State of Israel was founded in 1948, it was essentially a common law jurisdiction. Since then, Israeli private law has continuously moved closer towards the model of the civilian systems of Continental Europe. It has now, for the first time, been laid down in a comprehensive and systematic Draft Civil Code. In an introductory article, Aharon Barak, the former President of the Supreme Court of Israel and Chairman of the Codification Commission, presents that Draft in the context of the development of private law in Israel. Israeli Professors from the Universities of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem then analyze key areas within the law of obligations and property law of the envisaged codification, while a German or Austrian author, respectively, provide commentaries from a comparative perspective. The subjects dealt with are the integration of consumer protection, liability for breach of contract, unjustified enrichment, the law of delict, priority conflicts in property law, and the law of prescription (limitation). Central themes that come out in many of the contributions are the tension between continuity and change as well as the issue of coherence. The volume is rounded off by comments on the subject of codification, by a speech on the occasion of Amos Shapira's 70th birthday that was celebrated in the course of the conference, and by an English translation of the Draft Civil Code.

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In contrast to other studies related to German-Jewish scientists the emphasis of this volume is on their work. The autors examine the relationship between the cultural, religious, and social situation of German Jews on the one hand and their scientific activities on the other. They document general tendencies as well as individual cases of research that are appropriate for discussing the sensitive question of the specificity of the approaches of Jewish scientists. This volume aims to draw attention to the debate on the relationship of Judaism to academic research, from the early 19th century theorising on science and Judaism, to the controversies on 'Jewish' physics, mathematics etc. in the 1920s and 30s. It comments on the general phenomena of disproportionate representation and uneven disciplinary distribution of German-Jewish academics and analyzes some cases of highly esteemed as well as questionable research work and to suggest socio-political explanations. The authors characterize anti-Semitic attitudes specific in academia, particularly as they affected the advancement of scientific work. All case studies deal with more than one of these topics. The interdisciplinary approach makes it possible to establish similarities in research practices across disciplines and to compare achievements within and among various fields. Most of the contributors focus on achievements, corresponding research practices and determining factors of different kinds including the role of anti-Semitic attitudes in academia.

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1972 to date (all marks), Dubbed 'Warthog' – or just 'Hog' – the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II is the world's undisputed close air-support attack jet. As tough as it is ugly, it has built a fearsome reputation as a tank buster and infantry killer in conflicts around the globe, and its GAU-8 Avenger 30mm cannon strikes fear into the hearts of all unlucky enough to be on the wrong side. Steve Davies gets up close and personal to look at the Hog's anatomy, engines and firepower, as well as presenting compelling first-person insights into what it takes to fly and maintain., Author: Steve Davies is a freelance aviation journalist and photographer. He is an authority on the USAF and the author of Haynes Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird Manual (with Paul F. Crickmore), Boeing B-52, F-15 Eagle and F-16 Falcon Manuals. Steve lives in Cambridge.

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The authors of this volume elucidate the remarkable role played by religion in the shaping and reshaping of narrative forms in antiquity and late antiquity in a variety of ways. This is particularly evident in ancient Jewish and Christian narrative, which is in the focus of most of the contributions, but also in some "pagan" novels such as that of Heliodorus, which is dealt with as well in the third part of the volume, both in an illuminating comparison with Christian novels and in an inspiring rethinking of Heliodorus's relation to Neoplatonism. All of these essays, from different perspectives, illuminate the interplay between narrative and religion, and show how religious concerns and agendas shaped narrative forms in Judaism and early Christianity. A series of compelling and innovative articles, all based on fresh and often groundbreaking research by eminent specialists, is divided into three large sections: part one deals with ancient Jewish narrative, and part two with ancient Christian narrative, in particular gospels, acts, biographies, and martyrdoms, while part three offers a comparison with "pagan" narrative, and especially the religious novel of Heliodorus, both in terms of social perspectives and in terms of philosophical and religious agendas. Like the essays collected by Marília Futre Pinheiro, Judith Perkins, and Richard Pervo in 2013, which investigate the core role played by narratives in Christian and Jewish self-fashioning in the Roman Empire, the present volume fruitfully bridges the disciplinary gap between classical studies and ancient Jewish and Christian studies, offers new insights, and hopefully opens up new paths of inquiry.

