Christian origins and Greco-Roman culture : social and literary contexts for the New Testament /
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In Christian Origins and Greco-Roman Culture , Stanley Porter and Andrew Pitts assemble an international team of scholars whose work has focused on reconstructing the social matrix for earliest Christianity through the use of Greco-Roman materials and literary forms. Each essay moves forward the current understanding of how primitive Christianity situated itself in relation to evolving Hellenistic culture. Some essays focus on configuring the social context for the origins of the Jesus movement and beyond, while others assess the literary relation between early Christian and Greco-Roman texts.
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1 online resource (vii, 751 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004236219 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Reflections on the early Christian history of religion = Erwägungen zur frühchristlichen religionsgeschichte /
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Reflections on the Early Christian History of Religion documents the results of two recent workshops on Martin Hengel's and Maria Schwemer's first volume of first volume of Geschichte des frühen Christentums ( Jesus und das Judentum [title of volume 1], Tübingen 2007) and Larry Hurtado's Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids 2003). The contributors, including Hengel himself, focus on problems and possibilities of studying and presenting Christian religion in Roman Antiquity. They discuss distinctive features of these two remarkable publications and some material aspects that illustrate the relationship between the historical study of early Christian religion, religious studies in general and New Testament studies in particular. Mit den Erwägungen zur frühchristlichen Religionsgeschichte liegen die Ergebnisse zweier Fachtagungen vor, die sich mit dem ersten Band der Geschichte des frühen Christentums von Martin Hengel und Maria Schwemer ( Jesus und das Judentum , Tübingen 2007) und Larry Hurtados Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids 2003) beschäftigt haben. Die Beiträge, u.a. von Hengel selbst, diskutieren Probleme und Möglichkeiten der Erforschung und Darstellung christlicher Religion in der römischen Antike. Sie setzen sich mit den Zugangsweisen dieser beiden Bücher auseinander und zeigen an verschiedenen Sachfragen die Bezüge, die sich bei der historischen Erforschung der frühchristlichen Religion zwischen Geschichtswissenschaft, Religionswissenschaft und Neutestamentlicher Wissenschaft ergeben.
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Title from PDF title page (viewed on Dec. 3, 2012). :
1 online resource (xiv, 374 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004230675 :
1871-6636 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Die Apostelgeschichte und die hellenistische Geschichtsschreibung : Festschrift für Eckhard Plümacher zu seinem 65. Geburtstag /
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This volume - a Festschrift in honour of the renowned Acts-scholar Eckhard Plümacher - contains thirteen articles on Luke's Acts of the Apostles. Presented are essays concerning Luke's language and style (Alexander, Koch, Steyn, Victor), the literary and historiographical technique applied in Acts (Moessner, Koch, Lindemann), on Luke's theology / Christology (Schröter, Vouga) and on the use (and abuse) of Acts for reconstructing aspects of the history of Early Christianity (Breytenbach, Horn, Schmithals) and for constructing theology relevant to modern culture (Vouga). Furthermore it contains a critical edition and commentary of the Martyrdom of Stephen with a discussion of its relationship to Acts (Bovon/Bouvier) and a presentation and discussion of some unknown Coptic Fragments of Acts (Bethge).
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1 online resource (xii, 385 pages) :
"Bibliographie Eckhard Plümacher"-Page.
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047413882 :
0169-734X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Targums : a critical introduction /
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The value and significance of the targums -translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic, the language of Palestinian Jews for centuries following the Babylonian Exile-lie in their approach to translation: within a typically literal rendering of a text, they incorporate extensive exegetical material, additions, and paraphrases that reveal important information about Second Temple Judaism, its interpretation of its bible, and its beliefs. This remarkable survey introduces critical knowledge and insights that have emerged over the past forty years, including targum manuscripts discovered this century and targums known in Aramaic but only recently translated into English. Prolific scholars Flesher and Chilton guide readers in understanding the development of the targums; their relationship to the Hebrew Bible; their dates, language, and place in the history of Christianity and Judaism; and their theologies and methods of interpretation. "With clear presentation of current research and the issues involved, including the Targums and the New Testament, and a rich bibliography, this is the most complete-and up-to-date-introduction to the Targums. An outstanding, highly recommended achievement." Martin McNamara , Emeritus Professor of Scripture, Milltown Institute, Dublin, Ireland
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1 online resource (xvii, 557 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [511]-539), and index. :
9789004218178 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Studies on the text of the New Testament and early Christianity : essays in honour of Michael W. Holmes on the occasion of his 65th birthday /
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The collection of essays focuses on the twin areas of research undertaken by Prof. Michael W. Holmes. These are the sub-disciplines of textual criticism and the study of the Apostolic Fathers. The first part of the volume on textual criticism focuses on issues of method, the praxis of editing and collating texts, and discussions pertaining to individual variants. The second part of the volume assembles essays on the Apostolic Fathers. There is a particular focus on the person and writings of Polycarp, since this is the area of research where Prof. Holmes has worked most intensively.
