Manichaeism and Early Christianity : Selected Papers from the 2019 Pretoria Congress and Consultation /
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"Manichaeism and Early Christianity comprises the selected papers from the 2019 Pretoria Congress and Consultation. The sixteen chapters focus on where and how Gnostic Manichaeism interfered not only with other forms of Gnosticism, but above all with the writings and representatives of mainstream Christianity during the early centuries of our era. Key texts dealt with are a number of Nag Hammadi writings (including the Gospel of Thomas) as well as figures such as Marcion, Tatian, Ephrem the Syrian, Chrysostom, Pelagius and-not least-Augustine and his pupil Evodius"--
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004445468
9789004445451
Philo in early Christian literature : a survey /
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It is a remarkable fact that the writings of Philo, the Jew from Alexandria, were preserved because they were taken up in the Christian tradition. But the story of how this process of reception and appropriation took place has never been systematically research. In this book the author first examines how Philo's works are related to the New Testament and the earliest Chritian writing, and then how they were used by Greek and Latin church fathers up to 400 c.e., with special attention to the contributions of Clement, Origen, Didymus, Eusebius, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, and Augustine. Philo in Early Christian Literature is a valuable guide to the state of scholarly research on a subject that has thus far been investigated in a rather piecemeal fashion.
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1 online resource (xv, 418 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 357-392) and indexes. :
9789004275164 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Studies in rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity : text and context /
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The question of the origins of Christianity is a theme still discussed in historical research. This book investigates the relations between the Rabbinic Judaism and the Primitive Christianity. It studies the factors of influences, the polemics in the texts and factors of mutual conceptions between two new movements: Rabbinical Judaism and Primitive Christianity. Finally it offers an analysis of the perception of Christianity in the corpus of talmudic literature. La question des origines du christianisme est un thème encore débattu par la recherche historique. Cet ouvrage choisi d'explorer les relations entre le judaïsme rabbinique et le christianisme primitif. Il étudie les facteurs d'influences, les polémiques dont témoignent les textes et les emprunts réciproques entre les deux mouvements naissant : le judaïsme rabbinique et le christiansime primitif. Il propose également une analyse sur la perception du christianisme à l'oeuvre dans la littérature talmudique.
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"This volume emerged from the symposium held at Paris in March 2007 on the theme 'Rome, Athens or Jerusalem. Where does Christianity come from?' under the auspices of the Alliance Israelite Universelle" -- Introd. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004190627 :
1871-6636 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Sōtēria: salvation in early Christianity and antiquity : festschrift in honour of Cilliers Breytenbach on the occasion of his 65th birthday /
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In Sōtēria: Salvation in Early Christianity and Antiquity, an international team of scholars assembles to honour the distinguished academic career of New Testament scholar Cilliers Breytenbach. Colleagues and friends consider in which manner concepts of salvation were constructed in early Christianity and its Jewish and Graeco-Roman contexts. Studies on aspects of soteriology in the New Testament writings, such as in the narratives on Jesus' life and work, and theological interpretations of his life and death in the epistolary literature, are supplemented by studies on salvation in the Apostolic Fathers, Marcion, early Christian inscriptions and Antiochian theology. The volume starts with some exemplary studies on salvation in the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea scrolls, the Septuagint, and popular Graeco-Roman literature and philosophy. Furthermore, some contributions shed light on the ancient cultural background of early Christian soteriological concepts.
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Includes index. :
1 online resource. :
9789004396883
The Jewish apocalyptic heritage in early Christianity /
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This volume contains five chapters which investigate the early Christian appropriations of Jewish apocalyptic material. An introductory chapter surveys ancient perceptions of the apocalyses as well as their function, authority, and survival in the early Church. The second chapter focuses on a specific tradition by exploring the status of the Enoch-literature, the use of the fallen-angel motif, and the identification of Enoch as an eschatological witness. Christian transmission of Jewish texts, a topic whose significance is more and more being recognized, is the subject of chapter three which analyzes what happend to 4,5 and 6 Ezra as they were copied and edited in Christian circles. Chapter four studies the early Christian appropriation and reinterpretation of Jewish apocalyptic chronologies, especially Daniel's vision of 70 weeks. The fifth and last chapter is devoted to the use and influence of Jewish apocalyptic traditions among Christian sectarian groups in Asia Minor and particularly in Egypt. Taken together these chapters written by four authors, offer illuminating examples of how Jewish apocalyptic texts and traditions fared in early Christianity. Editors James C. VanderKam is lecturing at the University of Notre Dame; William Adler is lecturer at North Carolina State University. Series: Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum Section 1 - The Jewish people in the first century Historial geography, political history, social, cultural and religious life and institutions Edited by S. Safrai and M. Stern in cooperation with D. Flusser and W.C. van Unnik Section 2 - The Literature of the Jewish People in the Period of the Second Temple and the Talmud Section 3 - Jewish Traditions in Early Christian Literature
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1 online resource (xii, 286 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 242-258) and indexes. :
9789004275171 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The firstborn son in ancient Judaism and early Christianity : a study of primogeniture and Christology /
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Despite scholars' ongoing historical and sociological investigations into the ancient family, the right and the status of the firstborn son have been rarely explored by NT scholars, and this topic has not attracted the careful attention that it deserves. This work offers a study of the meaning of the firstborn son in the New Testament paying specific attention to the concept of primogeniture in the Old Testament and Jewish literature. This study argues that primogeniture was a unique institution in Jewish society, and that the title of the firstborn son indicates his access to the promise of Israel, and is associated with the right of the inheritance (i.e., primogeniture) including the Land and the special status of Israel.
