Search results for ""JCB Mohr (Paul Siebeck)""

This collection of essays contains the papers given at the Fifth International East-West Symposium of New Testament Scholars in Minsk (Belarus). The symposium was a project of the Eastern Europe Liaison Committee of Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas. Main subject matters of the volume are the history and methodological questions of modern Jesus research, approaches to the Jesus of history in ancient and modern Christian exegesis, Jesus as a Jew in ancient and modern exegesis, and the portraits of Jesus in Luke and John. The authors of these papers deal with the parables of Jesus, with his Galilean ministry, with the passion narrative in Mark and with the death of Christ according to Paul's letters. All topics are discussed from a "Western" (Protestant and Roman-Catholic) exegetical perspective as well as from an Orthodox point of view. A concluding report recapitulates the group discussions and seminar sessions of the symposium. Contributors: Charalampos Atmatzidis, Reimund Bieringer, Predrag Dragutinović, Carl R. Holladay, Christos Karakolis, Dominika A. Kurek-Chomycz, Ulrich Luz, Joel Marcus, Vasile Mihoc, Tobias Nicklas, Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr, Marius Reiser, Armand Puig i Tàrrech, Sviatoslav Rogalsky, Ekaterini G. Tsalampouni, Konstantinos Th. Zarras

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Margaret H. Williams presents a selection of studies, most of them epigraphically based, on the Jewish Diaspora in Graeco-Roman antiquity. Those collected in the first part deal with problems connected with the Jewish community in Rome, its history, organisation and burial practices. The papers in the second part are mainly concerned with other Jewish settlements in the Roman Empire, most notably those of Aphrodisias and Corycus in Asia Minor and Venusia in Italy. The third part focuses entirely on Jewish naming practices such as the use of alternative names, the formation of festal names and the increasing preference in Late Antiquity for Hebrew names. The reception of these studies, previously dispersed over a variety of publications, forms the subject of the over-arching introductory essay. Since the original articles were written, many of the inscriptions have been re-edited in new corpora. References to these are systematically included in this volume.

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Justification by faith alone defined teaching in Evangelical churches of the sixteenth century. In 1550 the former reformer of Nuremberg, Andreas Osiander (1498-1552), as a new professor of theology at the University of Königsberg in East Prussia, advocated a divergent understanding of that doctrine, arguing that a Christian's righteousness consisted of the indwelling of Christ's divine nature. In the ensuing years, almost all other Evangelical churches and theologians in German-speaking lands rejected his position. In this book Timothy J. Wengert studies their objections to Osiander's theology in detail, offering a theological perspective on the process of confessionalization among Lutherans in the period after Martin Luther's death in 1546 and before publication of the Book of Concord in 1580. Reactions against Osiander represented a singular literary event in the development of Evangelical churches in central Europe, with over 100 tracts for and against Osiander's position being published between 1551 and 1559. The lines between so-called "genuine" followers of Luther and backers of Philip Melanchthon disappeared, as nearly all Lutheran theologians joined in the attack. Timothy J. Wengert, after providing an outline of Osiander's position in an initial chapter, focuses on his opponents' published responses. Not only does he provide a detailed chronology for these tracts, he also looks at the various theological themes struck by their authors. Separate chapters pay special attention to the contributions of Gnesio-Lutherans (Joachim Mörlin, Matthias Flacius and Nicholas Gallus), to the very different approaches to the dispute pursued by Johannes Brenz and Philip Melanchthon, especially after Osiander's death, and to the struggle over Martin Luther's writings and their authority. Philip Melanchthon's contributions, especially a speech from 1551 and his 1556 commentary on Romans, are also examined.

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Martin Hengel (1926-2009) was a historian of the early church and ancient Judaism. His influence extended through his many publications, research students, conference participation, and ecclesiastical work. His scholarly legacy was honoured by a conference at Tyndale House in July 2010 with a number of speakers from Germany, England, and the USA coming together to remember and honour their colleague with papers on topics that Martin Hengel spent his life exploring. The essays in this volume include biographical works by former students remembering him as both a teacher and Christian scholar. Thereafter, several essays on Christology, the Gospels, and Judaism and Early Christianity engage with his contribution to these areas. Also included in the collection are new translations of six of Martin Hengel's most important essays put into English for the first time.

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What we think of our bodies and what we wear says something about who we are and how we belong. This was the same in the ancient world. Rosemary Canavan explores the imagery of clothing and body in the first century CE Christian writing, the Letter to the Colossians. Through the use of this imagery in the letter, the writer critiques the way people understood themselves in a particular part of the Greco-Roman world in the Lycus Valley in south western Asia Minor (Turkey). An examination of statuary, funerary monuments and coins in this geographical location contemporaneous with the letter's writing reveals how clothing and body images were understood. This is then placed in dialogue with the metaphorical use of clothing and body in other texts, especially the Letter to the Colossians. Social identity and rhetorical studies draw on archaeological, epigraphical, iconographical and literary sources to formulate a new approach to biblical interpretation aptly named "visual exegesis".

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The volume collects the papers of the International Conference on Disaster and Relief Management in Ancient Israel/Palestine, Egypt and the Ancient Near East held from the 4th of October to the 6th of October 2010 in Leipzig. Scholars from different fields are having a close look at the concepts of disasters in antiquity, their impact on society, possible dynamics and cultural dimensions. They give insights into their actual research on the destructivity and productivity of disasters, including the possibility that disasters were used as topoi in ideological, mythological and theological discourses. Their contributions in this volume represent a first step to a cultural history of disasters in antiquity.

