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

What are the roles of doubt and scepticism in the religious landscape of the ancient Mediterranean? How is doubt expressed within a specific religious community, and what reactions does it provoke? How does "insider doubt" differ from the sceptical attitude of outsiders? Exploring these questions with respect to a wide range of religious contexts and topics (including early Christianity, Greco-Roman religions, Egyptian religions, astrology, and magic), the essays in this volume confirm the thesis that doubting one's own religious tradition is not simply a "Western" post-Enlightenment phenomenon. On the contrary, ancient religions offered opportunities and contexts wherein aspects of doubt are not just tolerated but accepted; moreover, doubt and scepticism concerning certain religious ideas or aspects of belief also motivated creative reinterpretation of those ideas.

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On theological grounds, Ingolf U. Dalferth argues the case for taking a critical stance towards the current leave-taking of secularization and the fashionable proclamation of a new post-secular religious epoch. Right from the start, the Christian faith has made a decisive contribution to the secularization of the world, the criticism of religion, religions and religiosity. Christian faith is concerned with God's presence in all areas of life, often beyond the usual religious forms and in distinction towards them. The orientation towards this ultimate presence and therefore towards antecedent transcendence in the immanence of a secular world leaves the alternative between religious and non-religious life behind. In this work, the author examines the new distinctions which this Christian life orientation demands.

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These three volumes are the results of two conferences on the Christian eucharist and its context in the traditions of sacred and communal meals; the first conference was held at the University of Kiel, the second at the University of Agder's Study Center at Metochi (Lesbos). Scholars from all around the world form an international, interdisciplinary and interdenominational collaboration from various fields including History of Religion, Classics, Old and New Testament, Judaism, Patristics, Archeology, and History of Art. Volume I deals with Old Testament, Early Jewish, and New Testament traditions, volume II with Patristic traditions and Iconography, and volume III approaches Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman traditions, as well as Archeology. Images, illustrations and indexes complete the volume.The broad scope covered by these studies invites readers not only to a clearer interpretation of the origin of the Eucharist and its development in the early church, but also enables them to reach a better understanding of the religious and cultural background of sacred and communal meals in general in ancient societies.

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Focusing on the metanarrative of exile and restoration Timo Eskola claims that a post-liberal, narrative New Testament theology is both consistent and explanative. Combining a post-New Quest perspective on Jesus with an eschatological reading of Paul, the author states that Jesus' temple criticism aims at restoration eschatology. Jesus starts a priestly community that expects God's jubilee to begin with Jesus' work, and proceed with the preaching of the new gospel. The reception of this message in the post-Easter church results in resurrection Christology that proclaims Jesus' Davidic kingship on God's throne of glory. Both Paul and Jewish Christian teachers later present Christ's community as a new temple where believers serve the Lord as priests of the new covenant. Furthermore, restoration eschatology provides a new basis for understanding Paul's contrast with the words of the law, and his teaching of justification."Eskola […] has written by far the most erudite and helpful of the narrative theologies to date for NT study."Craig L. Blomberg in Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 59 (2016), S. 869-871"Eskola has accomplished the aims of this study. He has skillfully demonstrated how the metanarrative of exile and restoration is at work in Jesus's message and in the early Christian proclamation of the gospel. He has also well demonstrated and discussed the Jewish background that undergirds such theological appropriation through extensive and deft interactions with the Old Testament and Second Temple writings."Abson Joseph in Review of Biblical Literature, https://www.bookreviews.org (8/2017)

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Recent scholarship on the history of the biblical canons has increasingly recognised that the Jewish and Christian Bibles were not formed independently of each other but amid controversial debate and competition. But what does it mean that the formation of the Christian Bible cannot be separated from the developments that led to the Jewish Bible? The articles in this collection start with the assumption that the authorization of writings had already begun in Israel and Judaism before the emergence of Christianity and was continued in the first centuries CE by Judaism and Christianity in their respective ways. They deal with a broad range of sources, such as writings which came to be part of the Hebrew Bible, literature from Qumran, the Septuagint, or early Jewish apocalypses. At the same time they deal, for example, with structures of authorization related to New Testament writings, examine the role of authoritative texts in so-called Gnostic schools, and discuss the authority of late antique apocryphal literature.