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1 online resource (xxiii, 706 pages) : portrait. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004300026 :
0077-8842 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Jews and Christians in the first and second centuries : how to write their history /
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The papers in this volume are organized around the ambition to reboot the writing of history about Jews and Christians in the first two centuries CE. Many are convinced of the need for a new perspective on this crucial period that saw both the birth of rabbinic Judaism and apostolic Christianity and their parting of ways. Yet the traditional paradigm of Judaism and Christianity as being two totally different systems of life and thought still predominates in thought, handbooks, and programs of research and teaching. As a result, the sources are still being read as reflecting two separate histories, one Jewish and the other Christian. The contributors to the present work were invited to attempt to approach the ancient Jewish and Christian sources as belonging to one single history, precisely in order to get a better view of the process that separated both communities. In doing so, it is necessary to pay constant attention to the common factor affecting both communities: the Roman Empire. Roman history and Roman archaeology should provide the basis on which to study and write the shared history of Jews and Christians and the process of their separation. A basic intuition is that the series of wars between Jews and Romans between 66 and 135 CE - a phenomenon unrivalled in antiquity - must have played a major role in this process. Thus the papers are arranged around three focal points: (1) the varieties of Jewish and Christian expression in late Second Temple times, (2) the socio-economic, military, and ideological processes during the period of the revolts, and (3) the post-revolt Jewish and Christian identities that emerged. As such, the volume is part of a larger project that is to result in a source book and a history of Jews and Christians in the first and second centuries.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004278479 :
1877-4970 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Gospel of Thomas and Christian origins : essays on the Fifth Gospel /
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The essays collected in The Gospel of Thomas and Christian Origins offer a series new chapters in the history of Christianity's first century. Stephen J. Patterson, whose work on the Gospel of Thomas has circulated widely for more than two decades, argues that taking this new source seriously will require rethinking a number of basic issues, including the assumed apocalyptic origins of early Christian faith, the supposed centrality of Jesus' death and resurrection, and the role of Platonism in formulation of both orthodox and heterodox Christian theology.
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A collection of previously published essays; dates of original publication range from 1991 to 2013. :
1 online resource (xiv, 311 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004256217 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
A companion to second-century Christian "heretics" /
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The book illuminates "the other side" of early Christianity by examining thinkers and movements that were embraced by many second-century religious seekers as legitimate forms of Christianity, but which are now largely forgotten, or are known only from the characteristics attributed to them in the writings of their main adversaries. The collection deals with the following teachers and movements: Basilides, Sethianism, Valentinus' school, Marcion, Tatian, Bardaisan, Montanists, Cerinthus, Ebionites, Nazarenes, Jewish-Christianity of the Pseudo-Clementines , and Elchasites. Where appropriate, the authors have included an overview of the life and significant publications of the "heretics," along with a description of their theologies and movements. Therefore, this volume can serve as a handbook of the second-century "heretics" and their "heresies." Since all the chapters have been written by specialists who wrestle daily with their research themes, the contributions also offer new perspectives and insights stimulating further discussion on this fascinating-but often neglected-side of early Christianity.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004186866 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Crisis management in late antiquity (410-590 CE) : a survey of the evidence from episcopal letters /
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Pauline Allen and Bronwen Neil investigate crisis management as conducted by the increasingly important episcopal class in the 5th and 6th centuries. Their basic source is the neglected corpus of bishops' letters in Greek and Latin, the letter being the most significant mode of communication and information-transfer in the period from 410 to 590 CE. The volume brings together into a wider setting a wealth of previous international research on episcopal strategies for dealing with crises of various kinds. Six broad categories of crisis are identified and analysed: population displacement, natural disasters, religious disputes and religious violence, social abuses and the breakdown of the structures of dependence. Individual case-studies of episcopal management are provided for each of these categories. This is the first comprehensive treatment of crisis management in the late-antique world, and the first survey of episcopal letter-writing across the later Roman empire.
