Scriptural interpretation and community self-definition in Luke-Acts and the writings of Justin Marty r
:
Scholars of Christian origins often regard Luke-Acts and the writings of Justin Martyr as similar accounts of the replacement of Israel by the non-Jewish church. According to this view, both authors commandeer the Jewish scriptures as the sole possession of non-Jewish Christ-believers, rather than of Jews. Offering a fresh analysis of the exegesis of Luke and Justin, this book uncovers significant differences between their respective depictions of the privileged status that Christ-believers hold in relation to the Jewish scriptures. Although both authors argue that Christ-believers alone possess an inspired capacity to interpret the Jewish scriptures, unlike Justin, Luke envisages an ongoing role for the Jewish people as recipients of the promises that God pledged to Israel.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [283]-310) and index. :
9789004201590 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Demons and the Devil in ancient and medieval Christianity /
:
This collection of essays approaches the role of demons and the devil in ancient and medieval Christianity from a variety of scholarly perspectives: historical, philosophical, and theological as well as philological, liturgical, and theoretical. In the opening article Gerd Theissen presents a wide-ranging overview of the role of the devil, spanning the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and patristic literature. The contributions that follow address texts on the devil, demons, and evil, and are drawn from ancient philosophy, the New Testament, early Christian apologetics, hagiography, and history. Covering primarily the patristic period, the volume also contains articles on medieval sources. The introduction discusses the different angles of approach found in the articles in an effort to shed fresh light on this familiar but also uniquely troubling theme.
:
Based on a conference held Oct. 6-7, 2006 in Heeze, Netherlands. :
1 online resource (xii, 257 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004208056 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The mission of the church in Paul's letter to the Philippians in the context of ancient Judaism /
:
Paul seemingly nowhere in his letters commands his congregations to preach the gospel. Therefore many scholars have concluded that Paul's thinking had little or no place for a mission of the church. This study undertakes a fresh investigation of the question by devoting close attention to a text hitherto overlooked in discussion of early Christian mission, Paul's letter to the Philippians. The Jewish context of Paul's thought in Philippians is the key to unlocking his understanding of church and mission in the letter. The study accordingly begins in Part One with an investigation of conversion of gentiles in ancient Judaism. Part Two, drawing upon this Jewish context, focuses on close exegesis of Philippians, revealing the crucial place of the mission of the church in Paul's thought. The questions addressed by this study go to the heart of our understanding of Paul and of mission in earliest Christianity.
:
1 online resource (xv, 380 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047415831 :
0167-9732 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Authority of Law in the Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism, Tracing the Origins of Legal Obligation from Ezra to Qumran.
:
In The Authority of Law in the Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism , Vroom identifies a development in the authority of written law that took place in early Judaism. Ever since Assyriologists began to recognize that the Mesopotamian law collections did not function as law codes do today-as a source of binding obligation-scholars have grappled with the question of when the Pentateuchal legal corpora came to be treated as legally binding. Vroom draws from legal theory to provide a theoretical framework for understanding the nature of legal authority, and develops a methodology for identifying instances in which legal texts were treated as binding law by ancient interpreters. This method is applied to a selection of legal-interpretive texts: Ezra-Nehemiah, Temple Scroll, the Qumran rule texts, and the Samaritan Pentateuch.
:
1 online resource. :
9789004381643
Calendar and chronology, Jewish and Christian : biblical, intertestamental and patristic studies /
:
Judaism and Christianity are both religions of history and remembrance and rely on calendars and accurate chronologies to recall and reenact the signal events in their histories. The import of dividing the day and night, of knowing the moment of Sabbath and Lord's Day, of properly timing Passover and Easter cannot be overstated. Throughout the history of both religions, these issues were central to worship and practice of religion and had far-reaching effects from messianism to prophecy. But their very centrality meant they were issues of controversy and debate. Roger Beckwith looks carefully at the Jewish and Christian records concerning calendar and chronology, compares, contrasts, and challenges rival solutions to these complex questions. His breath of research - from the ancient Near East to Qumran, from Josephus and Philo to the Maccabean writings, and from the points of view of Paul and Jesus to the Fathers of the church - and his focus on the more controversial issues of dating make Calendar and Chronology an essential book for any serious scholar of history, liturgy, worship, and interpretation. This publication has also been published in paperback, please click here for details.