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JongHyun Kwon's research aims to discover whether the historical Jesus understood his death as a means of forgiveness by comparing Paul and Matthew's treatment of these themes. The strong tie between Jesus' death and forgiveness of sin in nascent Christianity is attenuated in Jesus research. Hence, the author's central question: Is this a true understanding of the historical Jesus, or a post-Easter theology? JongHyun Kwon's investigation is conducted through a comparison of the Pauline epistles and the Gospel of Matthew. The result is then compared against Jewish writings contemporary to Jesus.Through this methodology, JongHyun Kwon finds that Paul and Matthew correspond to one another on the issue of the strong affinity between Jesus' death and forgiveness. He then concludes that the historical Jesus may have understood his death as a means of forgiveness, as they describe.

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The "Great Commission," which Jesus gave to his disciples according to Matthew 28:19-20, is seen in Christianity as the origin of the mission and the practice of baptism in the church. This text has undergone a great deal of intensive exegesis. In the last 300 years in particular, it was the basis for the missionary work done by many Western churches in all parts of the world, and apart from its significance for the motivation and validation of religious mission, this text was also used as a means of strengthening colonial ideas and interests in developing countries. This volume deals with aspects of the early Christian mission. The articles, which were presented originally at a symposium which took place from 30 September to 1 October 2014, cover problem areas in New Testament exegesis (Gospels, Acts, Paul and Deutero-Pauline letters) as well as in church history (referring to traditions of mission in Africa and Asia), and together they provide an introduction into possible interpretations and perspectives that emerge when reading selected literature attentively.

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In Hebrews 12:1-17 the author seeks to encourage the readers by interpreting their sufferings as paideia from God. Scholars have typically interpreted this paideia either as corrective reproof or formative training, but by examining the passage in light of Hebrews' ethics, the ancient practice of corporal punishment, and the author's quotation of Proverbs 3:11-12, Phillip A. Davis, Jr. shows this dichotomy to be untenable. The main problem Hebrews addresses is the danger of sinning, not apostasy per se. Yet because Hebrews rejects second repentance, paideia cannot be corrective. At the same time, ancient education had as its goal moral formation, which always involved the pain of physical punishments. The author draws on this commonplace to suggest that the pain of the audience's sufferings should be taken as a concomitant part of their formation in the righteousness the "epistle" demands of them.

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Der Band versammelt vierzehn Aufsätze Hübners aus den Jahren 1972-2017, darunter eine neue, bislang ungedruckte Abhandlung über monarchianische Hintergründe der Johannessakten. Die anderen Studien behandeln u.a. die Anfänge kirchlicher Ämter, die Ignatianen des 2. Jahrhunderts, die ursprüngliche Bedeutung des Ausdrucks "Katholische Kirche", das Problem der Hellenisierung, verschiedene dem Apolinarius von Laodicea zuzuschreibende Texte und Ideen, die Schrift Gregors von Nyssa über ousia und hypostasis, den Beitrag des Basilius zur Trinitätslehre und den Weg zur Zweinaturenlehre von Chalcedon. So erforderlich, schließen sich teils ausführliche Addenda et Corrigenda an. Eine neu geschriebene Einleitung Hübners arbeitet Zusammenhänge zwischen den Aufsätzen heraus und bietet Überlegungen zur neueren und künftigen Forschung. Der abschließende Aufsatz skizziert auf dem Hintergrund der Arbeiten des Autors seine Sicht des Weges zur christologischen Zweinaturenlehre.

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Bringing together thirteen talks given at the international conference "Memory and Memories in Early Christianity", held at the Universities of Lausanne and Geneva in June 2016, this interdisciplinary volume explores a fresh problem in the study of the origins of Christianity and of the New Testament, namely the "work of memory" undertaken in the discourses and practices of the believers in Jesus. The studies collected here not only apply a heuristic analytical tool - "social memory theory" - to the literature and history of Christian beginnings, but also endeavour to show the socio-religious resonance of this "work of memory" in the language and ideology of the early believers. The historical Jesus, the Pauline writings, the Gospel of John, the Acts of the Apostles, Marcion, ancient Christian epistolography, Hegesippus, Irenaeus, etc. are explored by some of the world's top specialists in "social memory studies" as applied to Christian origins.