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"This monograph is a revised version of [the author's] doctoral thesis, submitted to the University of Aberdeen in 2015"-- Acknowledgements. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004394940 :
0928-0731 ;
Early Christian-Muslim debate on the unity of God : three Christian scholars and their engagement with Islamic thought (9th century c.e.) /
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Early Christian-Muslim Debate on the Unity of God examines the writings of three of the earliest known Christian theologians to write comprehensive theological works in Arabic. Theodore Abū Qurra, Abū Rā'iṭa and 'Ammār al-Baṣrī provide valuable insight into early Christian-Muslim debate shortly after the rise of the Islamic empire. Through close examination of their writings on the doctrine of the Trinity, Sara Husseini demonstrates the creativity of these theologians, who make use of language, style and argumentation characteristic of Islamic theological thought (kalām), in order to help articulate their long-established religious truths. Husseini offers close analysis of the authors individually and comparatively, exploring their engagement with Islamic theology and their role in this fascinating period.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004279698 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The ethics of obscene speech in early Christianity and its environment /
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This book aims to contextualize early Christian rhetoric about foul language by asking such questions as: Where was foul language encountered? What were the conventional arguments for avoiding (or for using) obscene words? How would the avoidance of such speech have been interpreted by others? A careful examination of the ancient uses of and discourse about foul language illuminates the moral logic implicit in various Jewish and Christian texts (e.g. Sirach, Colossians, Ephesians, the Didache, and the writings of Clement of Alexandria). Although the Christians of the first two centuries were consistently opposed to foul language, they had a variety of reasons for their moral stance, and they held different views about what role speech should play in forming their identity as a \'holy people.\'
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [241]-260) and index. :
9789047433675 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Ad fontes : original manuscripts and their significance for studying early Christianity : selected essays /
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This selection of essays with autobiographical introduction aims to demonstrate the value of working with the original manuscripts in detail in order to gain a more profound understanding of the many facets of Early Christianity, in particular the texts and background of the New Testament. This book should persuade other scholars to once again take a look at the original manuscripts, whether it be a textual witness to the New Testament, some apocryphal text, a reference to early Christian life, or even a specific socio-historical feature of the life of the common people in the days of early Christianity. The specific selection of essays has been chosen with this purpose in mind, presenting editions of papyri and first-hand information, and showing how to base even complex constructs of ideas on a studious treatment of manuscripts. The essays demonstrate the value of studying manuscripts for lexicography, painting a picture of a socio-historical background, and showing how to assess and evaluate data methodologically.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789047421344 :
1574-7085 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The imperial cult and the development of church order : concepts and images of authority in paganism and early Christianity before the Age of Cyprian /
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Recent studies have re-assessed Emperor worship as a genuinely religious response to the metaphysics of social order. Brent argues that Augustus' revolution represented a genuinely religious reformation of Republican religion that had failed in its metaphysical objectives. Against this backcloth, Luke, John the Seer, Clement, Ignatius and the Apologists refashioned Christian theology as an alternative answer to that metaphysical failure. Callistus and Pseudo-Hippolytus gave different responses to Severan images of imperial power. The early, Monarchian theology of the Trinity was thus to become a reflection of imperial culture and its justification that was later to be articulated both in Neo-Platonism, and in Cyprian's view of episcopal Order. Contra-cultural theory is employed as a sociological model to examine the interaction between developing Pagan and Christian social order.
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1 online resource (xxii, 369 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 331-343) and indexes. :
9789004313125 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Fair play : diversity and conflicts in early Christianity : essays in honour of Heikki Räisänen /
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This collection of essays in honour of Heikki Räisänen, New Testament professor at the University of Helsinki, consists of 22 essays written by his colleagues and students on Jesus, the gospels, Paul, early Christianity, and biblical interpretation. Räisänen's own research has been characterized by methodological awareness combined with a keen interest in ethical issues. Both these aspects come to expression in his insistence on \'fair play\' as a correct scholarly attitude involving an honest dialogue, a real encounter, and a recognition of diverging opinions. In this spirit, most of the essays in this book lay emphasis on issues related to early Christian diversity and conflicts, and to their challenge in modern society. The book is useful for scholars, academic teachers and students interested in various aspects of the New Testament, early Christianity, and hermeneutics.