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This book is the first of a two-volume work with the overall title "Future Hope and Present Reality". These volumes had their origin in the Speaker's Lectures that Andrew Chester gave in Oxford; their main focus is central themes in biblical eschatology, and especially the apparent contradictions between what is hoped for in the future and what is experienced in the present: the stark discrepancy, that is, between the world as it is and the world as it should be. In this first volume, as the subtitle "Eschatology and Transformation in the Hebrew Bible" indicates, the author is concerned with the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament; the second will be on the New Testament). He deals, successively, with central eschatological themes and the deep tensions they involve: divine threats of an absolute end (to human life and to the world itself), and divine promises of blessing and transformation, along with the theological questions inevitably raised by these - both in themselves and in relation to each other; the whole phenomenon of prophecy, and the problems it involves - not least, whether it can be taken seriously, in face of the contradictions and failures it manifests. He discusses the sheer discrepancy between ideal and reality in traditions relating to kingship, along with the tensions inherent in the emergence of messianic hope; death, as representing the end of any relationship with God, along with hope that goes beyond death - in relation both to the individual and also the nation; and, finally, visions of a transformed and paradisal world, and whether these can bear any relation to reality. It is argued that the Hebrew Bible can be seen to offer genuine grounds for hope, but that these can have any cogency only if the problems involved are really engaged with.

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In this monograph Peter Dubovský explores the biblical and extra-biblical material in order to determine whether the pre-exilic temple underwent any reconstructions. The study of ancient Near Eastern material provides a background to how and why temples changed. The author's work is dedicated to the study of notes and comments spread over various parts of the Bible. He argues that there is enough evidence to prove that the pre-exilic temple of Jerusalem underwent important changes. What then can we say about 1 Kings 6-8 that attribute the construction of the temple in its full glory to Solomon? Thumbing through the commentaries on 1 Kings is sufficient to persuade even the most casual reader that the text is full of problems. The syntax is often incomprehensible, the grammar is unclear, and above all the different manuscripts disagree on the description of the first temple. Peter Dubovský's basic presupposition is that since the temple represented the most important building/institution in ancient Israel, it was only natural that the texts describing the temple underwent several redactions and were often glossed. He synthetizes the results and proposes a chronological development of the temple of Jerusalem as well as a minimalist version and also ventures to offer a more nuanced model. This conclusion, on the one hand, should be ultimately confronted with the results of archaeological excavation once they become available; on the other hand, this study can point to some nuances that only a text can preserve and no archaeologist can ever unearth.

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Miriam Goldstein's book is an ambitious study of a significant work composed by two leaders of the community of Karaite scholars living in Jerusalem (10th/11th c. C.E.). Yūsuf ibn Nūh, a grammarian and revered teacher of this scholarly community, authored a lengthy commentary on the Pentateuch, which was revised and updated by his student Abu al-Faraj Harun. Goldstein examines the historical background of the composition and its reception, as well as major principles of its exegetical method, an amalgamation of traditional Jewish techniques with methods and concepts inspired by or absorbed from the Arabic-Islamic environment. The book includes extensive citation from the commentary in English translation and an appendix of all cited texts in the original Judeo-Arabic. Yet this book is more than a study of one specific composition. Goldstein's analysis provides a basis for the recognition and understanding of the exegetical methods employed extensively, consistently and conservatively during two centuries of Karaite exegesis in Jerusalem. Furthermore, it serves as an introduction to a school of exegesis that was one of the crucial links between traditional rabbinic literature and the Jewish Bible commentaries composed in Europe. This book is intended for students of the Bible and biblical exegesis and of medieval Jewish and Middle Eastern history, as well as those simply curious to learn more about this vibrant period of creative composition in Judeo-Arabic.

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William D. Furley and Jan Maarten Bremer provide the reader with as full a picture as possible of ancient Greek religious hymns which were sung either at religious services or in literary contexts imitating such services. The emphasis is laid on the edition of the Greek texts, both those which excavations of such sites as Delphi, Epidauros and Athens have produced from the 4th century BC on, and those which have been transmitted through the manuscript tradition or on papyri. The authors aim to provide full editorial assistance to the interpretation of the originals which are presented with textual variant readings, metrical analyses, general comment on the context - both historical and literary - of the texts, and then detailed line-by-line commentary. The material is divided into two volumes. The first offers, after a general introduction, all hymns in verse translation, each followed by a general discussion situating the text in the context of Greek worship. This volume as a whole is perfectly accessible to the Greekless reader; Greek citations are translated throughout. The second gives the Greek texts, apparatus criticus, metrical analysis and line-by-line commentary on language and content. Both volumes contain a bibliography and an index. Taken together, they present a 'reconstruction'of the composite genre of Greek lyric hymns, which many have lamented is hopelessly lost. The twofold approach of combining epigraphic and literary texts permits a fuller appreciation of the range of surviving texts than has hitherto been possible.