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This volume contains contributions to a symposium of scholars from the Nagoya Law School and the Faculty of Law of the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg on the topic "Preventive Instruments of Social Governance". With the social governance by law and the interplay between substantive legal standards and procedural enforcement the Symposium addressed a topic of both outstanding academic and practical importance. The legal framework is an essential instrument in modern rule-of-law societies for defining standards of societal life. Of course, ways of governance by law may vary between legal systems and cultures, but in the analysis of legal governance instruments, the interplay between substantive standards and their procedural enforcement is always of central importance. In the pursuit of certain political or social goals, a legal system is basically faced with two options: the exertion of influence on the behaviour of its citizens either by means of preventive or of reactive instruments. The relationship of these two regulatory tools is a key element for the analysis and understanding of a legal system.

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The present volume contains the proceedings of an international conference meant to further the dialogue between New Testament scholars and epigraphists with an interest in NT matters. After the more general approach of a previous conference, it was decided to focus on a particular writing. The Letter to the Colossians, though a relatively short work, was chosen because it contains some very interesting material worthy of study from an epigraphical angle and also offers opportunities to open up towards a broader perspective on Pauline literature. The essays that make up this collection offer insights into the world of the intended addressees, show ways for contextualising epigraphical material, and demonstrate from case studies how this material, in combination with literary and archaeological evidence, can be made to use in interpreting specific concepts or motifs in the letter.

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Over the last decade, Chinese stock markets have developed rapidly. Most importantly, their opening to foreign investment has meant a steady increase in international influence, but also confronted China with a number of challenges in ensuring stable and well-functioning markets. This volume discusses these developments and analyses the efforts needed to secure market integrity and investor protection, particularly through enforcement mechanisms in both capital markets and corporate law. It sheds light on the tasks and experiences met along the way and provides further food for thought on possible reforms of Chinese capital markets law.

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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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In this work, Andrei A. Orlov examines Jewish apocalyptic traditions about the angel Yahoel, tracing their conceptual impact on the development of later rabbinic and Hekhalot beliefs concerning the supreme angel Metatron. The author argues that the figure Yahoel, who became associated in Jewish apocalypticism with the distinctive aural ideology of the divine Name, provides an important conceptual key not only for elucidating the evolution of the Metatron tradition, but also for understanding the origins of the distinctive aural ideology prominent in early Jewish mystical accounts. Andrei A. Orlov suggests that the aural mould of Jewish apocalypticism exercised a decisive and formative influence on the development of early Jewish mysticism.

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The text Miqṣat Ma῾aśe Ha-Torah, Some of the Works of the Torah (4QMMT), is one of the most interesting texts among the famous Dead Sea Scrolls discovered near the settlement of Khirbet Qumran and its vicinity in the middle of the twentieth century and by now published in full. It is a writing in the form of a letter by an unknown author to an equally unknown addressee, written in second person singular and plural. This document is the earliest evidence of a proper interpretation of the Jewish Torah, the so-called Halakhah, from pre-Christian, Hellenistic times as it later became customary and widely attested in rabbinical Judaism. This volume - after a short introduction on the findings at the Dead Sea in general and the text Miqṣat Ma῾aśe Ha-Torah in particular - provides a new edition and translation as well as several contributions from renowned scholars on the manuscripts, the language and content plus literary and historical contexts of this writing.

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The International Yearbook for Hermeneutics represents one of the prominent currents in contemporary philosophy as well as in bordering disciplines. It gathers studies on questions concerning understanding and interpretation in all relevant fields, including philosophy, theology, jurisprudence, theory of science as well as literary and cultural studies. The Yearbook includes contributions to current debates and on the history of ideas from antiquity to the present. This volume focusses on "Hermeneutics and the Performing Arts."

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Paul Silas Peterson presents Karl Barth (1886-1968) in his sociopolitical, cultural, ecclesial and theological contexts from 1905 to 1935. The time period begins in 1905, as Barth began to prepare for a speech on the "social question" (which he held in 1906). It ends in 1935, the year he returned to Switzerland from Germany. In the foreground of Peterson's inquiry is Barth's relation to the features of his time, especially radical socialist ideology, WWI, an intellectual trend that would later be called the Conservative Revolution, the German Christians, the Young Reformation Movement, and National Socialism. Barth's view of and interaction with the Jews is also analyzed along with other issues, such as radical thinking, anti-liberalism, alterity, anti- or trans-historicism, Expressionism, and New Objectivity. The author also addresses specific questions disputed in the secondary literature, such as Barth's theological development, the place of WWI in his intellectual development, his role in the Dehn Case, his reaction to the rise of fascism in Europe, his relationship to 19thcentury modern liberal Protestantism, his relationship to the Leonhard Ragaz-wing of the Religious Socialists, and his relationship to the Weimar Republic.

