The Epistles for All Christians : Epistolary Literature, Circulation, and The Gospels for All Christians /
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In The Epistles for All Christians, David Smith argues that epistolary literature offers analogous evidence of circulation to the Gospels. Since Richard Bauckham's edited volume The Gospels for All Christians was published in 1998, debate over the validity of the contributors' claims that the Gospels were written for "all Christians" has revolved around interpretation. Smith brings circulation to bear on the conversation. Studying ancient media practices of publication and circulation and using social network theory, Smith makes a compelling case that if the evangelists did not expect their texts to circulate they would be atypical.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004440449
9789004440203
Interactions in Interpretation : The Pilgrimage of Meaning through Biblical Texts and Contexts /
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The concept of intertextuality was originally coined as an instrument in answering the question of how meaning is communicated through texts. The Interactions in Interpretation discusses various aspects of how the world of the Bible (seen as a world of a certain language: a complex of ideas, notions, images, idioms, stories, that are shared and referred to) communicates with other worlds in both directions. The collection of studies follows three types of interactions with marked bearing on understanding: (1) interactions with a particular motif of dream, (2) interactions with a particular text of Isa 6:9-10, (3) intertextuality in changing contexts.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004439825
9789004429635
Rhetorical Criticism of the Bible : A Comprehensive Bibliography with Notes on History and Method /
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This volume is designed as a resource for using rhetorical criticism as a methodology for interpreting the Bible. Rhetorical criticism is treated in the broader context of the growing interest in the study of the literary character of the Bible. The volume is divided into two parts to accommodate both the Old and New Testaments. Each part begins with a discussion of the history and methodology of rhetorical criticism pertinent to that Testament. Here special emphasis is given to the current state and trends of the discipline and its impact on biblical interpretation. These discussions are followed by extensive bibliographies categorized to facilitate working with the published research on specific biblical texts, books, or categories of books.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004497900
9789004099036
The Exegetical and the Ethical : The Bible and the Academy in the Public Square. Essays for the Occasion of Professor John Barton's 70th Birthday /
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Exegesis has ethical dimensions. This is the case for the Bible, which has a foundational status in traditional perspectives that is simultaneously contested in the modern world. This innovative essay collection, largely about Hebrew Bible/Old Testament texts, is written by an international team - all Doktorkinder of a pioneer in this area, Professor John Barton, whose 70th birthday this volume celebrates. With interdisciplinary angles, the essays highlight the roles and responsibilities of the biblical scholar, often located professionally between religious and secular domains. This reflects a broader reality: all readers of texts are engaged ethically in the public square of ideas.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004505490
9789004505483
Johannine Social Identity Formation after the Fall of the Jerusalem Temple : Negotiating Identity in Crisis /
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In Johannine Social Identity Formation after the Fall of the Jerusalem Temple Christopher Porter reads the Fourth Gospel through the lens of social identity theory as means of reconciling the social dislocation and trauma of the destruction of the Jerusalem temple. Analysing the Fourth Gospel in conversation with other temple-removed texts of Qumran, Philo, and Josephus the gospel's intent to renegotiate cultic life without the temple can be seen. Through this analysis it is argued that the Fourth Gospel primarily functions as an intra-mural Jewish text, attempting to negotiate the formation of a Jesus-follower social identity in direct continuity with earlier Jewish shared social narratives. Finally, this work reviews the Johannine Community as an outcome of the Gospel identity formation.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004469822
9789004469815
New Testament Semiotics : Linguistic Signs, the Process of Signification, and the Hermeneutics of Discursive Resistance /
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Focusing on linguistic signs, New Testament Semiotics navigates through different realist and nominalist traditions. From this perspective, Saussure's and Peirce's traditions exhibit similarities. Questioning Derrida's and Eco's semiotics based on their misuse of Peirce's innovations, Dr. Privatdozent Timo Eskola rehabilitates Benveniste and Ricoeur. A sign is about conditions and functions. Sign as a role is a manifestation of participation. Serving as a sign entails participation in a web of relations, participation in a network of meanings, and adoption of a set of rules. We should focus on sentences and networks, not primitive reference or binary oppositions. Enunciations are postulations producing evanescent meanings. Finally, the study suggests a linguistic approach to metatheology that is based on hermeneutics of discursive resistance.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004465763
9789004465756
Sociolinguistic Analysis of the New Testament : Theories and Applications /