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This is the fifth and final volume of the book series Problems of Transnational Civil Procedure. It comprises the contributions from two international symposia held in Nagoya, Japan. The symposia were part of an international research project for Establishing a New Framework for Realizing Effective Transnational Business Litigation created by Nagoya University in cooperation with the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science and the University of Freiburg. The first chapter of this volume is intended to shed light on questions of international jurisdiction in insolvency matters, national solutions of cross-border insolvency, security interests in insolvency proceedings and the recognition and assistance of foreign insolvency proceedings. The recent issues, to which the second part of this volume is mainly devoted, are comparative studies on intellectual property litigation and the significance of ordre public for recognition and enforcement. With contributions by: Neil H. Andrews

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Rachel S. Mikva undertakes a close examination of Midrash vaYosha, a medieval rabbinic text which explicates the Song at the Sea (Ex 15:1-18) and the events of the exodus from Egypt leading up to that climactic moment. Relatively short midrashim focusing on a brief biblical narrative or theme were composed in large numbers during the medieval period, and their extant manuscripts are sufficient in number to demonstrate the great popularity of the genre. Based on early manuscripts, two different recensions are transcribed and translated with significant annotation exploring variants, parallels, exegetical significance and literary style. A thorough historical analysis suggests that the midrash was performed as explication of the Torah reading at a certain point in its development - part of the gradual attenuation of live Targum. As Midrash vaYosha leaves the synagogue, its narrative dimension grows tremendously, yielding significant insight into the development of medieval Jewish exegesis.

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Lance Jenott presents a new critical edition, annotated translation, and interpretation of the Gospel of Judas which, for the first time, includes all extant fragments of the manuscript. Departing from the scholarly debate over how this second-century Gospel portrays the character of Judas Iscariot, he investigates the text's preoccupation with Jesus' Twelve Disciples, and why its author slanders them as immoral priests who unwittingly offer sacrifice to a false god. Jenott challenges previous interpretations of Judas as a Gnostic text that criticizes the sacrificial theology, Christology, and ritual practices of the orthodox church, including Eucharist and baptism. Instead, he emphasizes how its Christian author voices a political critique of the emerging clergy who established their ecclesiological authority through doctrines of apostolic succession and the exclusive right to administer the Eucharist. In the final chapter, Jenott leaves questions about the author's second-century Sitz im Leben behind to consider how Judas may have appealed to the fourth-century Coptic Christians who produced our only known copy.

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The Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch or Second Baruch is a Jewish work of the late first century C.E., written in Israel in the aftermath of the Jewish War against Rome. It is part of a larger body of post-70 C.E. Jewish literature. The authors of these works had a difficult charge. They needed to re/imagine Judaism and its central symbols, take count of a thriving Diaspora, and articulate how Jewish life was to be lived from then on, without the benefit of a temple. Written at a time of religious reconstruction and mental reorientation, Second Baruch occupies a unique place in the history of early Jewish thought. In this highly original work, the author of Second Baruch developed an apocalyptic program that was intended for post-70 C.E. Judaism at large and not for a small dissident community only. The program incorporates various theological strands, chief among them the Deuteronomic promise of a prosperous and long life for those keeping the Torah and the apocalyptic promise of a new heaven and a new earth.In this book, Matthias Henze offers a close reading of some of the central passages in Second Baruch, exposes its main themes, explains the apocalyptic program it advocates, draws some parallels with other texts, Jewish and Christian, and locates Second Baruch 's intellectual place in the rugged terrain of post-70 C.E. Jewish literature and thought. For modern readers interested in Judaism of the late Second Temple period, in the Jewish world from which early Christianity emerged, and in the origins of rabbinic Judaism, Second Baruch is an invaluable source.

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The Gog Oracles' (Ezek 38-39) reuse of antecedent scripture is crucial to their purpose and meaning. The pattern of continuous allusion in the Gog Oracles reflects something more than a writer saturated with scriptural idiom. It is a practice of disciplined and deliberate reference to select texts on select themes. William A. Tooman shows that recognizing the volume and density of scriptural reuse within the Gog Oracles is indispensable for understanding these chapters' role within the book, its composition, and its place within Second Temple literature. A close examination of the methods, effects, and motives of scriptural reuse that are evident within the Gog oracles reveals that these chapters are a unified composition that was crafted as a supplement to a book of Ezekiel, in order to fill gaps in the book's message and to harmonize the book with other traditions of prophetic revelation.

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God's creative activity "in the beginning" is important to many aspects of Paul's theology. Jonathan Worthington explores Paul's protology by analyzing his interpretation of scripture concerning creation, mainly the beginning of Genesis. By examining Paul's exegetical manoeuvres within 1-2 Corinthians and Romans, and by comparing these with the contemporary but more detailed treatments of the same texts by Philo of Alexandria in his formal commentary on Genesis 1-2, De Opificio Mundi, the author uncovers an approach to creation that is fundamental to both ancient interpreters. Paul's interpretation of creation, like Philo's in his commentary, contains three interwoven aspects: the beginning of the world, the beginning of humanity, and God's intentions before the beginning. Recognizing this basic hermeneutical interplay between "the Beginning" and "the Before" facilitates a more appropriate comparison between Paul and Philo as well as a more adequate treatment of difficult and debated passages in both interpreters regarding creation.