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Björn P. Ebert analyses forum shopping in international investment law. He focuses on investment treaty and investment contract arbitration, and concludes that forum shopping is legal and legitimate as long as it is not subject to particular limitations derived from applicable law. He assumes that forum shopping is generally a legitimate procedural technique that both parties to the dispute may employ in order to maximise the protection offered to international investment by international law. To validate the underlying thesis, the author analyses and differentiates between different manifestations of forum shopping. The main manifestations are categorised in three categories: forum planning, forum enhancement, and facilitation of procedure. Each category contains different forum shopping techniques. Björn P. Ebert examines and defines limitations for each category, as well as the manifestations of forum shopping that are assigned to them. He thereby addresses several issues of international investment arbitration that are essential to the perceived problem of forum shopping.

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Between the first and sixth centuries C.E., a group of sages that scholars refer to as the rabbinic community systematized their ideas about Judaism in works such as the Mishnah and the Talmud. David M. Grossberg offers a new approach to thinking about this community's formation. Rather than seeking an occasion of origin, he examines the gradual development of the idea of an authorized rabbinic collective. The classical rabbinic texts imagine a diverse setting of Sadducees, Pharisees, sinners, and sectarians interacting in complex and changing ways with pious sages, teachers, and judges. Yet this representation aligns only vaguely with the social reality in which these ancient sages actually lived and operated. The author contends that these texts' primary aim was not to describe real rabbinic opponents but to create and enforce boundaries between piety and impiety and between legitimate and illegitimate teachings. In this way, the emerging rabbinic movement set standards of inclusion and exclusion in the community of righteous Israel and established the bounds of the community aspiring to lead them, the rabbinic community itself.

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This volume comprises fifteen new essays on the Apostolic Fathers with a focus on the letters of Clement. An introductory essay investigates the role of seventeenth-century librarians in the origination of the collection's title. Five essays concern 1 Clement, exploring its relationship to 1 Corinthians, its generic classification, the discussion of "Christian education" (1 Clem. 21:8), the golden calf tradition, and the well-known legend of the regeneration of the phoenix. Three essays treat aspects of 2 Clement, including problems with recent translations of chapter 1, the motif of the barren woman in chapter 2, and the analogy of faith as a race in chapter 7. One study probes the Quintus incident in Martyrdom of Polycarp 4 as emblematic of the literary and cultural conventions of second-century sophism. Another study considers protection against exploitation of Christian generosity by visitors in Didache 12. Another contribution investigates the precise nature of allegory in the Epistle of Barnabas. A short piece on the Epistle of Diognetus argues that the ancient moral-philosophical topos of the invisible God is at work in this text; and, a final essay explores the popular second-century medical theory behind Hermas's presentation of ὀξυχολία ("irascibility") in Mand. 5.1.3 (33.3). The volume ranges widely within and beyond early Christian literature - from the streets of ancient Achaean and Asian πόλεις to the early modern libraries of Europe.

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During the fourth century, Antioch on the Orontes was the most important imperial residence in the Roman Empire and a "hot-bed" of intellectual and religious activity. The writings of men such as Libanius, the emperor Julian, Ammianus Marcellinus, John Chrysostom, Theodoret, and many others, provide a density of written sources that is nearly unmatched in antiquity, while the archaeological evidence of the city's evolution is much harder to reconstruct. This volume assembles state-of-the-art scholarship on these ancient authors within the context of recent archaeological work to offer a rare comprehensive view of this late Roman city.

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A scholarly consensus holds that Luke is ambivalent toward the Pharisees, or at least that he has left readers with an ambiguous depiction of them. What previous evaluations of the Lukan Pharisees have left unanswered, however, is why Luke would give such an impression of these characters and then what might lie behind the rhetorical effects of ambiguity. Justin R. Howell reevaluates the long-standing debate about the Pharisees in Luke-Acts, arguing the thesis that there is ambiguity in the Lukan Pharisees because, in his portrayals of them, the author has applied what ancient Greco-Roman rhetoricians call "figured speech." The fact that the Lukan Pharisees appear ambiguous to some readers does not necessarily mean that Luke was also undecided about or ambivalent toward them, for the use of figured speech can presuppose a firm and critical stance on the characters in view.

