Search results for ""jcb mohr (paul siebeck)""

In recent centuries, and especially the last decades, critical scholarship on the Hebrew Bible has brought to light a large gap between biblical portrayals of the historical reality of ancient Israel (story) on the one hand, and historical-critical reconstructions of the actual past (history) on the other. The scientific presentation of ancient Israel's history can no longer be considered as a more or less critical narration of the accounts in the Hebrew Bible. The problems the so-called "minimalists" and "maximalists" struggled to solve still remain unsettled, and students as well as scholars of the Hebrew Bible cannot ignore or even remain indifferent to the gap and overlap between story and history. Could and should Hebrew Bible scholarship in the future move beyond the milieu of the debate between minimalists and maximalists? This volume, consisting of nine articles by authors with different institutional and religious backgrounds, articulates that there are ways to overcome the increasing gap between story and history.

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The main purpose of this book is to learn about different approaches to a key problem of procedural law, namely the standard of proof. The second is to assess the various stances adopted by diverse jurisdictions and find an adequate standard. Fourteen outstanding law professors describe and analyse how their national legal systems handle and deal with the problem.

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Cyprus was a crossroads in the ancient eastern Mediterranean, a key location between east and west, in which Judaism, Greco-Roman religions, and Christianity intersected, and where Christianity came to flourish. Bringing together scholars of religion and archaeology to study Cyprus in antiquity, this volume's contributions cover a myriad of topics, including the mosaics of Cyprus, its silver treasures, religious tensions between Christians and others, the role of Epiphanius, the story of St. Barnabas, the powerful position of Cyprus as autocephalous within emerging orthodoxy in antiquity, those who used so-called magical texts, those who worked in a harbor, those involved with the transport of building materials, and early representations of Cyprian saints. By drawing on literary, archaeological, and art historical evidence from the first century CE to the medieval period, the volume elucidates the diversity of Christianity in late antique Cyprus, while also discussing relations between Christians, Jews, and members of Greco-Roman religions.

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How is Acts of the Apostles - its form and features - to be understood in light of the work's ancient Mediterranean cultural context? In the present study, Eric C. Moore offers a fresh response to this much-debated question, arguing for the utility of ancient colonization as an analytic lens for reading Acts, a story about the origins and replication of early Christianity. He explores how in narrating his account, Luke draws on a common stock of "foundation" motifs employed by ancient sources, textual and material alike, to glorify community beginnings.

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The present volume is dedicated to the study of ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī (1641-1731), an outstanding religious scholar, sufi thinker and man of letters from 17th-18th-century Ottoman Syria. With its focus on a careful examination of Nābulusī's multifaceted and enriching textual corpus, the present volume offers an in-depth analysis of both his thought and his intellectual milieu. The essays presented here reflect the wide spectrum of Nābulusī's interests, from scriptural exegesis to theology, from jurisprudence to mysticism, from philosophy to poetry, ethics and aesthetics. Bringing together expertise in Islamic mysticism, theology and jurisprudence, Ottoman studies, and the social and cultural history of the Middle East, it explores Nābulusī's work and persona. The studies included in Part I of this volume remind us that Nābulusī's legacy has many surprises in store for us, and Part II is dedicated to critical editions of three of Nābulusī's short, but nevertheless important, treatises. This volume is intended to be the first of many further publications that would bring together the expertise of numerous Nābulusī scholars across disciplines. The interdisciplinary character of the present volume contributes to a better appreciation of Nābulusī's multifaceted impact on the diversified intellectual and religious history of the 17th-18th-century world of Islam, described until recently as a time of 'stagnation' and 'decline'.

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Focusing on the present text of the Fourth Gospel, Deolito V. Vistar, Jr. argues that the "signs" are not only the eight major miracles recounted in the Gospel, but also include non-miraculous deeds of Jesus (the temple "cleansing," the washing of the disciples' feet, and so forth) that equally reveal his true identity and role as the incarnate Word of God, the supreme revealer of the Father, the Savior of the world, and so forth. Based on this broad meaning and reference, the author further argues that the complex of the cross-and-resurrection is the supreme "sign." The earlier "signs" adumbrate and lead up to the "sign" par excellence, where Christ supremely reveals who he is and accomplishes the salvation of the world. The author builds up his case by mustering fresh arguments from the text, yielding insights and conclusions that contribute to the continuing broader interpretation of the Fourth Gospel.

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In recent years, three particular debates have risen to the fore of Pauline Studies: the question of the centre of Pauline theology, how to interpret the πίστις Χριστοῦ formula, and the relationship between divine and human agency. In the present study, Jeanette Hagen Pifer contends that several of the apparent conundrums in recent Pauline scholarship turn out to derive from an inadequate understanding of what Paul means by faith. By first exploring the question of what Paul means by faith outside of the classic justification passages in Romans and Galatians, she reveals faith as an active and productive mode of human existence. Yet this existence is not a form of human self-achievement. On the contrary, faith is precisely the denial of self-effort and a dependence upon the prior gracious work of Christ. In this way, faith is self-negating and self-involving participation in the Christ-event.