:
1 online resource (xv, 333 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004332874 :
0169-734X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Wrestling with angels : a study of the relationship between angels and humans in ancient Jewish literature and the New Testament /
: 1 online resource. : Includes bibliographical references (p. 237-254) and indexes. : 9789047412809 : 0169-734X ; : Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Aux origines des messianismes juifs : actes du colloque international tenu en Sorbonne, à Paris, les 8 et 9 juin 2010 /
:
Les termes « messie » et « messianisme » recouvrent aujourd'hui une désignation exagérément large au regard de leur sens initial dans le judaïsme et le christianisme. Ils sont utilisés dans des contextes qui empruntent souvent inconsciemment aux modèles rhétoriques à l'oeuvre dans le judaïsme ancien et dans le christianisme primitif. Le livre s'intéresse à ces modèles qui caractérisent l'histoire intellectuelle du premier messianisme juif. Tout d'abord, l'émergence du messianisme est examinée à travers les modèles de divinisation du roi dans le Proche-Orient ancien (Égypte, Mésopotamie, culture cananéenne), et à travers l'évolution de l'idéologie royale dans l'Israël ancien. D'autre part, les premiers textes chrétiens ont mis en avant la fusion des attentes messianiques en une seule figure de messie (Jésus-Christ), mais la pluralité des figures messianiques semble prévaloir dans la littérature juive ancienne. ____________________________________ The words 'messiah' and 'messianism' are presently used in a too wide significance in comparison with their original meaning in Judaism and Christianity. Nevertheless, they often borrow unconsciously from rhetorical models at work in Ancient Judaism and Christianity. The book constitutes a series of studies on these models which characterize the intellectual history of the first Jewish messianism. Firstly, the birth of messianism is studied across the divinization of kings in Ancient Near East (Egypt, Mesopotamia, Canaanite culture) and secondly, the change of royal ideology in Ancient Israel to messianism. Thirdly, the first Christian texts have promoted the merging of messianic expectations in one messianic figure (Jesus-Christ), but the plurality of messiahs seem to prevail in early Jewish literature.
:
1 online resource (xi, 240 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004251670 :
0083-5889 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Historiography and self-definition : Josephos, Luke-Acts, and apologetic historiography /
:
For centuries scholars have recognized the apologetic character of the Hellenistic Jewish historians, Josephos, and Luke-Acts; they have not, however, adequately addressed their possible relationships to each other and to their wider cultures. In this first full systematic effort to set these authors within the framework of Greco-Roman traditions, Professor Sterling has used genre criticism as a method for locating a distinct tradition of historical writing, apologetic historiography. Apologetic historiography is the story of a subgroup of people which deliberately Hellenizes the traditions of the group in an effort to provide a self-definition within the context of the larger world. It arose as a result of a dialectic relationship with Greek ethnography. This work traces the evolution of this tradition through three major eras of eastern Mediterranean history spanning six hundred years: the Persian, the Greek, and the Roman.
:
1 online resource (xiv, 500 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 394-426) and indexes. :
9789004266940 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Exile and suffering : a selection of papers read at the 50th anniversary meeting of the Old Testament Society of South Africa OTWSA/OTSSA, Pretoria, August 2007 /
:
At the fiftieth anniversary of the Old Testament Society of South Africa a conference was organized on the theme Exile and Suffering. This volume contains a selection of the papers presented. Focal questions are such themes as: What do we really know about the Exile? To what degree did suffering take place? How did the Ancient Israelites cope with the disaster? Where the ancinet traditions sufficient to deal with the Exile? Or did this period produce new forms of 'theology'? The significance of the Exile as a matrix for understanding suffering until this day is also dealt with.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047424352 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The land of Israel in Bible, history, and theology : studies in honour of Ed Noort /
:
This book deals with many aspects of the land of Israel. In the first part, the emphasis is on descriptions of the land in Joshua and other books of the Hebrew anf Greek Bible. In the second part, the focus shifts to the land in history and theology: reception-history of biblical texts dealing with the land, archaeology of Palestine, and theological-hermeneutical implications of taking the land traditions of the Bible seriously. The result is a rich collection of articles on one of the main themes of the Old Testament; a theme that has a fascinating, although not always unproblematic reception history.
:
1 online resource. :
"A bibliography of Ed Noort": pages [431]-440.
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047428602 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Persecution in 1 Peter : differentiating and contextualizing early Christian suffering /
:
In Persecution in 1 Peter , Travis B. Williams offers a comprehensive and detailed socio-historical investigation into the nature of suffering in 1 Peter. While interpreters commonly portray the conflict situation addressed by the epistle as \'unofficial\' persecution consisting of discrimination and verbal abuse, Williams demonstrates the inadequacy of this modern consensus by situating the letter against the backdrop of conflict management in first-century CE Asia Minor. Drawing on a wide range of historical evidence and on modern social-psychological perspectives, this work reconstructs the conflict situation of the Anatolian audience and offers important insights regarding the legal culpability of Christians following the Neronian persecution, the roles of local and provincial authorities in the judicial process, and the variegated conflict experiences of different socio-economic groups within the Christian communities.
:
1 online resource (xxvii, 483 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [387]-446) and indexes. :
9789004242012 :
0167-9732 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Salvation for the righteous revealed : Jesus amid covenantal and messianic expectations in Second Temple Judaism /
:
Why is there such an ethical emphasis in Jesus' gospel proclamation? This work finds the answer in Jesus meeting his audience within their own conceptual realms and then expanding those realms to point to the nature of his salvation. The bulk of this work investigates the soteriology of Second Temple Judaism, especially of the Qumran Scrolls. The apocalyptic lesson was the demand of a greater covenantal obedience, held in tension with God's grace, a demand met through sectarian revelation and involving a somewhat diverse messianism. Within these conceptions, Jesus affirms that salvation is indeed for the "righteous," but as defined through himself as the unique Messiah. This work is particularly useful regarding the Jesus-Paul debate, for it provides a diachronic solution grounded in the cultural-historical milieu of the times.