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Paul's primary scriptural source in Romans 1-4 (and the epistle as a whole) is the prophecy of Isaiah and its redemptive narrative centering in the "proclamation of good news". Paul understands the content of this good news to be the revelation of God's righteousness in the sacrificial death of the messiah as the source of redemption from the power of sin and death and the basis of the everlasting (new) covenant, and hence as that which effects redemptive recreation. Paul employs Isaiah, particularly its intertextual typology of both the plight of Israel and the sacrifice of the Servant of the Lord, to convey a covenantal and revelational continuity that climaxes in the gospel.Robert C. Olson explains how the expansive sweep of this redemptive narrative in Isaiah stretches from its allusions to the fall, to the overthrow of death and the creation of the new heavens and new earth, as Israel and the nations are at last ushered back into the presence of the glory of God. This Isaianic redemptive narrative, therefore, through Paul's extensive citational and allusive reference to the prophecy, forms the principle scriptural and theological framework for the epistle.

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Like Philo and Josephus, as well as those who earlier produced the Septuagint and the Hellenistic Jewish fragmentary texts, the writers of the New Testament were Jews writing in Greek. They may have been articulating and promoting a particular form of Jewish messianism that eventually became a distinctive form of religious belief, but in the first and early second centuries, those Christ-followers who were writing in various genres operated with many of the same assumptions as their Jewish counterparts in the land of Israel and in other places such as Alexandria and Rome. This collection of essays, spanning the scholarly career of Carl R. Holladay, investigates the Hellenistic Jewish writings in their own contexts and explores how they illuminate the writings of the New Testament. Included are six new essays on such topics as Hellenistic Judaism, the Beatitudes, and Luke-Acts.

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The International Yearbook for Hermeneutics represents one of the prominent currents in contemporary philosophy as well as in bordering disciplines. It gathers studies on questions concerning understanding and interpretation in all relevant fields, including philosophy, theology, jurisprudence, theory of science as well as literary and cultural studies. The Yearbook includes contributions to current debates and on the history of ideas from antiquity to the present. This volume is dedicated to the topic of "Humanism."

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The interpretation of 1 Cor 8-10 as a coherent argument is complicated by several factors, most significantly the apparent contradictions in the text (primarily an issue within chapter 8) and the remarkable changes in Paul's tone (primarily an issue with how 10:1-22 relates to 8:1-13 and 10:23-11:1). Trent A. Rogers argues that Paul consistently prohibits believers from eating εἰδωλόθυτα (offerings made to idols) by appealing first to their obligation to love other believers and then to their obligation of exclusive faithfulness to Christ. The approach of his analysis is to examine how the representation of God functions in Paul's argument, especially in comparison to other Hellenistic Jewish polemics against idolatry. While this is an argument made about particular practices, it is an argument made on theological grounds, and these theological underpinnings have been largely unexplored. Paul's argument draws on streams of interpretation already existing in Judaism. But the role of Christ radically shapes Paul's theological grid and takes his polemic against idolatry in new directions.

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A key to understanding the Gospel of John is, in many respects, its prologue; yet questions regarding its origin and background, its structure, use of Greek philosophical terms, and indeed its relationship to the rest of the gospel still remain open. The papers in this volume address each of these questions and were presented at the first meeting of the Colloquium Ioanneum, a group of distinguished international Johannine scholars broadly representing different nationalities, religious traditions and approaches to the gospel. The first part offers differing assessments of the background, literary, and theological elements of the prologue, while the second examines presuppositions, methods, and perspectives involved in philosophical interpretation of the Gospel of John.

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Zivilgesellschaftlichem Engagement kommt eine stetig wachsende Bedeutung für eine nachhaltige städtebauliche Entwicklung in Deutschland zu. Das Baurecht fördert private Initiativen, die sich für die ökonomische, soziale oder ökologische Entwicklung ihres unmittelbaren Lebensumfelds einsetzen, durch die Möglichkeit der Einrichtung sogenannter "Housing Improvement Districts". Für die Gemeinden stellt sich dabei die Frage nach den künftigen Aufgaben und Akteuren städtebaulicher Planung sowie nach der Vereinbarkeit von Gemeinwohl- und Sonderinteressen. Yasemin Çevrim untersucht das Potential privater, hoheitlicher und kooperativer Beiträge zu einer nachhaltigen Stadtentwicklung aus der Perspektive insbesondere des Verwaltungsorganisationsrechts, des Gewährleistungsverwaltungsrechts und der Governance-Forschung.