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1 online resource (xii, 592 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004268210 :
0167-9732 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Portraits of spiritual authority : religious power in early Christianity, Byzantium, and the Christian Orient /
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This volume deals with several figures of spiritual authority in Christianity during late antiquity and the early middle ages, and seeks to illuminate the way in which the struggle for religious influence evolved with changes in church and society. A number of literary portraits are examined, portraits which, in various literary genres, are themselves designed to establish and propagate the authority of the people whose lives and activities they describe. The sequence begins with visionary and prophetic figures of the second and third centuries, proceeds through several testimonies from the fourth century to the power of holy persons, moves on to Syriac portraits of the fifth to seventh centuries, and ends with the demise of the authority of the holy man in the eighth.
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1 online resource (xiii, 227 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004295919 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Birthing salvation : gender and class in early Christian childbearing discourse /
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In Birthing Salvation Anna Rebecca Solevåg explores the theme of childbearing in early Christian discourse. The book maps the importance of women's childbearing in Greco-Roman culture and shows how childbearing discourse interfaces with salvation discourse in three early Christian texts: the Pastoral Epistles, the Acts of Andrew and the Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas. Issues of gender and class are explored through an intersectional analysis. In particular, the institution of slavery, and its implications for ideas about salvation in these texts are drawn out. Birthing Salvation offers fresh interpretations of these texts, including the peculiar statement in 1 Tim 2:15 that women "will be saved through childbearing."
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1 online resource (xiv, 287 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 257-274) and index. :
9789004257788 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Angelomorphic pneumatology : Clement of Alexandria and other early Christian witnesses /
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This book discusses the occurrence of angelic imagery in early Christian discourse about the Holy Spirit. Taking as its entry-point Clement of Alexandria's less explored writings, Excerpta ex Theodoto, Eclogae propheticae, and Adumbrationes, it shows that Clement's angelomorphic pneumatology occurs in tandem with spirit christology, within a theological framework still characterized by a binitarian orientation. This complex theological articulation, supported by the exegesis of specific biblical passages (Zech 4: 10; Isa 11 : 2-3; Matt 18:10), reworks Jewish and Christian traditions about the seven first-created angels, and constitutes a relatively widespread phenomenon in early Christianity. Evidence to support this claim is presented in the course of separate studies of Revelation, the Shepherd of Hermas, Justin Martyr, and Aphrahat.
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1 online resource (xxix, 232 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 195-215) and indexes. :
9789047444480 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Did God Care? : Providence, Dualism, and Will in Later Greek and Early Christian Philosophy /
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Is God involved? Why do bad things happen to good people? What is up to us? These questions were explored in Mediterranean antiquity with reference to 'providence' ( pronoia ). In Did God Care? Dylan Burns offers the first comprehensive survey of providence in ancient philosophy that brings together the most important Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Syriac sources, from Plato to Plotinus and the Gnostics. Burns demonstrates how the philosophical problems encompassed by providence transformed in the first centuries CE, yielding influential notions about divine care, evil, creation, omniscience, fate, and free will that remain with us today. These transformations were not independent developments of 'Pagan philosophy' and 'Christian theology,' but include fruits of mutually influential engagement between Hellenic and Christian philosophers.
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1 online resource. :
9789004432994
9789004432970
Mapping the New Testament : early Christian writings as a witness for Jewish biblical exegesis /
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This volume discusses links between the exegetical trends current in various Second Temple Jewish circles and patterns of New Testament conversation with Jewish Scripture. The standard focus on Jewish background of Christianity is complemented here by an alternative direction: the "mapping" of New Testament evidence as the early witness to more general trends attested in their fully developed form only later, in rabbinic literature. The question that dominates much of the discussion is: How can the New Testament be used for creating a fuller picture of Second Temple Jewish exegesis? The book deals with a representative variety of samples from different layers of the New Testament tradition: Synoptic Gospels, Pauline Epistles and Acts.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047420958 :
1388-2074 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Tod und Ritual in den christlichen Gemeinden der Antike /
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The development of Early Christian rituals in connection with death and burial has so far not sufficiently been explored. Volp's study focuses on the surviving literary sources-both pagan and Christian-, together with inscriptions and other archaeological remains while taking into account recent results from science and humanities. A summary of death and ritual in the ancient Mediterranean religions is followed by detailed analyses of the Christian sources from the 2nd to the 5th century. Thus, basic developments are being discovered which led to and accompanied the forming of Christian rituals, such as ritual purity or the social structure of family and society. Being the first such interdisciplinary approach, it also represents the first monographic work on the topic since 1941.
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Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--Universität Bonn, 2001. :
1 online resource (xii, 337 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 273-309) and indexes. :
9789004313309 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Explaining Christian origins and early Judaism : contributions from cognitive and social science /
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Cognitive science of religion is a radically new paradigm in the study of religion. Apart from psychology and anthropology of religion, also historians of religion have shown increasing interest in this approach. This volume is groundbreaking in combining cognitive analysis with historical and social-scientific approaches to biblical materials, Christian origins, and early Judaism. The book is in four parts: an introduction to cognitive and social-scientific approaches, applications of cognitive science, applications of conceptual blending theory, and applications of socio-cognitive analyses. The book will be of interest for historians of religion, biblical scholars, and those working in the cognitive science of religion.
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Proceedings of a symposium held Aug.-Sept. 2005 at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789047431961 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.