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In this work, Karel van der Toorn explores the social setting, the intellectual milieu, and the historical context of the beliefs and practices reflected in the Hebrew Bible. While fully recognizing the unique character of early Israelite religion, the author challenges the notion of its incomparability. Beliefs are anchored in culture. Rituals have societal significance. God has a history. By shifting the focus to the context, the essays gathered here yield a deeper understanding of Israelite religion and the origins of the Bible.

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The traditional understanding of Paul's doctrine of justification has an inherent problem of relating to his ethics. Following its anthropocentric approach to the doctrine, even "the New Perspective" makes little contribution toward resolving it. Hence, appreciating the facts that Paul places the doctrine in Romans within the inclusio of the Davidic Messiah Jesus' rule over all the nations as God's Son in Rom 1:3-5 and 15:12 and that his thesis about the doctrine in Rom 1:16-17 is but a soteriological statement about the effect of the Christologically formulated gospel of Rom 1:3-4, Seyoon Kim approaches the doctrine from both the Christological and anthropological perspectives. Thus he interprets justification as Herrschaftswechsel (cf. Käsemann), a transfer from the Satanic kingdom into the kingdom of God and his Son Jesus the Lord. This understanding makes him stress the present phase of justification as the process of rendering "the obedience of faith" to the Lord Jesus, and explain afresh the relationship between justification sola gratia/fide and judgment according to works. So he sets forth the thesis that Paul's gospel of justification is a post-Easter soteriological form of Jesus' gospel of God's kingdom.

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Over the past decades, biblical scholars have gradually become more aware of the importance of the social sciences for their own field. This has produced a steady flow of studies informed by work that was done in the fields of group formation psychology, the sociology of emerging movements and the sociology of religion, and historical anthropology. This volume offers the proceedings of a conference that brought together a number of expert biblical scholars, specialists of ancient religious practices, and proponents of an anthropological approach to ancient Christian and Greco-Roman religious tradition. It was the explicit purpose not to focus exclusively on purely methodological reflections, but to explore and evaluate how methodological concepts and constructs can be developed and then also checked in applying them on specific cases and topics that are typical for understanding earliest Christianity.

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The present collection of essays addresses the development of Ukrainian private law in the course of its ongoing Europeanization. This process is determined by the Association Agreement between the EU and Ukraine, which was concluded in 2014 and obliges Ukraine to implement a diverse number of European legal acts in its national legal system, aiming to achieve the economic integration of Ukraine into the EU internal market. Nevertheless, it would be inaccurate to describe the process of integrating Ukrainian private law into the European Area of Justice as solely the implementation of the Community acquis. Rather, the Europeanization of Ukrainian private law is part of a value-based Europeanization of the entire Ukrainian society.

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The book of Isaiah is a product of history. The nature of that history and what it means that Isaiah is a product of it are hardly matters of consensus in the field. Nonetheless, Isaianic scholarship has put its collective finger on the crux of the methodological problem. At the heart of an historical understanding of this prophetic book lies a consideration of the word "history" in two distinct but related applications. First, what historical processes led to the book's final form? How did Isaiah become a book? And second, what kind of historical representation does the book offer to the reader? How does Isaiah present the past? For most scholars, answering either question involves asking the other. To understand better the history of Isaiah, this volume of essays devotes itself to these two lines of inquiry and their relationship.

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The present volume is focused on the interactions and syncretistic tensions between religion and philosophy in Late Antiquity. A variety of papers examine issues of personal religious attitudes, initiation to the mysteries, Orphism, notions of theurgy, magic, the philosopher's quest for intimacy or union with the divine, magic and Christianity, the role of prayer in philosophical texts, and oracles, dream-visions and divination. The contributions include a wide range of specialisations, such as Neoplatonism, Chaldaean Oracles, Theurgy, Patristic literature, Christian religious texts and Manichaeism.

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The articles collected here present the fruits of 25 years of scholarship on Qumran and the New Testament. The author situates the New Testament within the pluralistic context of Second Temple Judaism, presents detailed overviews on the discoveries from Qumran, the source value of the ancient texts on the Essenes, the interpretation of the archaeological site, the various forms of dualism within the texts, the development of apocalyptic thought, Qumran meals, and scriptural authority in the Scrolls. He evaluates the various patterns of relating Jesus and the apostles to the Scrolls or the Qumran community, presents methodological reflections on comparisons and detailed surveys of the most important insights from the Qumran discoveries for the understanding of Jesus, Paul, and the Fourth Gospel. This volume demonstrates how the discovery of the Scrolls has influenced and changed New Testament scholarship.