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In this book, Louis C. Jonker considers more sophisticated and nuanced models for applying the heuristic lens of "identity" in the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible book of Chronicles. Not only does he investigate the potential and limitations of different sociological models for this purpose, but the author also provides a more nuanced analysis of the socio-historical context of origin of late Persian-period biblical literature by distinguishing between four levels of socio-historic existence in this period. It is shown that varying power relations were in operation on these different levels which contributed to a multi-levelled process of identity negotiation. Louis C. Jonker shows the value of the chosen methodological approach in his analysis of Chronicles, but also suggests that it holds potential for the investigation of other Hebrew Bible corpora.

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The primary impetus of this collection of essays on canonical and non-canonical Acts is to honor the scholarly achievements of Richard I. Pervo. Pervo pioneered the view that canonical Acts is comparable to ancient fiction, insofar as the various episodes about Peter, Paul and the other apostles were composed to entertain, even as they inform. In the spirit of this work, contributors to this volume do not sit idly by. Prodding and provoking readers, these new and often exploratory essays travel at different speeds and with notable variation from center within the broad orbit of canonical Acts. The hope is that this volume will foster serious conversation of the things discussed, with no small measure of delight along the way.

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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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Biblical books, which were transmitted on separate scrolls in antiquity, are not necessarily identical with books in the modern sense of a coherent and self-contained compositional unit. The books of the Primary History especially constitute a larger master narrative. This raises the question of how the distribution of the text to different scrolls relates to its compositional history. Were the respective books conceived as physically separate parts of a multivolume composition (whether Pentateuch, Hexateuch, Deuteronomistic History or Enneateuch) from the outset, or are we dealing with a more complex development of originally independent compositional units that were only connected or separated by later redaction? The present volume addresses these issues with respect to the transitions between the books of Genesis/Exodus and Joshua/Judges, which have obviously developed in dependency upon each other.

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The present volume contains the proceedings of an international colloquium held in February 2015 at the Arts Faculty of the KU Leuven that brought together specialists in (late) ancient philosophy and early Christian studies. Contributors were asked to reflect on the reception of two foundational texts dealing with the origin of the world - the third book of Plato's Timaeus and the Genesis account of the creation. The organizers had a double aim: They wished to offer a forum for furthering the dialogue between colleagues working in these respective fields and to do this by studying in a comparative perspective both a crucial topic shared by these traditions and the literary genres through which this topic was developed and transmitted. The two reference texts have been studied in antiquity in a selective way, through citations and essays dealing with specific issues, and in a more systematic way through commentaries.The book is divided into three parts. The first one deals with the so-called Middle- and Neoplatonic tradition. The second part is dedicated to the Christian tradition and contains papers on several of the more important Christian authors who dealt with the Hexaemeron. The third part is entitled "Some Other Voices" and deals with authors and movements that combine elements from various traditions. Special attention is given to the nature and dynamics of the often close relationship between the various traditions as envisaged by Jewish-Christian authors and to the remarkable lack of interest from the Neoplatonists for "the other side".

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The volume assembles twenty previously published studies by Devorah Dimant, which have been re-edited, updated, and furnished with an introductory essay written especially for this collection. The studies survey and analyze Jewish works composed in Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek during the Second Temple period, and discuss their contents, ideas, and connections to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Particular attention is paid to central issues, such as the apocalyptic worldview and literature and its relationship to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Among others, specific themes related to the Aramaic Tobit and 1 Enoch are analyzed as well as the links detected between the Hebrew Qumran writings Pseudo-Ezekiel and the Apocryphon of Jeremiah and the later apocalyptic works 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch. The introductory essay provides a general framework and pertinent terminology for discussing the literature in question. Together these essays offer a broad and fresh perspective of the Jewish literary scene in antiquity, with special attention to the one nurtured in the land of Israel.