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1 online resource (xiii, 284 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [231]-239) and index. :
9789004254824 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The impact of scripture in early Christianity /
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One of the most conspicuous innovations of early Christianity within Greco-Roman culture is its reliance upon a collection of authoritative texts. The ultimate author of Scripture was thought to be God Himself, whose will could and should be sought and found in these holy writings. For this reason it is not surprising that very soon these texts not only became the object of careful attention and scholarly study, but also put their stamp on the various forms and manifestations of early Christian life, such as martyrdom, asceticism, liturgy, art, and literature. This multifarious influence of Scripture is the subject of The Impact of Scripture in Early Christianity . It contains fourteen contributions, predominantly in English, by Belgian and Dutch scholars which have been gathered in a thematically ordered collection.
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1 online resource (xiii, 278 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004313118 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Order and (dis)order in the first Christian century : a general survey of attitudes /
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Articulate first century Mediterranean society, Jewish and Christian included, expressly favoured harmonious order in society, in individuals, in communication, and in thought. Its common basis was the patriarchal family, the rule of law, rational self-control, and rational thought. Yet there was also resistance to oppressive and unjust order in all spheres; and while law could be held educative, yet there were substantial first century critiques of law, not just Paul's, and awareness that judicial procedures could be chaotic and biassed. Strands of such dissidence appear in Jesus and in Paul, with significant relevance for any understanding of the early Christian movement(s) and contemporary Judaism(s) in Graeco-Roman context, but also with important implications for any practical reflections and application.
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1 online resource (xiii, 395 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 319-353) and indexes. :
9789004255814 :
0167-9732 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Sacred scripture and secular struggles /
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Twelve leading scholars have collaborated on this unique volume, bringing their biblical and patristic expertise together to show how the first followers of Jesus used their own canonical scriptures to address concerns central to life in the Roman Empire. Sacred Scripture and Secular Struggles offers an overview of how early Christians approached and appropriated biblical texts in addressing wider societal issues of imperial power, slavery, the use of wealth, suicide and other fundamental issues brought about by the convergence of empire and ecclesia.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004304567 :
1542-1295 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Violence in ancient Christianity : victims and perpetrators /
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Ancient Christianity had an ambivalent stance toward violence. Jesus had instructed his disciples to love their enemies, and in the first centuries Christians were proud of this lofty teaching and tried to apply it to their persecutors and to competing religious groups. Yet at the same time they testify to their virulent verbal criticism of Jews, heretics and pagans, who could not accept the Christian exclusiveness. After emperor Constantine had turned to Christianity, Christians acquired the opportunity to use violence toward competing groups and pagans, even though they were instructed to love them personally and Jewish-Christian relationships flourished at grass root level. General analyses and case studies demonstrate that the fashionable distinction between intolerant monotheism and tolerant polytheism must be qualified.
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1 online resource (viii, 252 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004274907 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Gregory of Nyssa : the minor treatises on trinitarian theology and Apollinarism : proceedings of the 11th International Colloquium on Gregory of Nyssa (Tübingen, 17-20 September 20...
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These proceedings present the results of the 11th International Colloquium on Gregory of Nyssa held in Tübingen in 2008. The Trinitarian thought of Gregory deserves special attention because of its importance for the ending of the Trinitarian controversy in the late fourth century, paving the way for the widely accepted Trinitarian theology in the fifth century. This volume (which does not include Contra Eunomium ) offers a contribution to the research on Gregory's Trinitarian theology as it is present notably in his so-called minor treatises. It provides a German translation of Ad Eustathium , Ad Graecos , Ad Ablabium , Ad Simplicium , Adversus Macedonianos , and De deitate filii . Detailed analysis of each treatise is accompanied by supporting studies on related theological and philosophical themes, followed by contributions which take into consideration the link between Gregory's Trinitarian thought and the christological question ( In illud tunc et inches per seconde filius , the anti-Apollinarist works).
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1 online resource (xxiv, 711 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004194144 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Studies in ancient Judaism and early Christianity /
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Over the past 45 years Professor Pieter W. van der Horst contributed extensively to the study of ancient Judaism and early Christianity. The 24 papers in this volume, written since his early retirement in 2006, cover a wide range of topics, all of them concerning the religious world of Judaism and Christianity in the Hellenistic, Roman, and early Byzantine era. They reflect his research interests in Jewish epigraphy, Jewish interpretation of the Bible, Jewish prayer culture, the diaspora in Asia Minor, exegetical problems in the writings of Philo and Josephus, Samaritan history, texts from ancient Christianity which have received little attention (the poems of Cyrus of Panopolis, the Doctrina Jacobi nuper baptizati, the Letter of Mara bar Sarapion), and miscellanea such as the pagan myth of Jewish cannibalism, the meaning of the Greek expression 'without God,' the religious significance of sneezing in pagan antiquity, and the variety of stories about pious long-sleepers in the ancient world (pagan, Jewish, Christian).