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From the Wisdom of Ben Sira to the writings of Paul, many Second Temple Jewish and early Christian texts recognize the inescapable role of testing and temptation in human experience. Though God is often presented as one who tests, testing is also attributed to Satan, Mastema, the people of God, and individual humans. How did ancient interpreters react to texts that depict the God of Israel as testing, tested, or intervening on behalf of those undergoing a test? What assumptions do authors have about the role of testing in human experience? How does the vocabulary used for testing and temptation influence the meaning of the text? The essays in the present volume constitute an opening foray into addressing these questions, and this volume aims to catalyze further research into additional dimensions of testing and overlooked motifs in the relevant literature.

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To what extent could Max Weber's ethic of responsibility serve as a model for us today? An adequate answer to this question could only be given on the basis of a satisfactory interpretation and thorough assessment of his ethic of responsibility. In this monograph Etienne de Villiers sets himself the task of doing just that. He establishes that, in spite of serious shortcomings, Weber's ethic points to the contemporary need for an ethic of responsibility as a second-level normative ethical approach that would address the undermining effect of modernisation on ethical living. Such a contemporary ethic of responsibility would provide guidelines on how ethical living could be responsibly enhanced in our time. The author also presents a brief proposal on how a contemporary ethic of responsibility might be designed.

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In his Apologia pro Christianis, Justin Martyr uses some major apologetic strategies to defend and promote Christianity. These are here identified as the 'logos doctrine', the 'theft theory', the 'proof from prophecy' and the demonological arguments. David E. Nyström analyses each strategy on its own terms as well as in relation to the others in order for them to yield a picture of how they work, rhetorically and literarily, in Justin's grand argument. He also explores possible literary models as well as the purpose and function of the literary form Justin chose for his work.

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James A. Sanders has been at the forefront of the study of canon formation, history of interpretation, and textual criticism, specializing in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the use of the Old Testament in the New. Like no one else, he is able to bring together exegetical detail with hermeneutical and theological insight. He moves deftly from exegetical, critical detail to hermeneutical options and overarching theological implications. In this important collection of essays we have the mature fruit of decades of research, including careful engagement with ancient texts and fair-minded ecumenical discourse with the greatest minds in the field. These studies laid the foundation on which today's scholarly discussion is focused.

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In this important collection of essays James A. Sanders offers his most significant work on the text and canon of the Hebrew Bible, along with his seminal studies of the Qumran Scrolls. He has been at the forefront of the study of canon formation, history of interpretation, and textual criticism, with specialty in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the use of the Old Testament in the New. These studies document the variety of textual traditions, as well as the diversity and unsettled, incipient state of the collection of sacred literature that was regarded as authoritative or canonical in the late Second Temple period. They laid the foundation on which today's scholarly discussion is focused.

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

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Exile is a central concern in the Hebrew Bible. The fifteen essays in this volume, presented at an international conference in Copenhagen in May 2017, investigate and discuss images of exile in the prophetic books. Some deal with a specific passage or biblical book, while others approach the issue by comparing different books or by looking more closely at a particular metaphor or theme. The first group of essays focuses on exile in Isaiah, while the second group treats this topic in Jeremiah and Ezekiel as well as possible links between the two books. The third group consists of various studies, including nature and agricultural imagery for exile, deportations from the Northern Kingdom, and the prophet Jonah as a perpetual refugee. A recurrent question is what role language and metaphors play in the prophets' attempts to express, structure, and cope with experiences of exile.

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This edition of rabbinic parables (meshalim) in the two Mekhiltot, the tannaitic Midrashim to the book of Exodus (3rd century CE), has a double scholarly purpose. It offers a critical synoptic presentation and study of the textual witnesses of the parables, and a commentary on their meaning and function in their literary and historical context. Moreover, a new English translation of every parable will make the edition a useful tool for interested readers with less knowledge of Hebrew, or those merely looking for a quick reference. This edition, which intends to be the first in a series of editions of parables in all the tannaitic works, is an indispensable tool not only for scholars of Jewish texts, but also for students of the New Testament and early Christian literature, historians of religion in late Antiquity, and those interested in similar literary genres, such as fables.