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This book introduces sociolinguistic criticism to New Testament studies. The individual essays cover a wide range of sociolinguistic theories (multilingualism, speech communities and individuals, language and social domains, diglossia, digraphia, codeswitching, language maintenance and shift, communication accommodation theory, social identity theory, linguistic politeness theory, discourse analysis, conversation analysis, register analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, ethnography of communication, etc.) that treat topics and issues pertaining to the language and sociolinguistic contexts of the New Testament, social memory, orality and literacy, and the oral traditions of the Gospels, and various texts and genres in the New Testament.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004499744
9789004499737
Kognitionswissenschaftliche Perspektiven auf biblische Visionserzählungen : Am Beispiel der Verklärung (Mk 9,2-9) /
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Das vorliegende Buch bietet einen umfassenden Beitrag zum Bestreben neuro- und kognitionswissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse in die neutestamentliche Exegese zu integrieren. Für dieses Vorhaben eignen sich veränderte Bewusstseinszustände insbesondere, da sie auf allgemein menschlichen Strukturen des Gehirns beruhen und in sehr vielen Kulturen Teil der religiösen Praxis waren und sind. Anklänge daran finden sich auch in biblischen Visionserzählungen. Die Untersuchung bietet neben einer Einführung in die Philosophie des Geistes und notwendigen naturwissenschaftlichen Grundlagen sowie einer hermeneutischen Reflexion eine breit angelegte Darstellung der antiken Erfahrungen mit veränderten Bewusstseinszuständen anhand ihrer Induktionsrituale. Die gewonnenen Erkenntnisse werden dann auf die Verklärungserzählung angewendet. ____________________________________ This book is a comprehensive contribution to the ongoing effort to integrate findings in cognitive science into New Testament studies. Altered states of consciousness are particularly suitable for this attempt as they are a common human property and a widespread religious practice. This study contains an introduction to the basics of philosophy of mind and cognitive studies as well as a hermeneutical reflection. The wide portrayal of ASCs in ancient religious contexts according to the type of induction rituals provides the historic context for the cognitive analysis of the Transfiguration narrative.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004499812
9789004499751
Judges 19-21 and Ruth : Canon as a Voice of Answerability /
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Judges 19-21 is filled with sexual violence, silent victims, and the lack of an ethical response. Utilizing a Bakhtinian-canonical perspective, this book seeks alternative canonical voices of answerability and non-violence through dialogue with the book of Ruth.
Previous scholarship hints at the connection between Judges 19-21 and Ruth (as set in dialogue), but there has yet to be a study to articulate this relationship. Through a Bakhtinian-canonical perspective, a comparative analysis of these texts unveils intertextual correlations. Lexical and thematic connections include shared idioms, contrasting themes of חרם ("ban") andחסד ("loving-kindness," "covenant-faithfulness"), silence and speech, abuse and potential for abuse, gendered violence and feminine agency. This case-study reveals that Ruth, as a text and as a woman, embodies a voice of answerability to the silenced and abused women in Judges 19-21.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004521711
9789004521704
Discovering the Religious Dimension of Trauma : Trauma Literature and the Joseph Story /
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This book reads the Joseph novella alongside contemporary trauma novels in order to analyze the loss of the assumptive world of the writer and readers of the Joseph novella. In turn, it re-thinks trauma theory in light of the "religious," understood as the belief in and relationship to a God who orders the universe. Thus, this book argues that when we read the Joseph novella alongside contemporary trauma novels, we see a story written by people trying to reconstruct their assumptive world after the shattering of their old one, highlighting the significance of the religious dimension in trauma theory.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004523609
9789004523593
The "Exodus" in Jerusalem (Luke 9:31) : A Lukan Form of Israel's Restoration Hope /
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This study is a search for the specific form of Israel's restoration hope that underlies Luke's unique portrait of the transfiguration account and his framing of Heilsgeschichte, which reveals via a method of internarrativity a model of new exodus based on the Song of the Sea (Exod 15).
This book addresses the dearth of study in Lukan scholarship on the transfiguration account and provides a model of new exodus based on the Song of the Sea (Exod 15) beyond the two major-Deuteronomi(sti)c and Isaianic-models. The proposed Exodus 15 pattern explicates the enigmatic phrase "his 'exodus' in Jerusalem" in the transfiguration account. It also elucidates how the seemingly discordant motifs of Moses and David are conjoined within a larger drama of the (new) exodus and the subsequent establishment of Israel's (eschatological) worship space. This shows how Luke deals with the issues of temple (Acts 7), circumcision (Acts 15), and the ambivalent nature of Jerusalem.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004524279
9789004524248
Rhetorical Adaptation in the Greek Historians, Josephus, and Acts vol II : Embedded Speeches, Audience Responses, and Authorial Persuasion /
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A detailed comparative analysis of speaker-audience interactions in Greek historiography, Josephus, and Acts that examines historians' use of speeches as a means of instructing/persuading their readers and highlights Luke's distinctive depiction of the apostles as adaptable yet frequently alienating orators.