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The debate between the old and the new perspectives on Paul has been a focal point of Pauline studies in recent years. The exchange has, in turn, given rise to new research projects focussing on potential affinities and differences between the new perspective on Paul and Eastern Orthodox interpretation. This volume therefore takes up the discussion between Eastern Orthodox, new, and old perspectives on Paul and seeks to develop it further. The aim is to foster dialogue between the varying receptions of Paul on an exegetical basis. To this end, the contributions are focused on texts playing a crucial role in the debate regarding participation, justification and conversion in Paul. Three papers at the end provide alternative readings of Paul that go beyond the arguments of the old and new perspectives.

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The present volume contains the proceedings of an international colloquium that dealt with heavily fragmented texts and hypothetical sources, and the "shadowy" characters and movements they feature. These two aspects are combined and studied to ascertain how they have been handled in the history of research, to find out what they reveal about the community or the group expressing itself through (or hiding behind) them, and to establish the role these documents and figures or groups should be given in reconstructing an overall picture of developments in the theology and religious life of early Christianity. As can be imagined, such documents and sources have sometimes been taken as an open invitation to come up with all sorts of highly creative exegesis, adventurous reconstructions of texts and movements, and quite daring suggestions about identifying particular groups or presumed literary influences between documents. The essays contribute to the writing of a critical history of researching these types of documents and movements.

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Michael J. Chan argues, on a methodological level, for the deeper integration of iconographic materials into the task of tradition history-a method that has tended to focus on textual evidence alone. Following the work of O.H. Steck, however, "tradition" is understood in more flexible terms, to refer to inherited concepts and constellations, which can exist across multiple media. The author undertakes a tradition-historical study of the "Wealth of Nations Tradition" - a series of texts in which the foreign nations of the earth bring their wealth to Zion (1 Kgs 10:1-10, 13, 15//2 Chr 9:1-9, 12, 14; 1 Kgs 10:23-25//2 Chr 9:22-24; Pss 68:19, 29-32; 72:10-11; 76:12; 96:7-8//1 Chr 16:28-29; Isa 18:7; 45:14; 60:4-17; 61:5-6; 66:12; Zeph 3:10; 2 Chr 32:23). The Wealth of Nations tradition is found throughout the ancient Near East. Michael J. Chan shows that in some cases, the biblical texts reflect this tradition with little to no modification while in others the tradition is recast in creative and disruptive ways.

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In this study, Jonathan S. Milgram demonstrates that the transformation of inheritance law from the biblical to the tannaitic period is best explained against the backdrop of the legal and social contexts in which the tannaitic laws were formulated. Employing text and source critical methods, he argues that, in the absence of the hermeneutic underpinnings for tannaitic innovations, the laws were not the result of the rabbinic imagination and its penchant for inventive interpretation of Scripture. Turning to the rich repositories in biblical, ancient near eastern, Second Temple, Greek, Elephantine, Judean desert, and Roman sources, the author searches for conceptual parallels and antecedents as well as formulae and terminology adopted and adapted by the tannaim. Since the tannaitic traditions reflect the social and economic contexts of the tannaitic period - the nuclear family on privatized landholdings in urban centers - the author also considers the degree to which tannaitic inheritance laws may have emerged out of these contexts.

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Peter and Paul have fascinated Christians since the first century. Though often pitted against one another in scholarship and popular imagination, they respected one another. They found common ground in the crucified and risen Christ Jesus, and in service to his body, the church. This volume continues the long, rich conversation about these two essential, fallible apostles.In seventeen essays, including one of Peter Stuhlmacher's final published works, the contributors probe enduring issues in ways that provide fresh insights. They strive to advance New Testament scholarship by addressing Peter and Paul's historical interaction, their intertextual exegesis, and Paul's view of Pastoral Theology. Their focus on intertextuality reflects Peter's and Paul's saturation in scripture and their focus on Jewish and Gentile relationships seeks to foster unity in church and culture.

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The present volume aims at a comparative study of the processes of reception, rewriting and interpretation between canonical and apocryphal texts in early Jewish and early Christian literature. A closer look at the respective developments in both corpora of literature can open up new perspectives for understanding the developments and changes between texts that were already considered authoritative, and their reception in new, 'parabiblical' or 'apocryphal' compositions. The way of reception may also influence the perspective on canonical texts. The range of texts considered includes the LXX, Targumim and Pesharim, books such as Jubilees, the Genesis Apocryphon, the Gospel of Thomas, and Apocryphal Acts, traditions about Esther, Ezra, Manasseh, Peter and Paul, depictions of hell from Enoch to the Apocalypse of Paul, and the development of miracle stories.