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Ingolf U. Dalferth bietet in diesem Buch den Grundriss einer orientierungsphilosophischen Theorie der Hermeneutik, die Hermeneutik als Kunstlehre der Kunstpraxis des Verstehens in den Blick fasst und Verstehen als die Tätigkeit und das Vermögen von Menschen, sich durch das Kommunizieren mit anderen gemeinsam in den Sinn-Welten des menschlichen Lebens verlässlich zu orientieren. Er geht von der menschlichen Praxis des Kommunizierens und Verstehens aus und zeigt, wie diese zur Kunst der Orientierung in den Sinn-Welten des Lebens werden kann. Er untersucht, wo diese Kunstpraxis im Leben ihren Ort hat. Und er analysiert konkrete Gestalten dieser Kunstpraxis in zentralen Bereichen und Formen des menschlichen Lebens. Das erste wird am Leitfaden des Topos Verstehen entfaltet, das zweite am Topos Text, das dritte am Topos Dasein und das letzte am Topos Glauben. Entsprechend bietet das erste Kapitel Grundlinien einer philosophischen Hermeneutik, in der die Frage nach dem Verstehen des Verstehens im Zentrum steht. Das zweite Kapitel skizziert eine Texthermeneutik, die dem Verstehen von Sinn in der Kommunikation durch Texte nachgeht. Das dritte Kapitel verankert dieses Sinnverstehen in einer Daseinshermeneutik, in der Verstehen als ein grundlegender Modus menschlicher Orientierung in den Sinn-Welten des Lebens in den Blick genommen wird. Und das vierte Kapitel bietet Grundzüge einer theologischen Hermeneutik des christlichen Glaubens, in der dieser als Resultat der Kommunikation des Wortes Gottes durch Texte entfaltet wird und das Verstehen des Glaubens als hermeneutische Dynamik des Mehrfachsinns, die durch das rekursive Setzen orientierender Unterscheidungen zum Aufbau der Sinn-Welten des Glaubens führt.

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Delbert Burkett addresses the Synoptic Problem, the question of what sources were used by the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). The most common explanation for the material shared by Matthew and Luke (the double tradition) is that Matthew and Luke both used a source now lost, called Q. If we adopt the Q hypothesis to account for the double tradition, then what theory best accounts for the material that Matthew and Luke share with Mark (the Markan material)? Three main theories have been proposed: Matthew and Luke used the Gospel of Mark as a source (the standard theory of Markan priority), Matthew and Luke used a revised version of Mark's gospel (the Deutero-Mark hypothesis), or all three evangelists used a source similar to, but earlier than, the Gospel of Mark (the Proto-Mark hypothesis). Delbert Burkett provides new data that calls into question the standard theory of Markan priority and the Deutero-Mark hypothesis. He offers the most comprehensive case to date for the Proto-Mark hypothesis, concluding that this theory best accounts for the Markan material.

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Religious, philosophical, and theological views on the self vary widely. For some the self is seen as the center of human personhood, the ultimate bearer of personal identity and the core mystery of human existence. For others the self is a grammatical error and the sense of self an existential and epistemic delusion. Buddhists contrast the Western understanding of the self as a function of the mind that helps us to organize our experiences to their view of no-self by distinguishing between no-self and not-self or between a solid or 'metaphysical' self that is an illusion and an experiential or psychological self that is not. There may be processes of 'selfing', but there is no permanent self. In Western psychology, philosophy, and theology, on the other hand, the term 'self' is often used as a noun that refers not to the performance of an activity or to a material body per se but rather to a (gendered) organism that represents the presence of something distinct from its materiality. Is this a defensible insight or a misleading representation of human experience? We are aware of ourselves in the first-person manner of our ipse -identity that cannot fully be spelled out in objectifying terms, but we also know ourselves in the third-person manner of our idem -identity, the objectified self-reference to a publicly available entity. This volume documents a critical and constructive debate between critics and defenders of the self or of the no-self that explores the intercultural dimensions of this important topic.

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Warum Jellinek? Weil bis zum heutigen Tag nicht einmal die Rechtswissenschaft mit Jellineks Doppelperspektive auf das Recht viel anzufangen weiß. Im Grunde ist ihr seine Methode suspekt: zu staatsfixiert oder zu soziologisch - oder beides. So ist vieles verschüttet worden, was die moderne Staatsrechtslehre erst neuerlich, mitunter mühsam im Zuge wachsender Internationalisierung und Globalisierung, aufbaut. Das Recht jenseits des Staates zu denken, die "Eigenlogik" gesellschaftlicher Praxis und deren Ordnungsfunktion und Bedeutung für das Recht zu erfassen, den internen Legitimationskern des Rechts und dessen Fruchtbarkeit zu erkennen, all das sind Herausforderungen, die in den Rupturen der letzten zwei Jahrzehnte sichtbar geworden sind. Daß gerade Jellinek zum Verstehen dieser Herausforderungen maßgeblich beitragen kann, mag nur für jene paradox erscheinen, die in ihm ein altes "Zitierfossil" (Kersten) einer überkommenen Disziplin sehen. Die Allgemeine Staatslehre hat sich die Aufgabe gestellt, elementare Ordnungsphänomene zu durchdringen. Und auch wenn diese zum Teil ihre Gestalt gewandelt haben - die Macht des Staates ist kleiner geworden, die Ansprüche der Gesellschaft politischer -, so bleibt doch die Aufgabe nach wie vor aktuell; und mit ihr viele der bekannten Probleme, die immer noch Rätsel aufgeben. Eines dieser Rätsel ist das "Doppelleben" des Rechts, nämlich "[e]inmal als tatsächliche Rechtsübung, als welche es eine der sozialen Mächte ist, die das konkrete Kulturleben eines Volkes ausgestalten. Sodann aber als ein Inbegriff von Normen, der bestimmt ist, in Handlungen umgesetzt zu werden." Diese kleine Passage, die sich in der "Allgemeinen Staatslehre" findet, umreißt Jellineks großes Thema, sein Lebensthema, das sämtliche Stichwörter durchwirkt, die ihm den Rang eines Klassikers eingebracht haben.