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The Hebrew Bible has played an important part in the development of Western culture. However, its central ideas - such as monotheism, the demythologization of nature or the linearity of time - had to be taken out of the national and linguistic milieu in which they had developed if they were to to become fertile on a wider scale. They also needed to be rendered palatable to a mentality that had experienced the scientific, rationalist revolution prepared by the Greeks. The Septuagint - the oldest Greek translation of the Jewish Bible, produced over the third and second centuries BC - is the first important step in this process of acculturation.Over the last twenty years the Septuagint has come out of the shadow of its Hebrew source. Historians of Judaism, linguists, and biblical scholars have come to view the Septuagint as a significant document in its own right. As the discoveries in Qumran have shown, the Hebrew source text of the Septuagint was not identical to the traditional text received by the synagogue (the Masoretic Text). Also, the translators appear to have taken a degree of liberty in interpreting the text. Dominique Barthélemy used the term 'aggiornamento': the Septuagint is a kind of update of the Jewish scriptures.This large-scale collective and interdisciplinary project aims to produce a new research tool: a multi-volume dictionary providing a comprehensive article (around 500 articles in all) for each important word or word group of the Septuagint. Filling an important gap in the fields of ancient philology and religious studies, the dictionary is based on original research of the highest scientific level.The dictionary will be published in English. The first volume contains over 160 articles on words with the letters Alpha to Gamma.

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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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Douglas A. Hume offers a narrative ethical reading of the passages depicting the early Christian community in Acts (2:41-47 and 4:32-35). He begins with a methodological exploration of how contemporary scholars may examine the impact of biblical narratives upon reader's moral imaginations. Given the presence of friendship language in Acts, the work subsequently launches into an examination of this idiom in Greco-Roman philosophical and literary works by Aristotle, Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius, and Iamblichus. The author then proceeds to an exegetical examination of how friendship language is employed by Luke in the narrative summaries of Acts. This ethical reading of the Acts 2:41-47 and 4:32-35 incorporates multiple features of narrative criticism and asks such wide ranging questions as the use of emotion, point of view, and characterization to shape the reading audience's perception of God, the early Christian community, and other characters within the story of Luke-Acts. This study has implications for biblical studies, practical theology, and contemporary understandings of ecclesiology.

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The patriarch Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi headed the independent Jewish leadership institutions in Roman Palestine at the turn of the second and third centuries CE. He conducted the affairs of the patriarchate with a high hand, was renowned for his learning and behaved like a kind of anointed king. He was also incredibly rich, a consummate politician, and close to the Roman authorities. He made taqqanot (reforms) in the light of circumstances, and tried to cancel mitzvoth (religious regulations), such as the regulations about shemita (not using the land in the sabbatical year), which entailed hardship for the Jews of his time. He was ahead of his times in his humane and liberal decisions. Rabbi completed the redaction of the Mishnah and thus gave the Jewish people the work that is second in importance only to the Torah, although by so doing he put a brake on the development of the oral law. Aharon Oppenheimer attempts to present Rabbi Jehuda ha-Nassi's character and his life as well as examining the significance of his work for his own generation and succeeding ones.

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The volume collects text-critical, exegetical and biblical-theological essays by Arie Zwiep on the Acts of the Apostles, dealing primarily with the opening chapters of Acts in the wider context of first-century Christianity and its Umwelt. The articles include treatments of the ascension and exaltation of Jesus in its early Jewish and early Christian context, the death and replacement of Judas Iscariot and the varying traditions of his death, the role of Judas and the Jews in the history of anti-Semitism, Luke's understanding of Pentecost and the outpouring of the Spirit, early Christian community life in Acts, the function of the early resurrection and exaltation Christology in Peter's Pentecost discourse, and Luke's special treatment of Paul in relation to the Twelve apostles in Jerusalem. The book contains previously published material (all thoroughly updated and revised), some articles appearing for the first time in English and two new essays.

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The Exilarchs, professed scions of the biblical Davidic royal line, were leaders of the Jews of Babylonia in antiquity. They were said to be powerful political figures and to lead a decadent lifestyle. Their princely trappings and high-handed manner were legend. They were reported to be completely assimilated into Persian culture. Geoffrey Herman examines the evidence, culled mainly from the Talmudic and Geonic literature, subjecting the institution of the Exilarchate to literary-historical and source-critical analysis. In addition, Herman innovatively utilizes comparative sources from the fields of Iranian studies and Persian Christianity to find the truth underlying the accounts of the historical Exilarchs.

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Through a detailed evaluation of treatments of circumcision in the primary authors of the second century BCE to the first century CE, Nina E. Livesey demonstrates that there is no common or universally recognized meaning for the Jewish rite of circumcision. The meaning of circumcision is contingent upon its literary context. The strength of this volume is in its detailed textual analysis of circumcision, attending to the nuances within each text's treatment of circumcision. At the same time, it provides ample evidence of each author's unrestricted use of the rite of circumcision. Ancient authors employed the term freely and in a number of literary senses, as a literal rite, in a metaphoric sense, and as a metonym to confer meanings on this rite. A final chapter provides a brief history of the interpretation of circumcision within the Christian tradition shedding light on its understanding from the second century to the present era.

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Religion hat mit Gott und der Welt zu tun. Wie Religionen im Alten Orient, in der griechischen und ägyptischen Antike, im Alten und Neuen Testament, im spätantiken Christentum und im Islam die Welt deuten, wird in dem vorliegenden Band im interdisziplinären Gespräch erörtert. Grundlegende Kategorien der Welterklärung sind Chaos und Kosmos, Schöpfung und Weltende, himmlische und irdische Welt bzw. die Welt der Lebenden und die Unterwelt. In zehn Fallstudien fragen die Autoren nach der Topographie solcher Weltkonstruktionen, wobei sowohl die Unterschiede zwischen den Deutungsmustern der einzelnen Religionen als auch die Analogien zu Tage treten. Klar ist: Wer zwischen dem zweiten Jahrtausend vor und dem ersten Jahrtausend nach Christus nach der Welt und den in ihr waltenden Mächten fragt, fragt auch nach der Macht Gottes - und damit nach Ziel und Sinn der Welt. Mit Beiträgen von: Friederike Herklotz, Wayne Horowitz, Paul A. Kruger, Todd Lawson, Daniel Ogden, Henrik Pfeiffer, Maria E. Subtelny, Claus Wilcke, Oda Wischmeyer, Frances Young