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004271111 :
0169-734X ;
Pre-Nicene christology in paschal contexts : the case of the divine Noetic anthropos /
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In Pre-Nicene Christology in Paschal Contexts Dragoş A. Giulea re-examines the earliest texts related to the festival of Easter in light of Second Temple traditions. Commonly portrayed as sacrificial lamb, the key actor of the paschal narrative is here designated as heavenly Kabod , Divine Image, King of the Powers, celestial Anthropos, Demiurge, Son of Man, each of these divine names implying a corresponding soteriological function. Dragoş A. Giulea indicates as well that the Greek philosophical vocabulary and certain idioms of the mystery religions inspired new categories which reshaped the traditional way of describing the nature of celestial entities and the epistemological capacities able to access these realities. Thus, the King of the Powers, or the Son of Man, is several times described as a noetic Anthropos, while initiation and noetic perception become the appropriate methods of accessing the divine.
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1 online resource (xviii, 400 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004251700 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Jewish and Christian communal identities in the Roman world /
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Jews and Christians under the Roman Empire shared a unique sense of community. Set apart from their civic and cultic surroundings, both groups resisted complete assimilation into the dominant political and social structures. However, Jewish communities differed from their Christian counterparts in their overall patterns of response to the surrounding challenges. They exhibit diverse levels of integration into the civic fabric of the cities of the Empire and display contrary attitudes towards the creation of trans-local communal networks. The variety of local case studies examined in this volume offers an integrated image of the multiple factors, both internal and external, which determined the role of communal identity in creating a sense of belonging among Jews and Christians under Imperial constraints.
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"This volume presents revised versions of lectures given in October 2013 at a Jerusalem symposium on Jewish and Christian Communal Identities in Antiquity. The Hebrew University's Scholion Center for Interdisciplinary Research in the Humanities and Jewish Studies together with the editorial board of Brill's Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity series kindly co-sponsored the symposium in memory of our colleague Friedrich Avemarie."--Preface. :
1 online resource (xi, 286 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004321694 :
1871-6636 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Christians shaping identity from the Roman Empire to Byzantium : studies inspired by Pauline Allen /
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The essays collected in Christians Shaping Identity celebrate Pauline Allen's significant contribution to early Christian, late antique, and Byzantine studies, especially concerning bishops, heresy/orthodoxy and christology. Covering the period from earliest Christianity to middle Byzantium, the first eighteen essays explore the varied ways in which Christians constructed their own identity and that of the society around them. A final four essays explore the same theme within Roman Catholicism and oriental Christianity in the late 19th to 21st centuries, with particular attention to the subtle relationships between the shaping of the early Christian past and the moulding of Christian identity today. Among the many leading scholars represented are Averil Cameron and Elizabeth A. Clark.
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1 online resource (xv, 520 pages) :
"Publications by Pauline Allen"--Pages 13-21.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004301573 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
A wandering Galilean : essays in honour of Seán Freyne /
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Starting his career as a scholar of the New Testament, Seán Freyne's work became synonymous with the study of Galilee in the Greek and Roman periods. His search for a deeper and more nuanced understanding of Judaism in the Greek and Roman periods and the development of the early Christian movement has led him to interface with scholars in many related disciplines. In order to do justice to the breadth of Seán Freyne's interests, this volume includes contributions from scholars in the fields of Archaeology, Ancient History, Classics, Hebrew Bible, Early Judaism, Rabbinic Judaism, Early Christianity, New Testament, and Medieval Judaism. The resulting volume demonstrates not only the honoree's interdiciplinary interests, but also the interconnectedness of these disciplines.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789047427018 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Light from the Gentiles : Hellenistic philosophy and early Christianity : collected essays, 1959-2012 /
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Rather than viewing the Graeco-Roman world as the "background" against which early Christian texts should be read, Abraham J. Malherbe saw the ancient Mediterranean world as a rich ecology of diverse intellectual traditions that interacted within specific social contexts. These essays, spanning over fifty years, illustrate Malherbe's appreciation of the complexities of this ecology and what is required to explore philological and conceptual connections between early Christian writers, especially Paul and Athenagoras, and their literary counterparts who participated in the religious and philosophical discourse of the wider culture. Malherbe's essays laid the groundwork for his magisterial commentary on the Thessalonian correspondence and launched the contemporary study of Hellenistic moral philosophy and early Christianity.
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"Volume 1 / 2." :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004256521