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In this study, Soeng Yu Li explores Paul's understanding of the charismata in 1 Corinthians 12-14 and why the apostle focuses on the charisma of prophecy in 1 Corinthians 14. After demonstrating that the semantic relationship between charismata and pneumatika is to be understood as meronymy, the author then offers an exegesis of 1 Corinthians 12-14 from a meronymic point of view. In 1 Corinthians 12-14, Paul teaches about the topic pneumatika, the things that characterize the life of the pneumatikoi. Paul teaches the Corinthians that as pneumatikoi, both their behaviour and their practice of their apportioned charismata must be characterized by agapē. Only in this way can they build up the ekklēsia in the here and now towards the promised eschatological future. To illustrate his teaching, Paul uses prophecy as the paradigm of ta charismata ta meizona for the gathered ekklēsia living in the future-oriented present.

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Pious Jews of the Second Temple period sought to conform their lives to Torah, the law God had given Israel. Their different sects disagreed, however, on how to interpret particular laws and even on the question of who had the authority to interpret them. Jesus and his earliest followers, while focusing primarily on what they believed God was doing in their own day, were repeatedly confronted with issues raised by its relation to God's prior revelation in Torah. This volume contains studies by Stephen Westerholm devoted to the meaning and place of Torah in Early Judaism as well as to New Testament understandings, particularly those of the gospels and Pauline literature. Attention is also given to the "New Perspective on Paul," to recent discussions of justification and Paul's relation to Judaism, and to aspects of the transmission of Jesus tradition among his earliest followers.

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In this book, Jan-Olav Henriksen presents an argument for understanding religion as an expression of different types of practices: those of orientation, transformation, and reflection. Instead of understanding religion first and foremost on the basis of doctrine and propositionally articulated belief, he argues that religions should be seen primarily as practices that mediate symbolic resources for orientation and transformation. The meaning of doctrine and reflection is constituted by its relation to such practices. Thus, doctrine does not constitute religion. This approach allows for a maximalist understanding of religion, i.e. seeing religions as a variety of phenomena relating to all dimensions of human experience. This is not possible to understand from a reductionist perspective. The volume offers a concrete, practice-orientated and pragmatistic understanding of the role of religion in different realms of human life.

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The present volume offers a new edition, English translation, and interpretation of the Berlin-Strasbourg Apocryphon, previously known as the Gospel of the Savior. An apocryphal story about Jesus probably transpiring shortly before the Crucifixion, the Berlin-Strasbourg Apocryphon claims to recount the narrative as told by the apostles themselves. The text also includes a long hymn sung by Christ to the cross on which he will soon be crucified.The Berlin Strasbourg-Apocryphon is exclusively preserved in Coptic by two fragmentary manuscripts, Papyrus Berolinensis 22220 and Strasbourg Copte 5-7. Additionally, a Coptic manuscript discovered at Qasr el-Wizz in Christian Nubia contains a short version of the Hymn of the Cross.Until now, it has been almost unanimously accepted that the Berlin Strasbourg-Apocryphon is an ancient Christian gospel - probably datable to the second century CE - which was bypassed in the formation of the Christian canon. Approaching the text from the angle of Coptic literature, Alin Suciu rejects this early dating, showing instead that its composition must be located following the Council of Chalcedon (451 CE), whose theological deliberations gradually alienated Egypt from the Byzantine world. The author argues that the Berlin-Strasbourg Apocryphon is one of numerous "apostolic memoirs," a peculiar genre of Coptic literature, which consists of writings allegedly written by the apostles, often embedded in sermons attributed to famous church fathers.

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In staging his story of Jesus, Luke dedicates considerable space to the characters known as sinners. Scholars have noted this peculiarly Lukan emphasis. Still, scholarly attention has tended to limit itself to the so-called sinner texts, that is, the pericopae containing the word "sinner" or its cognates. The multiple indirect references to sin and sinners have been overlooked. Responding to this lacuna, Sławomir Szkredka examines the role of both direct and indirect references to sinfulness in the initial episodes of Jesus' activity. His study reveals that the sinners are not an easily identifiable category of characters: their defining characteristic - their sinfulness - is often found inadequate, rendered inapplicable, or transferred to another character. What the reader understands about sinners is that he or she must discover and assimilate Jesus' perception of them. The reader's coming to know Jesus is enacted.