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E.A. Judge's third collection of essays moves on from Rome and the New Testament to the interaction of the classical and biblical traditions, to the cultural transformation of late antiquity, and to the contested heritage of Athens and Jerusalem in the modern West. A lifelong interest in Rome bridges this range. Christianity emerges as essentially a movement of ideas, opposed at first to the cultic practice of ancient religion which had been meant to secure the existing order of things. The new message with its demanding morality laid the foundations for our radically different sense of 'religion' as the quest for the ideal life.The 'Judge method' tackles such momentous questions by starting with textual detail, translated from Latin and Greek. Inspired by the project of the Dölger-Institut in Bonn (the interaction of antiquity and Christianity), he brings to it a particular focus on those documents of the times retrieved from stone or papyrus. The collection reflects the more holistic approach to history, starting with the ancient world, that has been developed at Macquarie University in Sydney, where diverse interests are now drawn together from as far back as ancient Egypt or China in an attractive approach to the modern world.

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How did the visual, the oral, and the written interrelate in antiquity? The essays in this collection address the competing and complementary roles of visual media, forms of memory, oral performance, and literacy and popular culture in the ancient Mediterranean world. Incorporating both customary and innovative perspectives, the essays advance the frontiers of our understanding of the nature of ancient texts as regards audibility and performance, the vital importance of the visual in the comprehension of texts, and basic concepts of communication, particularly the need to account for disjunctive and non-reciprocal social relations in communication. Thus the contributions show how the investigation of the interface of the oral and written, across the spectrum of seeing, hearing, and writing, generates new concepts of media and mediation.

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Luke records twice how Jesus called on people to "take up" or "carry" their crosses. He also reports how Simon of Cyrene carried Jesus' cross "behind Jesus." No metaphorical uses of the well-known phenomenon of cross-bearing were confirmed in any language prior to the Gospels. The idiom was also unknown in Semitic languages. What did a call to become a voluntary cross-bearer sound like before the cross became kitsch? In Luke's Gospel, cross-bearing is connected with self-denial and "hating" one's family. Not only the disciples, but "all" are called on to take up their crosses. Since cross-bearing is a daily duty, it can hardly refer to martyrdom, and cannot be linked to imitation. Sverre Bøe argues that the cross signifies death through radical self-denial, but not as ascetic exercises. His book includes a survey of the history of scholarship on the five Synoptic texts of cross-bearing.

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In pursuit of the oneness of scripture's scope, Brevard Childs (1923-2007) ranged across the Christian Bible, writing Introductions to the Old and New Testaments before attempting a landmark Biblical Theology of the same. For him the canon is a christological rule of faith, though perceiving the "family resemblance" in its historic formation and impress in the life of the church as well as, mysteriously, the synagogue, is always a great struggle. Yet Childs' argument for final form exegesis rose out of his form-critical training: Hermann Gunkel is a crucial antecedent. Childs' work has been much discussed, and in the wake of James Barr's criticism much misunderstood. Driver gives its total profile for the first time, from its background and controversy to its later development, analyzing all published titles and filling out this record with a number of previously unseen letters and papers.

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Although described as volume II, this is the last volume to appear in a series of four which documents all the named Jews whose record has come down to us from Antiquity. It lists all the Jewish people we know and those we think were Jews from Palestine after 200 CE and before the Arab conquest. Most of the information in it is derived from the Palestinian Talmud and from inscriptions from Jewish cemeteries such as Beit Shearim. Unlike the previous volumes in this series, this volume also lists all the Samaritans known by name from Palestine in this period. It includes more than 3000 entries. Together with the other books in this series, a record of more than 15,000 named Jews has been collected. From this collection it is possible to learn much about the cultural phenomenon of name-giving among Jews in Antiquity and the extent of their assimilation or separateness can be assessed. The entire series is thus a very useful resource for the study of cultural and social history and its utility to scholars will certainly be long lasting. The volume also includes a substantial addendum to volume 1, which appeared in print exactly ten years ago. It includes over 500 entries that had been overlooked in the previous volume, or that have meanwhile been published. In an appendix the results of the project team's research on inscriptions in Elijah's Cave in Haifa are presented. This cave is a venerated Jewish site to this day, although its religious character in Antiquity is the subject of debate. The team was able to read 50 inscriptions found on its wall and this added more than 70 names to the present volume.

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Scholars of rabbinics and Iranists are increasingly turning to the orbit of Iranian civilization in order to explore the extent to which the Babylonian Talmud was exposed to the theological and liturgical discourse of the Zoroastrian religion, as well as Sasanian legal practices. Here possibly for the first time, scholars within these fields are brought together in concert to examine the interaction between Jewish and Iranian cultures in terms of legal exegesis, literature, and religious thought. The implications of this groundbreaking effort are vastly significant for Jewish and Iranian Studies.With contributions by: Yaakov Elman, David Goodblatt, Geoffrey Herman, Richard Kalmin, Maria Macuch, Jason Sion Mokhtarian, Shai Secunda, Shaul Shaked, Prods Oktor Skjærvø, Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina

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This biography of Elias Bickerman (1897-1981), one of the foremost historians of Graeco-Roman antiquity active in the twentieth century, focuses on his role as a historian of the Jews. Bickerman had an extraordinary life. He was born in Kishinev and grew up in St. Petersburg. He arrived in Berlin in 1922, where he pursued an academic career (Doctorate, 1926; Habilitation, 1930). With the rise of the Nazis, he moved to Paris in 1933, then to the USA in 1942. He died in Tel Aviv and was buried in Jerusalem.Albert Baumgarten explores the connections between Bickerman's life and his scholarly work on the Jews in its different cultural and academic contexts (Russian, German, French, and American). He argues that Bickerman intended to create a usable Jewish past. He further shows that Bickerman conceived the ancient Jewish encounter with Hellenism and the modern Jewish entry into European civilization in light of each other. He demonstrates that Bickerman argued that there were some ancient Jews who were wrong in the way they tried to bridge the gap between Judaism and Hellenism, while there were other ancient Jews who found the right solution. He illustrates the contemporary significance of these conclusions concerning the past for Bickerman himself and for other Jews of his time. Bickerman saw the circumstances of his life as a series of unfortunate dislocations. This book emphasizes the intellectual and academic benefit Bickerman derived from his life experience in the twentieth century.