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This volume of the Biblia Americana (1693-1728) contains Cotton Mather's annotations on Hebrews, James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude, and Revelation, as well as two series of essays on various matters of biblical interpretation. A mixture of pious explications and historical-textual criticism, the annotations are a treasure-trove for scholars interested in the development of Reformed theology and biblical exegesis during a decisive period of intellectual change in the early modern Atlantic world. Mather, an apologetically oriented but deeply learned scholar, confronts the early Enlightenment challenges to the authority of the Bible and core doctrines like the Trinity. He discusses problems of translation, textual variants (e.g., the Johannine comma), but also authorship and canonicity, especially with a view to the so-called Catholic Letters and James. The extensive annotations on Revelation offer a window into the development of Mather's millennialism and, more specifically, his changing interpretations of hotly-debated issues such as the eschatological conversion of the Jews, the expected date for the return of Christ and the nature of His kingdom. In the appended essays, Mather, in conversation with German Pietism, develops a biblical hermeneutic that emphasizes an experiential approach and the need for spiritual illumination. He also engages with antiquarian scholarship on the Scriptures, their original contexts, provenance, and transmission, as well as with literature that situates Judaism and Christianity in a larger history of ancient religions and cultures.

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Ohne neue Finanzierung wird eine Sanierung, deren Erfolg typischerweise für alle Beteiligten vorteilhaft ist, meist nicht gelingen. Scheitert der Sanierungsversuch jedoch, drohen für Geldgeber und alle übrigen Beteiligten erhebliche Nachteile. Johannes Locher untersucht, wie Sanierungsfinanzierer in Deutschland und Frankreich vor den Risiken eines Liquidationsverfahrens geschützt werden. Beleuchtet wird dabei insbesondere, welche Rolle die geradezu konträren Verfahrenszwecke spielen, die heute in Deutschland und Frankreich ausgemacht werden können. Hierauf aufbauend untersucht er unter Einbeziehung auch verfassungsrechtlicher sowie ökonomischer Erwägungen, inwiefern Schutzlücken im deutschen Recht trotz der unterschiedlichen Verfahrensziele nach dem Vorbild des französischen Rechts geschlossen werden könnten. Dabei zeigt sich insbesondere, dass die Verfahrenszwecke für Begründung und Grenzen von Schutzmechanismen von entscheidender Bedeutung sind und damit bei Harmonisierungsversuchen allgemein einbezogen werden sollten.Das Werk wurde mit dem Promotionspreis der Georg-F.-Rössler-Stiftung im Verein der Rechtsanwälte beim Bundesgerichtshof für das Jahr 2023 ausgezeichnet.

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Die Untersuchung der alttestamentlichen Proverbien und ausgewählter Lehren des ägyptischen Mittleren Reichs zeigt, dass der König in der weisheitlichen Weltordnung zwischen Gott und Menschen thront. Der Weisheit suchende Mensch, die zu findende und zu schützende Ordnung und der sie stiftende Gott sind wesentlich auf das königliche Amt bezogen. Dessen Mittlerfunktion bleibt im Laufe der Entwicklung der Weisheit erhalten. Dagegen unterziehen sich die das Amt bekleidenden Kronerben einer Metamorphose. Nicht nur zum Herrscher geborene oder proklamierte Kronerben, sondern auch Götter und menschliche Liebhaber der Weisheit werden als Könige angesprochen. Letztere sind die Adressaten des Sprüchebuches. Auf ihre Krönung und Beheimatung ist die Komposition der Proverbien ausgerichtet. Ausgehend von der Internationalität altorientalischer Weisheit nimmt Alexa F. Wilke thematische und strukturelle Vergleiche vor. Sie reflektiert kritisch die von führenden Ägyptologen vorgetragenen Thesen über die (Welt-)Ordnung der Weisheit, die lange den Maßstab alttestamentlicher Überlegungen bildeten, und leistet mit ihrer Untersuchung der Proverbien einen Beitrag zur gegenwärtigen Diskussion über die Komposition dieser Sentenzensammlung.