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The Book of Isaiah describes an Israelite group called the "servants," who suffered for their righteousness and were promised vindication. This collection of essays shows how the Isaian "servants" texts were used by early Jewish and Christian readers to shape their own community identity. It includes analyses of Psalms 22, 69, and 102, Daniel, Wisdom of Solomon, Mark, Luke and Acts, Romans, 2 Corinthians, Philippians, 1 Peter, Revelation, and Targum Jonathan on Isaiah, as well as investigations into the relationship between exegesis and identity formation and into how the Isaian Servant(s) are presented within the framework of Israel's history.

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Recent anthropological, linguistic, and philosophical studies have significantly increased our understanding of the gift and related phenomena, such as hospitality and charity. While their results can only very carefully be applied to historical theological sources, they do resemble classical discussions on neighbourly love, the administration of sacraments, the handing over of tradition, free will, and God's mercy.In this book, Risto Saarinen studies Martin Luther's understanding of the gift and related issues, such as favours and benefits, faith and justification, virtues and merits, ethics and doctrine, law and Christ. The historical motivation behind this focus consists in the insight that Luther both continues and criticizes the classical, medieval, and Humanist discussions regarding the differences and parallels between gifts and sales. The gift is for the reformers a multidimensional concept that needs to be understood in many different contexts of the verb "give". This historical understanding paves the way towards an adequate systematic theology of the gift.

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In this close reading of 2 Corinthians 12:1-10, Lisa M. Bowens provides a detailed historical-critical exegesis and comparative analysis to establish that Paul links his ascent in 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 to 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 where he foregrounds a cosmic battle around the mind and the knowledge of God. In 10:3-6, the apostle presents a trilateral framework of cosmology, epistemology, and theological anthropology, which converge in his heavenly journey. Lisa M. Bowens examines a variety of Jewish and Greco-Roman texts and calls attention to the persistence and importance of martial imagery in chapters 10-13 of Second Corinthians, including in Paul's ascent narrative. Moreover, prayers of deliverance from evil forces become more prevalent around the first century, and this work situates Paul's request in 2 Corinthians 12:8 within this genre.

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Webpräsenzen bilden bislang keinen eigens anerkannten Schutzgegenstand unserer Rechtsordnung. Um diese vermeintliche Schutzlücke zu schließen, wurde das virtuelle Hausrecht herangezogen. In einer Parallele zum Hausrechtsinhaber in der physischen Welt soll dem Webpräsenzbetreiber ein originäres Schutzrecht gegenüber den Nutzern seiner Webpräsenz in Form eines virtuellen Hausrechts zur Verfügung stehen.Gabriella Piras erörtert mögliche dogmatische Begründungen für die Übertragung des im Sachenrecht verwurzelten Hausrechts auf den virtuellen Raum, die sie im Ergebnis ablehnt. Außerdem kritisiert sie, dass es einer Neuequilibrierung des Spannungsverhältnisses zwischen Webpräsenzbetreiber und Nutzern durch die Anerkennung eines virtuellen Hausrechts nicht bedarf, und dies vielmehr einen Versuch der Beschränkung der Internetfreiheit der Nutzer darstellt.

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In this study, David Willgren attempts to provide answers to two fundamental questions in relation to the formation of the 'Book' of Psalms: "how?" and "why?". The first relates to the diachronic growth of the collection (how are these processes to be reconstructed, and on what grounds?), while the second relates to questions of purpose (to what end are psalms being juxtaposed in a collection?).By conceptualizing the 'Book' of Psalms as an anthology, and by inquiring into its poetics by means of paratextuality, David Willgren provides a fresh reconstruction of the formation of the 'Book' of Psalms and concludes, in contrast to the canonical approach, that it does not primarily provide a literary context for individual psalms. Rather, it preserves a dynamic selection of psalms that is best seen not as a book of psalms, but as a canon of psalms.This work was awarded with SEK 50.000 by The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities as a "" (förtjänt vetenskapligt arbete).

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It is widely believed that the early Christians copied their texts themselves without a great deal of expertise, and that some copyists introduced changes to support their theological beliefs. In this volume, however, Alan Mugridge examines all of the extant Greek papyri bearing Christian literature up to the end of the 4th century, as well as several comparative groups of papyri, and concludes that, on the whole, Christian texts, like most literary texts in the Roman world, were copied by trained scribes. Professional Christian scribes probably became more common after the time of Constantine, but this study suggests that in the early centuries the copyists of Christian texts in Greek were normally trained scribes, Christian or not, who reproduced those texts as part of their trade and, while they made mistakes, copied them as accurately as any other texts they were called upon to copy.