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"Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their hearts and turn and be healed." This call of the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 6 has perplexed readers of all times. Torsten Uhlig reconsiders this text and other related passages. Applying a communicative approach and engaging with recent studies on righteousness, the author presents a new interpretation of the theme of hardening in the Book of Isaiah. He argues that hardening is to be understood in the context of the communicative aspect of righteousness and elucidates the communicative acts involved in the hardening of the people. Describing the role of these passages within the communicative strategy of larger units, this monograph offers a distinctive contribution to the interpretation of the Book of Isaiah as a whole.

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Ryan Jackson explores the apostle Paul's conception of new creation in the light of a fresh consideration of its historical and social contexts. This work seeks to understand how Paul innovatively applied his theological convictions in his letters to three communities - in Galatia, in Corinth, and in Rome. The discussion contributes to the ongoing debate concerning the degree to which Paul's soteriology should be viewed in continuity or discontinuity with the Old Testament. It also offers a further example of how Roman imperial ideology may be employed in the study of the reception of Paul's letters. The thesis proposes that Paul's concept of new creation is an expression of his eschatologically infused soteriology which involves the individual, the community, and the cosmos, and which is inaugurated in the death and resurrection of Christ.

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Joel S. Baden addresses the relationship between the J and E documents in the Pentateuch. He demonstrates that, contrary to the standard claims of classical source criticism, the J and E sources were never combined into a "JE" document. Rather, these two sources were combined with each other at the same time that they were combined with the P and D documents, in one process of redaction.After investigating the history of scholarly arguments regarding the existence and combination of J and E, the author goes on to argue in detail for the dependence of D on the separate, independent narratives of J and, primarily, E. Significant attention is paid to the issue of redaction. In particular, Baden critiques the manner in which passages have traditionally been attributed to redactors, and argues for a more restrictive concept of the redactor and his work. It is further argued that the literary evidence in the Pentateuch provides for the existence of only a single redactor, to whom the compilation of all four sources of the Pentateuch is to be attributed.In the course of this study, a number of important questions regarding the composition of the Pentateuch are addressed: the existence of E, the relationship between D and the narratives of Genesis-Numbers, and the nature of the redactor. In the end, this study stands as both a critique of traditional documentary analysis of the Pentateuch and a defense of its fundamental claims.

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Akiva Cohen investigates the general research question: how do the authors of religious texts reconstruct their community identity and ethos in the absence of their central cult? His particular socio-historical focus of this more general question is: how do the respective authors of the Gospel according to Matthew, and the editor(s) of the Mishnah redefine their group identities following the destruction of the Second Temple? The author further examines how, after the Destruction, both the Matthean and the Mishnaic communities found and articulated their renewed community bearings and a new sense of vision through each of their respective author/redactor's foundational texts. The context of this study is thus that of an inner-Jewish phenomenon; two Jewish groups seeking to (re-)establish their community identity and ethos without the physical temple that had been the cultic center of their cosmos. Cohen's interest is in how each of these communities (the Matthean and Mishnaic/Rabbinic-related ones) underwent a reformulation of their identity as Israel, and the consequent ethos that resulted from their respective reformulations.

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The studies collected in this book represent landmarks in the vast exegetical landscape of the Pentateuch. In the first series of these studies, Jean-Louis Ska examines key texts from different perspectives and draws a map to show the way. These texts are mainly the story of the flood (Gen 6-9), the call of Abraham (Gen 12:1-4), God's covenant with Abraham (Gen 15), the Lord's apparition to Abraham in Mamre (Gen 18), the sacrifice of Isaac (Gen 22), the introduction to the Sinai covenant (Exod 19:3-6), and the meal and the vision on the mountain (Exod 24:9-11). Different methods are used according to the text or the topic treated: literary criticism, redaction criticism, inner-biblical exegesis, and narrative analysis. In the second part, the author grapples with some basic issues in recent debates about exegetical methods: the function of the narrator, the validity of resorting to the category of "redactor", the nature and purpose of the biblical law collections, and the legitimacy of a critical reading of the Old Testament. The Pentateuch is a cantata with many voices, and faithfulness to its nature means that the exegete has to use all the instruments at his or her disposal to make this old music be heard once again.

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This study brings insights from character ethics in addition to the much discussed biblical scholarship on social justice in order to elucidate the concept of righteousness present in the book of Proverbs. The author's choice of Proverbs as a wisdom text in relation to the concept of righteousness reflects the realization that previous scholarship has not dealt with righteousness as a concept in its own right but as a corollary to the issue of social justice. Like character ethics, Proverbs use its depiction of the righteous person as its prominent pedagogic device of moral discourse. In other words, instead of offering abstract statements about morality, Sun Myung Lyu portrays the life of the righteous person as the paradigm of moral life, which is pregnant with numerous realizations into specific actions befitting diverse life situations. What the righteous person embodies is righteousness, the character in toto, which encompasses yet transcends specific virtues and actions. After presenting a comparative study of Proverbs with the Psalms and the ancient Egyptian wisdom texts, the author concludes that despite many similarities and parallels, Proverbs still stands out in its strong emphasis on character formation and internalization of virtues as foundations of morality in general and righteousness in particular.