Greco-Roman rhetorical theorists insist that speakers must adapt their speeches to their audiences in order to maximize persuasiveness and minimize alienation. Ancient historians adorn their narratives with accounts of attempts at such rhetorical adaptation, the outcomes of which decisively impact the subsequent course of events. These depictions of speaker-audience interactions, moreover, convey crucial didactic/persuasive insights to the historians' own audiences. This monograph presents a detailed comparative analysis of the intra- and extra-textual functions of speeches and audience responses in Greek historiography, Josephus, and Acts, with special emphasis on Luke's distinctive depiction of the apostles as adaptable yet frequently alienating orators.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004524057
9789004524040
All Citizens of Christ: A Cosmopolitan Reading of Unity and Diversity in Paul's Letters /
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This work is both a critical response to the abuse and misuse of Paul's words on unity and a proposal to read them as a way to care about "others."
In this work, Jeehei Park proposes Greek and Roman cosmopolitanism as a constructive category through which to navigate a reading of human diversity and communal unity in Paul's letters. Park takes a thorough look at the cosmopolitan ideas of Diogenes of Sinope, Philo, Plutarch, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius to establish Paul as an interlocutor who critically participated in the discourse of cosmopolitanism. Park characterizes Paul's understanding of unity with the distinctive phrase "heterogeneous unity," in which human differences are respected and embraced rather than being universalized or homogenized. This book offers a novel analysis of Paul's rhetoric about citizenship in Philippians and its adoption of Greek and Roman cosmopolitanism as an interpretive contour.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004522084
9789004522008
Sensing Salvation in the Gospel of John : The Embodied, Sensory Qualities of Participation in the I Am Sayings /
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Recent scholarship focused on the role of embodiment within cognition and communication reminds us that part of how we "know" is through our physical senses. We only know the softness of a kitten by touching its fur, or the tastiness of bread by eating. How might this influence our understanding of biblical texts, such as Jesus's claim, "I am the bread of life," and the invitation to eat? This study explores the I am sayings of John's Gospel, their sensory elements providing an imaginative entry into the narrative and contributing tangible value to the participatory theology of the Fourth Gospel.
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1 online resource (230 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004678262
Judges 19-21 and Ruth : Canon as a Voice of Answerability /
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Judges 19-21 is filled with sexual violence, silent victims, and the lack of an ethical response. Utilizing a Bakhtinian-canonical perspective, this book seeks alternative canonical voices of answerability and non-violence through dialogue with the book of Ruth.
Previous scholarship hints at the connection between Judges 19-21 and Ruth (as set in dialogue), but there has yet to be a study to articulate this relationship. Through a Bakhtinian-canonical perspective, a comparative analysis of these texts unveils intertextual correlations. Lexical and thematic connections include shared idioms, contrasting themes of חרם ("ban") andחסד ("loving-kindness," "covenant-faithfulness"), silence and speech, abuse and potential for abuse, gendered violence and feminine agency. This case-study reveals that Ruth, as a text and as a woman, embodies a voice of answerability to the silenced and abused women in Judges 19-21.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004521711
9789004521704
Mapping gender in ancient religious discourses /
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This collection of essays focuses on issues related to gender at the intersection of religious discourses in antiquity. To that end, an array of traditions is analyzed with the aim of more fully situating the construction and representation of gender in early Christian, Jewish and Greco-Roman argumentation. Taken as a whole, these essays contribute to the goal of displaying the wide range of options that are available for examining the interconnection of gender, rhetoric, power, and ideology, especially as they relate to identity formation in the ancient world during the early centuries of the common era. The focus on ancient conceptions of gender makes this collection particularly useful not only for biblical scholars, but also for classicists and researchers working in the field of gender studies, as well as for those interested in exploring similar issues in other religious traditions or in Western religious traditions of different time periods.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [511]-545) and indexes. :
9789047411260 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Narrative and identity : an ethical reading of Exodus 4 /
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Using Ricoeur's theories of narrative and identity, and their ethical implications, this book offers a multi-disciplinary Asian reading of Moses' reverse migration in Exodus 4:18-26, in light of the liminal experience of global economic migration. The work demonstrates the productivity of Ricoeur's threefold movement of prefiguration, configuration, and refiguration for OT studies and contemporary realities. By bringing together the world of an ancient text, a nuanced reading of the text's narrative movement and its history of interpretation, and the bittersweet realities of Filipino overseas workers, this creative study charts the way for an OT hermeneutic that opens up possibilities for the formation of a reader's narrative and ethical identity.