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In this book, Sunny Kuan-Hui Wang explores the relationship between sense perception and testimony in the Gospel of John. While Johannine scholars tend to focus on one or the other, she shows that sense perception and testimony are both significant and are used together with the intention of drawing readers into the narrative so that they become witnesses in an emotionally engaged way. It is argued that John's use of sense perception together with testimony is rooted in Jewish literature. Yet John also employs a Graeco-Roman rhetorical technique, enargeia, which appeals to the persuasive power of sense perception to make his narrative vivid. John does not downplay sense perception. Rather, he uses it in the context of testimony as a means of persuasion to draw the readers, in their imagination, into the experience of the first disciples and thus deeper into faith and witness.

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In vielen Staaten bezieht die öffentliche Hand zur Erfüllung von Aufgaben der Daseinsvorsorge auch private Unternehmen ein. Azar Aliyev untersucht den Konzessionsvertrag als ein Instrument solcher öffentlich-privater Partnerschaften im russischen und kasachischen Recht. Konzession ist in beiden Staaten gesetzlich als Vertrag über Errichtung, Modernisierung, Betrieb und Rückübereignung von öffentlichen Infrastrukturobjekten durch Private definiert. Ebenso wie in Deutschland spielen dabei Privatrecht und öffentliches Recht zusammen; allerdings liegt der Schwerpunkt der Diskussion in den untersuchten Staaten anders als in Deutschland nicht im Verwaltungs-, sondern im Privatrecht.Die Arbeit diskutiert die Konzession auch als Mittel, im Kontext eher labiler juristischer Infrastruktur "Inseln der Stabilität" für langfristige und komplexe Großprojekte zu schaffen. Dabei werden viele Grundsatzfragen des Zivilrechts sowie des Wirtschaftsprivat- und Wirtschaftsverwaltungsrechts aufgegriffen und analysiert.

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In this study, Robert B. Foster explores the intersection between the interpretation of Scripture and the construction of communal identities. He argues that in Rom 9, Paul applies prophetic texts from Malachi, Hosea, and Isaiah to the story of Abraham's children in Genesis. These interpretive maneuvers enable Paul to extrapolate from the patriarchal narratives a specific construal of election: it is the ironic privilege of being simultaneously God's chosen and rejected people. This understanding of election he in turn applies to Gentile Christ-followers, the remnant, and all Israel in order to build for them an all-encompassing yet differentiated Abrahamic identity for the messianic age.

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Timothy D. Barnes combines the techniques of critical hagiography and modern historical research to reach important and original results for the history of Christianity in the Roman Empire."Reading any work by Timothy Barnes is an exhilarating experience. His formidable command of both sources and bibliography never clouds his lucid prose or incisive arguments. He seems to inhabit a world of infinite clarity and irrefutable certainty."Glen W. Bowersock in Journal of Ecclesiastical History 62 (2011), pp. 565-567"[…] Barnes has written an indispensable, critical companion to early Christian martyrological and hagiographical literature."Marc Glen Bilby in Religious Studies Review 37/3 (2011), pp. 218-219"[This] book is thus not only a valuable discussion of the issues, but a crucial resource for all students of hagiography."Michael Stuart Williams in Journal of Roman Studies 102 (2012), pp. 406-408"Barnes masters the hagiographic, historical and epigraphical material in an impressive way, showing an encyclopedic knowledge in these fields."Bengt Alexanderson in Augustinianum 51 (2011), pp. 256-266"[This] book deserves recommendation because of its originality, the freshness of its style, and the high level of its scholarship."Pieter W. van der Horst on http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2010/2010-08-04.html

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"Jewish-Christianity" is a contested category in current research. But for precisely this reason, it may offer a powerful lens through which to rethink the history of Jewish/Christian relations. Traditionally, Jewish-Christianity has been studied as part of the origins and early diversity of Christianity. Collecting revised versions of previously published articles together with new materials, Annette Yoshiko Reed reconsiders Jewish-Christianity in the context of Late Antiquity and in conversation with Jewish studies. She brings further attention to understudied texts and traditions from Late Antiquity that do not fit neatly into present day notions of Christianity as distinct from Judaism. In the process, she uses these materials to probe the power and limits of our modern assumptions about religion and identity.