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The history of scholarship on Hebrews attests a tension between the originality and Pauline character of its epistolary postscript (13:20-25). Generally speaking, scholars accepting the postscript's originality reject its Pauline character, while those rejecting its originality accept its reliance on Paul's letters. The Pauline character of the postscript is especially problematic for implying Paul's authorship of the book-a thesis that is all but dispensed with today. Clare K. Rothschild argues that if Hebrews's postscript is both original and imitative of Paul's letters, and if such imitation on the part of the author of Hebrews deliberately identifies the author as Paul, the entire book of Hebrews merits consideration as a pseudepigraphon.Examining Hebrews from this perspective, Rothschild makes the case that neither the postscript nor the rest of Hebrews was composed de novo. Rather, it deliberately adopts words and phrases-including citations from the Jewish scriptures-from a collection of Pauline materials, in order to imply Paul's authorship of a message that stands in continuity with esteemed Pauline traditions. Furthermore, the longstanding tradition of Hebrews's Pauline attribution suggests that it never circulated independently of other works attributed to Paul but was composed to amplify an early corpus Paulinum. This is the first ever monograph to examine the history of Hebrews' Pauline attribution and the significance of this attribution for our understanding of the book and its author's indebtedness to Pauline traditions.

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In this collection of essays, Hans M. Barstad deals thoroughly with the recent history debate, and demonstrates its relevancy for the study of ancient Israelite history and historiography. He takes an independent stand in the heated maximalist/minimalist debate on the historicity of the Hebrew Bible. Vital to his understanding is the necessity to realize the narrative nature of the ancient Hebrew and of the Near Eastern sources. Equally important is his claim that stories, too, may convey positivistic historical "facts". The other major topic he deals with in the book is the actual history of ancient Judah in the Neo-Babylonian and Persian periods. Here, the author makes extensive use of extant ancient Near Eastern sources, both textual and archaeological, and he puts much weight on economic aspects. He shows that the key to understanding the role of Judah in the 1st millennium lays in the proper evaluation of Judah and its neighbouring city states within their respective imperial contexts. A proper understanding of the history of Judah during the 6th century BCE, consequently, can only be obtained when Judah is studied as a part of the much wider Neo-Babylonian imperial policy.

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The Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls Project is providing the first critical edition of all the Dead Sea Scrolls which are not copies of books in the Hebrew Bible (the so-called "Old Testament") in 10 projected volumes along with 2 concordances. The format of the series is unique; each manuscript is presented with Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek text on the left page with facing English translation on the right. The series intends to be a standard reference work; thus, only probable reconstructions are made and the English translations are as literal as possible avoiding idiomatic renderings. Where a document is witnessed by more than one manuscript, each manuscript is presented separately. Critical notes help the reader to understand the text, variants, philological subtleties, and the translation. An introduction with selected bibliography precedes each document. The documents are prepared by an international team of over fifty scholars with the editors and their assistants providing consistency.Volume 7 brings together for the first time all of the manuscript witnesses to the Temple Scroll. The Temple Scroll is the longest manuscript found in the Qumran Caves and perhaps the most important halakhic composition known from the Second Temple Period. The scroll presents itself as a rewritten Torah which begins with the renewal of the Sinaitic covenant and then turns to the building of the Temple. The document discusses the architecture of the Temple and its precincts, laws of sacrifice, priestly dues and tithes, the ritual calendar, festival offerings, ritual purity and impurity, sanctity of the Temple, laws of the king and the army, prophecy, foreign worship, witnesses, laws of war, and various marriage and sex laws.

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The authors of the essays collected in this volume are all concerned with the Jewish transmission and use of Greek translations of the biblical books from Late Antiquity to the early modern period. It is only in recent years that the idea of such a Jewish transmission has gained acceptance, and the present volume represents the first attempt to bring together contributions from specialists in a number of areas, including not only biblical and Jewish studies but also such disciplines as epigraphy and Byzantine history and literature, to investigate a wide range of aspects of the subject. The authors not only explore some of the ways in which Greek-speaking Jews kept alive a tradition of Greek biblical scholarship going back to ancient times, but also how this tradition impinged on Christian Bible study. They open a window on a forgotten chapter in biblical scholarship, and at the same time shed important light on aspects of Jewish life in the Middle Ages.

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In Rom 14-15 Paul promotes an inclusive ethic by advising the strong (mainly Gentile Christians) to allow for certain Jewish practices performed by the weak (mainly Jewish Christians) in order to unify the Roman Christian community through an environment that is not socially divisive so as to advance his broader vision of unifying Jewish and Gentile Christians and to encourage an outward mission to non-Christians in Rome. In the first half of the study, Carl N. Toney focuses upon Rom 14-15. He begins with a social reconstruction of the Roman Christian community by exploring the problem of the divisions created when both Jewish and Gentile believers blur their Christian identity with culturally divisive practices related to the adherence or rejection of Jewish diet and days and the negative social impact of those choices. Next, in an exegetical study he considers how in Rom 14:1-15:6 Paul presents his inclusive ethic, which offers a solution to these divisions, and the expansion of this ethic in Rom 15:7-13, which promotes an outward mission to non-Christians. The second half of the study interprets Rom 14-15 in light of insights gained from Rom 11 and 1 Cor 8-10. Thus, both the inclusive ethic and concern for mission, as presented in Rom 14-15, are rooted in the letter's prior argument in Rom 11 that Gentile Christians have an obligation to Christian and non-Christian Jews. Also, Paul adapts his previous arguments from 1 Cor 8-10 of "becoming all things to all people" so as to promote in Rom 14-15 an accommodation to others both inside and outside the Roman community.