:
1 online resource (xvii, 391 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 331-362) and indexes. :
9789004331129 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Protest or propaganda : war in the Old Testament book of Kings and in contemporaneous ancient Near Eastern texts /
:
In this study, the war stories from the Old Testament book of Kings are compared to ten extrabiblical texts. Narratological analysis is applied to deconstruct the ideology of the respective literary compositions. The Old Testament ideology of war seems to be neither typically Israelite, as Gerhardt von Rad put it, nor commonly Ancient Near Eastern, as Manfred Weippert thought it to be. This poses the question whether the reading experience of biblical war stories is so very different from, for instance, Assyrian royal inscriptions, both in terms of its literary value and its ideological bias. Narratological analysis turns out to be a strong tool for explaining the similarities and distinctive features of the respective texts.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [689]-700) and indexes. :
9789047443414 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Order and (dis)order in the first Christian century : a general survey of attitudes /
:
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.
:
1 online resource (xiii, 395 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 319-353) and indexes. :
9789004255814 :
0167-9732 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
La guerre et les rites de guerre dans le judaïsme du deuxième Temple /
:
This work deals with the Jewish warfare in the Hellenistic and Roman Antiquity from the point of view of the religious rites which, for the Ancients, were a necessary part of all social activity. The author rejects the traditional concept of "Holy War" and prefers to emphasise the diversity of representations of war in the Judaism of the Second Temple. The book deals with questions linked to the status of warriors and priests who were involved in war with regard to purity laws. It analyses the rituals specific to military operations. It deals with the Sabbath, with the war oracle of the ourim and toummim as well as the different types of sacrifices associated with war. The book presents a comprehensive but diverse and contrasted portrait of the Jewish practises and representations of war in Ancient times.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047405535
9789004138971
'You are a priest forever' : Second Temple Jewish messianism and the priestly christology of the Epistle to the Hebrews /
:
Scholars have long questioned the conceptual background for the priestly Christology of the Epistle to the Hebrews, with suggestions including Gnosticism, the thought of Philo of Alexandria, common themes in early Christian theology and exegesis, and the creativity of the author of Hebrews himself. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls prompted waves of enthusiasm for understanding Hebrews in that context, both in terms of the Qumran sect's priestly messianism and understanding of Melchizedek, but claims often were excessive and the approach was discredited. The present study reevaluates the priestly Christology of Hebrews and the presentations of the messianic priest and Melchizedek in the Qumran texts, arguing that the latter do indeed provide the closest parallels to Hebrews' thought.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [205]-224) and index. :
9789047427636 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Das Ezechielbuch als Trauma-Literatur /
:
The book of Ezekiel has long astonished its readership. In the history of exegesis, the book's (supposed) author has often been regarded as mad or ill, or as suffering from \'Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder\' according to a recent diagnosis. The present study radicalizes this approach by investigating the book of Ezekiel as trauma literature. On the basis of a multi-faceted trauma hermeneutics the peculiarities as well as the inconsistencies of the book are shown to be material aspects of a fictionalised trauma process in the context of Israel's experiences of siege warfare and mass deportation in the early 6th century bce. The analysis demonstrates that the potential for violence inherent in the catastrophe has created not only an intense discourse about blame and punishment but also a theologically disturbing picture of a traumatized deity; in both cases the purpose is to assure the survival of Yhwh and the people. Das Ezechielbuch hat seine Leserschaft seit jeher verwundert und verwirrt. Den vermeintlichen Autor des Buches hat man im Laufe der Auslegungsgeschichte immer wieder pathologisiert - zuletzt ist Ezechiel mehrfach die Diagnose "Posttraumatische Belastungsstörung" attestiert worden. Die vorliegende Studie nimmt diesen Krankheitsansatz auf und radikalisiert ihn, indem sie das Ezechielbuch konsequent als fiktionale Trauma-Literatur analysiert. Vor dem Hintergrund einer mehrdimensionalen Trauma-Hermeneutik erschließt sie die Ezechielprophetie neu als literarisch-theologische Auseinandersetzung mit den traumatisierenden Kriegsereignissen, die Juda und Jerusalem zu Beginn des 6. Jh.s volumeu.Z. getroffen haben. Es zeigt sich, dass die ungeheure Gewaltfülle der Exilskatastrophe nicht nur einen massiven Schuld-Strafe-Diskurs, sondern auch das theologisch erschütternde Bild einer traumatisierten Gottheit aus sich herausgesetzt hat - beides mit dem Ziel, das Überleben JHWHs und des Volkes zu sichern.
:
Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--Universität Marburg, 2011. :
1 online resource (xvi, 738 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [687]-714) and index. :
9789004227453 :
0083-5889 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.