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Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral)--Fuller Theological Seminary. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [325]-343) and indexes. :
9789047420569 :
0928-0731 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
"Convinced that God had called us" : dreams, visions, and the perception of God's will in Luke-Acts /
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Dream and vision scenes figure prominently in Luke-Acts. Following a discussion of methodology, historical background, and critical scholarship, this study provides a comprehensive examination of the dreams and visions in the Lukan narrative. Special attention is given to those scenes that feature significant interpretation by characters in the story (e.g., Zechariah and Mary [Luke 1-2], Saul's/Paul's conversion [Acts 9, 22, and 26], the Cornelius-Peter episode [Acts 10:1-11:18], and Paul's dream at Troas [Acts 16:9-10]). While a number of studies have highlighted the importance of dreams and visions for Luke's portrayal of God, the present study suggests that the human side of these visionary encounters is equally important. Just as Lukan dreams and visions depict God's active involvement in the events of human history, they also depict God's people attempting to perceive God's will through these visionary encounters.
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Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral)--Princeton Theological Seminary. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [245]-257) and indexes. :
9789047411420 :
0928-0731 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Verhärtet eure Herzen nicht : der Hebräer, eine Synagogenhomilie zu Tischa be-Aw /
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This volume offers the first in-depth analysis of the literary structure of Hebrews against the background of its most frequently mentioned Sitz im Leben, the ancient synagogue. In the context of the liturgical year and its reconstructed cycle of readings, the text is newly interpreted on the basis of Exod 31:18-32:35 and Jer 31:31-34, so as to demonstrate that Hebrews was an ancient homily for the most important fast-day, Tisha be-Av, on which the destruction of the two temples was commemorated. The first part presents 20th- and 21st-century scholarship on Hebrews and a new structural analysis. The second part offers a detailed discussion of the ancient synagogue and its liturgy. This allows the reconstruction of the readings on which the text of Hebrews is based and a positioning within the liturgical year. The resulting thesis, that Hebrews is an exhortative homily for Tisha be-Av, is confirmed through a motivic analysis of all the biblical texts read on this fast-day. On the basis of the hermeneutical key thereby established, the third part offers seven cumulative readings of the entire text: structural, contextual, intertextual, rhetorical, theological, socio-historical, and hermeneutical-critical. These generate new interpretations and insights within the horizon of current Hebrews scholarship. The present monograph is the first to connect research on the ancient synagogue and its liturgy with a comprehensive interpretation of Hebrews that also discusses alternative form-critical avenues and establishes intertextual connections, especially to relevant rabbinic texts. The examination is directed not only to those with a specific interest in Hebrews, but also to scholars and students of the New Testament, Theology, Jewish Studies, and Religious Studies. ***** Der vorliegende Band bietet erstmals eine fundierte Analyse der literarischen Struktur des Hebräers vor dem Hintergrund seines meistgenannten Sitzes im Leben, der antiken Synagoge. Im Kontext des liturgischen Jahres sowie des rekonstruierten Lesezyklus' wird die Schrift neu auf der Basis der Lesungen aus Ex 31,18-32,35 und Jer 31,31-34 als antike Homilie zum wichtigsten Fasttag von Tischa be-Aw, an dem der Zerstörung der beiden Tempel gedacht wurde, erschlossen. Die Untersuchung stellt im ersten Teil die Hebräerforschung des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts sowie eine neue Strukturanalyse vor. Der zweite Teil fügt eine profunde Untersuchung der antiken Synagoge sowie der antiken Synagogenhomilie im liturgischen Kontext hinzu. Diese erlaubt die Rekonstruktion der dem Hebräertext zugrunde liegenden Lesungen und eine Positionierung innerhalb des liturgischen Jahres. Die resultierende These, dass der Hebräer eine mahnende Homilie zu Tischa be-Aw sei, wird im Rahmen einer Motivanalyse sämtlicher zu diesem Fasttag gelesenen biblischen Texte bekräftigt. Im dritten Teil wird der gesamte Text auf der Basis des etablierten hermeneutischen Schlüssels sieben kumulativen Lesungen unterzogen, einer strukturellen, kontextuellen, intertextuellen, rhetorischen, theologischen, sozio-historischen sowie einer hermeneutisch-kritischen. Diese generieren vor dem Horizont der aktuellen Hebräerforschung neue Interpretationsmöglichkeiten und Einsichten. Die vorliegende Monographie verbindet zum ersten Mal Forschungen zur antiken Synagoge und ihrer Liturgie mit einer kohärenten Interpretation des Hebräertextes, die auch alternative formkritische Ansätze thematisiert sowie intertextuelle Bezüge insbesondere zu relevanten rabbinischen Texten benennt. Die Ausführungen richten sich somit nicht nur an solche mit einem spezifischen Interesse am Hebräer, sondern auch an ForscherInnen und StudentInnen des Neuen Testaments, der Theologie, der Judaistik sowie der Religionswissenschaften.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [393]-410) and indexes. :
9789047411079 :
0928-0731 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.