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The title 'Son of Man' in the Gospel of John is an apocalyptic reference that highlights, among a number of things, that Jesus is a heavenly figure. Benjamin E. Reynolds analyzes the background of 'Son of Man' from the 'one like a son of man' in Daniel 7 and the interpretations of this figure in Jewish apocalyptic and early Christian literature. Although there is no established 'Son of Man concept', the Danielic son of man is interpreted with common characteristics that suggest there was at least some general understanding of this figure in the Second Temple period.The author shows that these common characteristics are noticeable throughout the Son of Man sayings in John's Gospel. The context and the interpretation of these sayings point to an understanding of the Johannine Son of Man similar to those in the interpretations of the Danielic figure. However, even though these similarities exist, the Johannine figure is distinct from the previous interpretations, just as they are distinct from one another. One obvious difference is the present reality of the Son of Man's role in judgment and salvation.The Johannine Son of Man is an apocalyptic figure, and thus 'Son of Man' does not function to draw attention to Jesus' humanity in the Gospel of John. Nor is the title synonymous with 'Son of God'. 'Son of Man' may overlap in meaning with other titles, particularly 'Son of God' and 'Messiah', but 'Son of Man' points to aspects of Jesus' identity that are not indicated by any other title. Along with the other titles, it helps to present a richer Christological portrait of the Johannine Jesus.

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V. Henry T. Nguyen explores the social dynamics of Christian identity in the apostle Paul's second letter to the Corinthians. In order to grasp how aspects of identity affected social relations in the world of the New Testament, the author examines the significance of the ancient concept of persona for denoting a person's social identity in the Graeco-Roman social world. In addition to describing this social concept, which has been largely ignored by New Testament scholars and classicists, he considers two figures - Epictetus and Valerius Maximus - for their perceptions of social identity and persona in the Graeco-Roman world. By exploring this ancient concept and contributing new insights into Epictetus and Valerius, the author demonstrates the existence of a large preoccupation with the superficial features that expressed identity and persona (e.g. rank, status, and eloquence). He then investigates 2 Corinthians and argues that some of the conflicts in the Corinthian church resulted from the Corinthian Christians' adoption of the conventional values of identity and persona that were prevalent in Corinth. Paul's conflict with the Corinthians is clearly seen in their superficial assessment of his persona as lacking the appropriate credentials for an apostle. The author shows that in order to combat this misconception of Christian identity in the Corinthian church, Paul reacted to the Corinthians' conventional values of identity by promoting and projecting a subversive Christ-like identity, which is a visible embodiment of the dying and life of Jesus Christ.

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The main point of emphasis in the book is that approaching the Christian movement's early history through investigating its identity helps us to understand how the followers of Jesus developed from an intra-Jewish messianic renewal movement into a new religion with a major Gentile membership and major differences from its Jewish matrix - all in only a hundred years. Identity is not simply a collection of beliefs that was agreed upon by many first-century Christians. It is embedded, or rather, embodied in real life as participation in the founding myths (narrativized memory of and accepted teaching on Jesus), in cults and rituals as well as in ethical teaching and behavioral norms, crystallized into social relations and institutions. This is a dynamic feedback process, full of conflicts and difficulties, both internal and caused by the surrounding society and culture. The authors explore different aspects of identity, such as how the Gospels' narrativization of the social memory shapes and is shaped by the identity of the groups from which they emerge, how labels such as "Jewish" and "Christian" should and should not be understood, the identity-forming role of behavioral norms in letters, and the interplay between competing leadership ideals and the underlying unity of different Christian groups. They also show that identity formation is not necessarily related to innovation in moral teaching, nor averse to making use of ancient conventions of masculinity with their emphasis on dominance.

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In this study, Andrzeij S. Turkanik examines the question of translation technique in the gamma/gamma-section (2.11-21.43) of 3 Reigns (1 Kings) in the Septuagint. There exists a number of differences between the main textual witnesses, that is the Masoretic Text on the one hand, and the Old Greek translation on the other. These include additions, omissions, reorganisation of the material, as well as grammatical and syntactical differences between the Old Greek translation and the Masoretic Text. These differences have an effect on how the Greek text should be understood and interpreted. Before studies on a literary level can be carried out on the text, the practice of textual criticism helps to determine the status of the material being dealt with. Since the section under consideration has been considered the work of one translator, it provides the possibility of investigating the translator's style of working.This study consists of a careful investigation of the text in both Greek and Hebrew in order to identify and categorise the differences between the Old Greek and the Masoretic Text. The author discusses and decides the evidence on a case-by-case basis. He proposes a profile of the translator's work and asks questions about the reliability of the Septuagint version of the text for the recovery of the original text of 1 Kings.

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This book is a sustained investigation of the interpretation of righteousness (δικαιοσύνη) in Romans as it undergoes personification within a metaphoric and narratorial setting. The argument has, as its starting point, the assertion that previous treatments of righteousness in Romans, and particularly within the New Perspective, have failed adequately to take account of the poetic, connotative, and metaphoric nature of Paul's language. As a way forward, David J. Southall assesses recent literary theorists and endorses their conclusions that metaphor, narrative and personification are tropes of semantic innovation which are productive of new information. In nuce, the thesis of the entire project is that when personified Dikaiosu/nh occurs within pericopes which display clear components of metaphor and narrative, then the character-invention "Righteousness" acts out the role which in less metaphoric and narratorially construed passages would be played by Christ himself. The author mainly seeks to demonstrate this via exegetical treatments of Romans 6:15-23 and 9:30-10:21 (texts in which biblical scholarship has recognised the personification of righteousness) showing that both of these pericopes contain strong metaphoric and narratorial elements, and concluding that personified Δδικαιοσύνη operates within these matrices and is functionally equivalent to Christ himself. The investigation concludes with an examination of righteousness elsewhere in the Pauline corpus.