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Cornelis Bennema elucidates the soteriological function of the Spirit in the Fourth Gospel, and analyzes the interrelationship between John's pneumatology and soteriology along the trajectory of wisdom. As a possible conceptual background for aspects of Johannine pneumatology, he selects the Jewish wisdom tradition and suggests that sapient Judaism understood 'salvation' as an intensification of that work of the Spirit that is already immanent to a person, namely, the mediation of life and wisdom. The development of an overall model of Johannine soteriology, which holds together both the relational and cognitive aspects of salvation, assists in identifying the specific activities in which the Spirit is involved. The author argues that the soteriological function of the Spirit is twofold. First, the Spirit creates a saving relationship between the believer and the Father and Son, by mediating to people the saving wisdom present in Jesus' life-giving teaching. The Spirit thus enables the believer to come to an adequate understanding and belief-response. Second, the Spirit sustains this saving relationship through further mediation of wisdom that enables the believer to demonstrate discipleship as an ongoing belief-response. Hence, the Spirit accomplishes his soteriological role precisely in his function as a life-giving cognitive agent, i.e., through the mediation of saving wisdom the Spirit provides cognitive perception, understanding, and so life. This concept of the Spirit is the most important continuity between the models of salvation in sapient Judaism and in the Fourth Gospel.

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In this wide-ranging collection, Michael Fishbane investigates the complex and diverse relationships between the 'biblical text' and 'exegetical culture.' The author demonstrates the multiple literary dimensions and interpretative strategies that came to form the Hebrew Bible in the context of the ancient Near East, the Dead Sea Scrolls in the context of an emergent biblical-Jewish culture, and the classical rabbinic Midrash in the context of an emergent rabbinic civilization in late antiquity. Within each study, and in the collection as a whole, the author shows a broad range of creative methods, always with a scholarly concern to illuminate the religious ideas of Scripture as it was perceived through diverse hermeneutical lenses and exegetical methodologies. The studies range from the purely literary to the highly analytic, from myth to law, and from studies of symbols to the study of exegetical methods.

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In this monograph, Hryhoriy Lozinskyy studies five feasts contained in Num 28:16-30:1. Each of them is first treated in the light of biblical calendars and other related texts. The calendar in Numbers is later than an earlier version of Leviticus 23; yet the final form of Lev 23:1-44 is also a result of some later additions that took place after Num 28:1-30:1 had been composed. The author also focuses on the history of interpretation: he examines several pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and ancient Jewish writers from 200 BCE to 100 CE. He shows how these ancient sources reworked the biblical texts by expansions, clarifications, and omissions. In sum, the calendar in Numbers employs several previous traditions that dealt with the feasts, sacrifices, and calendars in order to compose the detailed list of the offerings for the appointed times. Moreover, it is a text that has been used by many ancient sources, especially in the matter of the sacrifices.

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William D. Furley and Jan Maarten Bremer provide the reader with as full a picture as possible of ancient Greek religious hymns which were sung either at religious services or in literary contexts imitating such services. The emphasis is laid on the edition of the Greek texts, both those which excavations of such sites as Delphi, Epidauros and Athens have produced from the 4th century BC on, and those which have been transmitted through the manuscript tradition or on papyri. The authors aim to provide full editorial assistance to the interpretation of the originals which are presented with textual variant readings, metrical analyses, general comment on the context - both historical and literary - of the texts, and then detailed line-by-line commentary. The material is divided into two volumes. The first offers, after a general introduction, all hymns in verse translation, each followed by a general discussion situating the text in the context of Greek worship. This volume as a whole is perfectly accessible to the Greekless reader; Greek citations are translated throughout. The second gives the Greek texts, apparatus criticus, metrical analysis and line-by-line commentary on language and content. Both volumes contain a bibliography and an index. Taken together, they present a 'reconstruction'of the composite genre of Greek lyric hymns, which many have lamented is hopelessly lost. The twofold approach of combining epigraphic and literary texts permits a fuller appreciation of the range of surviving texts than has hitherto been possible.

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Analyzing the illness-related terminology of the Gospel against the background of classical medical texts, Annette Weissenrieder examines the degree to which ancient medical knowledge was incorporated into the healing narratives of the Gospel of Luke. Thus, her work focuses on the crossroads of theology and medical history. Her primary reference is the Corpus Hippocraticum, supplemented by the writings of Soranus, Empedocles and Caelius Aurelianus. She also examines Jewish sources in the light of these secular medical texts. The premise of the study is the constructivist concept that has been developed in the context of 'writing the history of the body': that there is no objective view of the sick body. Every description of the body is formed by the cultural norms of a particular society, and society's culture influences the way in which any given illness is seen.In investigating concepts of medicine prevalent in antiquity, Annette Weissenrieder brings to light the cultural parameters of perception specific to Luke. She deals with gender-specific images of illness as well as with those associated with impurity or demonic possession. Her analysis confirms that the concepts of illness used by the Lucan author were profoundly characteristic of his time. She demonstrates how he uses these concepts to make his central message plausible: the presence of divine reality in the human sphere which can be experienced by both the physical body and the social body.

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