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In this wide-ranging work on Greek religion and mythology, Jan N. Bremmer brings together his stimulating and innovative articles, which have all been updated and revised where necessary. In three thematic sections, he analyses central aspects of Greek religion, beginning with the gods and heroes and paying special attention to the unity of the divine nature and the emergence of the category 'hero'. The second section begins with a discussion of the nature of polis religion, continues with various facets, such as seers, secrecy and the soul, and concludes with the influence of the Ancient Near East. The third section studies human sacrifice and offers the most recent analysis of the ideal animal sacrifice, combining literature, epigraphy, iconography, and zooarchaeology. Regarding human sacrifice, it concentrates on the famous cases of Iphigeneia and the werewolves of Mount Lykaion. The fourth and final section investigates key elements of Greek mythology, such as the definition of myth and its relationship to ritual, and ends with a brief history of the study of Greek mythology. The multi-disciplinary approach and rich footnotes make this work a must for anybody interested in Greek religion and mythology.

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David J. Armitage explores interpretations of poverty in the Greco-Roman and Jewish contexts of the New Testament, and, in the light of this, considers how approaches to poverty in the New Testament texts may be regarded as distinctive. Explanations for the plight of the poor and supposed solutions to the problem of poverty are discussed, noting the importance in Greco-Roman settings of questions about poverty's relation to virtue and vice, and the roles of fate and chance in impoverishment. Such debates were peripheral for strands of the Jewish tradition where poverty discourse was shaped by narrative frameworks incorporating transgression, curse, and the anticipated rescue of the righteous poor. These elements occur in New Testament texts, which endorse wider Jewish concern for the poor while reconfiguring hope for the end of poverty around an inaugurated eschatology centred on Jesus.

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The contributions to this volume examine the emergence of ancient Jewish art from the interdisciplinary perspective of scholars in Art and Archaeology, Ancient Judaism and Rabbinics, Patristics and Church History. They evaluate the manifold ways in which late antique and early Byzantine Jewish art was embedded in its Hellenistic and Roman cultural context by, at the same time, evincing specifically Jewish and local Near Eastern idiosyncrasies. Since the Graeco-Roman context was shared with early Christian art, some formal similarities are recognizable, whereas the meanings associated with the images would have differed. A study of the relationship between the literary sources (the Hebrew Bible, Jewish Hellenistic and rabbinic literature) and the artistic depictions is crucial for a proper understanding of ancient Jewish art. Similarly important are the artistic analogies appearing in Graeco-Roman and early Christian contexts. Of particular interest is the question why Jewish figurative art developed in the Land of Israel in late antiquity only: which political, social, economic, religious and cultural constellations may have led to the emergence of figurative art? How do these images relate to biblical commandments advocating aniconism and what would rabbis have made of them? Was Erwin Goodenough correct about a dichotomy between "popular" synagogue art and an aniconic rabbinic Judaism? The Jewish use of images with analogies in pagan (and sometimes also Christian) contexts is particularly striking: what led Jews to adopt images such as the zodiac and pagan mythological figures and scenes and how were they combined with images based on biblical narratives? The volume shows how an interdisciplinary approach leads to a better understanding not only of ancient Jewish, but of Graeco-Roman and Christian art as well.

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After the Vietnamese War, civil relations with foreign elements have increased and, consequently, private international law has gained some importance in Vietnam. However, both the relevant legal provisions and the practice of the courts in Vietnam are insufficient. Trinh Nguyen studies Vietnamese private international law in light of European developments. She focuses in particular on the general issues, contracts and torts. She describes and assesses the currently effective provisions of Vietnamese law and the corresponding judicial practice of the courts. Together with the knowledge of European private international law, with the main emphasis on the Rome I and Rome II Regulation, she makes use of comparative law to propose future developments for Vietnam based on the critical evaluation of the western doctrine.

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Jan Stievermann's pioneering study of Cotton Mather's Biblia Americana examines this Puritan scholar's engagement with the Hebrew Bible as Old Testament. The author focuses specifically on Mather's struggle to uphold or modify traditional typological and allegorical readings in the face of a growing awareness of the historicity of Scriptures. Other key issues include Mather's interventions in the contemporary debates over the legitimacy of Christian interpretations of the prophets, as well as over the authorship, provenance, genre, and spiritual import of texts such as Ecclesiastes and Canticles. Stievermann's book yields fascinating insights into an underappreciated phase of exegesis that was at once traditionalist and innovative, apologetically oriented, pious, and open to new modes of historical-textual criticism. Moreover, it shows how Mather's biblical exegesis fits into the broader development of Puritan theology and identity.

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In this study, Marcus Mordecai Schwartz argues that there were two distinct periods in which traditions from Rabbinic Palestine exerted their influence upon extended passages of B. Rosh Hashanah. This doubling of influence resulted in a Babylonian-born text with two distinct Palestinian ancestries. This oddly mixed parentage was responsible for Bavli texts that both resemble synoptic passages in the Yerusalmi and differ from them in substantial ways. The main project of this book is to trace the dynamics of this doubled Palestinian influence and to account for the mark it left on passages of B. Rosh Hashanah.

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