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Preston M. Sprinkle examines the interpretation of Lev 18:5 ("…which if a person does he will live by them") in early Judaism and in Paul. This passage from Leviticus, used in later Old Testament tradition (Ezek 20:11, 13, 21; Neh 9:29), became one of the more important verses from the Hebrew Bible for early Jewish reflection on the notion that obedience to the Mosaic law will lead to eternal life. The apostle Paul cites the passage on two occasions (Gal 3:12; Rom 10:5) and his interpretation of it is highly debated. While scholars often discuss its meaning in Paul, a thorough examination of Lev 18:5 in the Old Testament and early Judaism has been virtually ignored. The author, then, seeks to contribute to our understanding of Paul's view of the law in relation to early Jewish soteriology through the lens of their respective interpretations of Lev 18:5. This is carried out by first examining the passage in its original literary context of Leviticus. Then, an examination is made of its later use in the Hebrew Bible (Ezekiel and Nehemiah) and the Septuagint. Following is a study of every citation of and allusion to Lev 18:5 in Early Judaism (ca. 200 B.C. to AD 100). Finally, the author takes a look at Paul's two citations of the text (Romans and Galatians). He concludes with a comparison between Early Jewish and Pauline interpretations of Lev 18:5.

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The most complete example of an early Christian novel about an historical figure, the third-century Acts of Thomas contains within it two prayers that are strikingly similar in style and content. Each is found in the context of Christian initiation and each is addressed to a feminine deity who is asked to "come" to be present in the ritual. The prayers address the feminine Spirit, who is called "Mother," "fellowship of the male," and "dove," among other titles. Susan E. Myers examines these prayers in their historical, literary, and liturgical contexts, and challenges some of the prevailing assumptions about Syriac-speaking Christianity in general, and the Acts of Thomas in particular.She extensively analyzes the Acts of Thomas, beginning with questions of authorship, provenance, and dating of the work. At the core of the study is a detailed analysis of the redactional character of the Acts of Thomas, especially the prayer language within it. The author argues that the liturgical scenes reveal a form of Christian initiation that apparently included an anointing with optional water baptism, and a Eucharist of bread and water only.Susan E. Myers continues by examining other prayers to deities in the ancient world, and concludes with an analysis of the theological content of the prayers themselves. They are addressed to the Spirit, who appears as a feminine revealer figure who can be invoked to be present in ritual action with her devotees.

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Todd Wilson examines the rationale for Paul's four references to the Law in 5:13-6.10 in light of a fresh appraisal of the Galatian crisis. He contributes to the continuing debate over the relevance of this section of the letter for the rest of Galatians and for the situation in Galatia. In addition, his study offers a refined understanding of how Galatians functioned in its original setting: he argues that with the letter Paul confronts his apostatising converts with the stark choice between blessing and curse. The author's thesis is that Paul intended his four references to the Law in 5:13-6.10, not as a way of underscoring the superfluity of the Law for Christian living, but as an affirmation of the sufficiency of the Spirit to enable the Galatians to fulfil the Law and thereby avoid the Law's curse. Several notable conclusions are reached. First, the curse of the Law is important not only earlier in the letter (3:10-14; 3:23-29; 4:1-7; 4:21-31), but it also continues to be a central concern for Paul in 5:13-6:10. Secondly, for Paul redemption from the curse of the Law is not a fait accompli: the cursing voice of the Law will only be silenced if the Galatians walk by the Spirit and resist the 'desire of the flesh' (5:16-18). Thirdly, in Galatians Paul places less emphasis upon the superfluity of the Law than is often assumed; rather, he focuses upon the Law's inability to mediate righteousness (2:15-21; 3:21; 5:5-6), its contrast with 'faith' (3:11-12), and its power to curse (1:8-9; 3:10, 13). This observation, in turn, may have far-reaching implications for the question of Christian supersessionism: the idea that the church has displaced the Jews as the elect people of God.

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The Gospel of John is well-known for its wealth and depth of figurative language, metaphors and symbols. These articles, written by some of the leading scholars in Johannine exegesis and particularly in the debate on Johannine imagery, utilize a broad variety of methods of interpretation. The authors provide an in-depth discussion of the variety of terms and forms of figurative speech and explore the conceptual and traditio-historical background of central motifs. Some of the most prominent Johannine images (lamb, king, bread, shepherd, vine, eating and drinking and others) are discussed with regard to their literary design and theological meaning. The collection aims at opening up paths in the tangled thicket of John's figurative world, it amply demonstrates the close relationship between the different metaphors and images in the Fourth Gospel and opens the view to the inter-relatedness of its theological themes.

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David Brodsky uses form and source criticism to date Massekhet Kallah and the first two chapters of Kallah Rabbati - which form a commentary on Massekhet Kallah - to the mid-amoraic period (circa late third and early fifth centuries CE respectively), and to locate their redaction in Babylonia. This makes these two sources the only known rabbinic texts whose final redaction took place in Babylonia during the amoraic period, and establishes them as the closest extant relatives of the Babylonian Talmud. Parallels between these two sources and the Babylonian Talmud elucidate the nature of oral transmission and of the redactional processes of Babylonian rabbinic material during this critical period, and, thereby, of the Babylonian Talmud itself. In addition, the author deciphers Massekhet Kallah's peculiar asceticism: a concern with men's inappropriate use of or interactions with their wives, charity, vows, and even with the group's own transmitted traditions. Massekhet Kallah fears the physical and at times cosmic effects of such inappropriate behavior. Brodsky finds that these items were all deemed consecrated, removed from the realm of normal interaction. To have mundane interaction with them was a powerful and dangerous act. Brodsky explores the fascinating gender and theological implications of this unique asceticism.

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