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N. T. Wright's Paul and the Faithfulness of God is the culmination of his long, influential, and often controversial career - a landmark study of the history and thought of the Apostle Paul, which attempts to make fresh suggestions in a variety of sub-fields of New Testament studies. This volume brings together a group of international scholars to critically weigh and assess an array of issues in Wright's work, including methodology, first-century contextual factors, exegetical findings, and theological implications. In so doing, the volume's contributors bring these facets of Paul and the Faithfulness of God into dialogue with the current state of scholarship in both Anglophone and German contexts. It thus offers both a critical evaluation of Wright's accomplishment as well as an excellent overview of and introduction to issues that are hotly debated within contemporary Pauline studies.

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Courtney J. P. Friesen explores shifting boundaries of ancient religions by way of the reception of a popular tragedy, Euripides' Bacchae. As a play staging political crises provoked by the arrival of the "foreign" god Dionysus and his ecstatic cult, audiences and readers found resonances with their own cultural moments. This dramatic deity became emblematic of exuberant and liberating spirituality and, at the same time, a symbol of imperial conquest. Thus, readings of the Bacchae frequently foreground conflicts between religious autonomy and political authority, and between ethnic diversity and social cohesion. This cross-disciplinary study traces appropriations and evocations of this drama ranging from the fifth century BCE through Byzantium not only among "pagans" but also Jews and Christians. Writers variously articulated their religious visions over against Dionysus, often while paradoxically adopting the god's language and symbols. Consequently, imitation and emulation are at times indistinguishable from polemics and subversion.This work was awarded the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise 2016.

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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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Repetition has had a chequered and often negative reception in Christian history, especially in connection with ritual and liturgy, and the Letter to the Hebrews lies at the heart of this contested understanding. Nicholas Moore shows that repetition in Hebrews does not operate in uniform contrast to the once-for-all death of Christ but rather functions in a variety of ways, many of them constructive. The singularity of the Christ event is elucidated with reference to the once-yearly Day of Atonement to express all-surpassing theological sufficiency, and repetition can contrast or coexist with this unique event. In particular, Moore argues that the daily Levitical sacrifices foreshadow the Christian's continual access to and worship of God. This reappraisal of repetition in Hebrews lays foundations for renewed appreciation of repetition's importance for theological discourse and religious life.

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In the middle decades of the second century AD the acclaimed orator Aelius Aristides wrote a number of prose hymns to traditional Greek gods and thereby demonstrated that the cults of these gods had not yet become obsolete and were more than just a topic of backward-looking paideia. This volume presents four of these texts, specifically those that focus on the god of healing, Asclepius, together with a new edition of the Greek text, a new English translation with commentary, and a number of essays shedding additional light on these texts from various perspectives. All in all, the volume wants to show how in these texts of Aristides the author's rhetorical skills, his outlook on the world and his personal religiosity come together to form a remarkable whole.

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Derek R. Brown sheds new light on a subject often overlooked in New Testament studies - the references to the figure of Satan in the undisputed Pauline letters. He contends that the references to Satan are best understood when considered in light of Paul's apocalyptic theology and apostolic responsibility to his churches. Drawing on an analysis of these two interpretive categories - as well as a discussion of the various images of "Satan" in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Jewish traditions - the author concludes that Paul fundamentally characterizes Satan in his letters as the apocalyptic adversary who opposes his apostolic labor (κόπος), which, critically, includes his churches. Paul does so, it is argued, because he believes that the success of his apostleship is pivotal for the spreading of the gospel at a crucial point in salvation history.

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Matthias Konradt explores a problem central to the theological conception of the Gospel of Matthew: What is the cause for the transition from the Israel-centered activities of Jesus and his disciples previous to Easter to the universal mission after Easter, and how is the formation of the church related to Israel's role as God's chosen nation in Matthew's concept? In conjunction with a detailed scrutiny of the traditional interpretation that Matthew propagates the replacement of Israel by the church and - in keeping with this - of the mission to Israel by the universal mission, the author maintains that the Israel-centered and the universal dimension of salvation are positively interconnected in the narrative conception, in which Matthew develops Jesus' messianic identity as the Son of David and the Son of God. Published in North America by Baylor University Press, Waco.

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