Das Alte Testament als christliche Bibel in orthodoxer und westlicher Sicht


Book Description

English summary: This collection of essays includes papers given at the Second European Orthodox-Western Symposium of Biblical Scholars in Rila, Bulgaria. It also contains summaries of the discussions which took place in the various groups and formulates the different perspectives in the dialog between orthodox and Western biblical scholars. The book deals with the Old Testament in the Christian tradition, the Old Testament in the New Testament and in ancient Judaism, the canon of the Old Testament as well as Messianic texts and their Christian interpretation from an orthodox, Catholic and Protestant perspective. German description: Der Band gibt die Vortrage der Zweiten europaischen orthodox-westlichen Exegetenkonferenz vom 8.-15. September 2001 im Rilakloster in Bulgarien wieder. Ausserdem werden die Diskussionen in den Arbeitsgruppen resumiert und in einem Ausblick Perspektiven des Gesprachs zwischen orthodoxen und westlichen Bibelwissenschaftlern formuliert.Nach einem ersten Symposium von orthodoxen, evangelischen und katholischen Neutestamentlern 1998 in Rumanien, das hermeneutischen und methodischen Grundfragen der Exegese gewidmet war, konzentrieren sich die Beitrage zur Rila-Konferenz auf die Beziehung beider Testamente der christlichen Bibel aufeinander. Aus orthodoxer, katholischer und evangelischer Perspektive werden das Alte Testament in christlicher Tradition, das Alte Testament im Neuen Testament und im antiken Judentum, der Kanon des Alten Testaments sowie messianische Texte und ihre christliche Interpretation behandelt. Ein Beitrag wurdigt aus judischer Sicht den Tanach in der Rezeption des nachbiblischen Judentums.Neben grundlegend hermeneutisch ausgerichteten Beitragen und Darstellungen zur Auslegungsgeschichte des Alten Testaments stehen exegetische Studien zu alttestamentlichen Texten und historisch-philologische Untersuchungen zu patristischen Quellen.







Spirit Epicleses in the Acts of Thomas


Book Description

Susan E. Myers concentrates on two prayers, strikingly similar in style and content, found in the third-century Acts of Thomas. Each prayer is located in the context of Christian initiation and each is addressed to a feminine deity who is asked to "come" to be present in the ritual. The prayers appeal to the feminine Spirit, who is called "Mother," "fellowship of the male," and "dove," among other titles. The author examines these prayers in their historical, literary, and liturgical contexts, challenging some of the prevailing assumptions about Syriac-speaking Christianity in general, and the Acts of Thomas in particular.




Rhetoric and Drama in the Johannine Lawsuit Motif


Book Description

George L. Parsenios explores the legal character of the Gospel of John in the light of classical literature, especially Greek drama. Johannine interpreters have explored with increasing interest both the legal quality and the dramatic quality of the Fourth Gospel, but often do not connect these two ways of reading John. Some interpreters even assume that the one approach excludes the other, and that John is either legal or dramatic, but not both. Legal rhetoric and tragic drama, however, were joined throughout antiquity in a complex pattern of mutual influence. To connect John to drama, therefore, is to connect John to legal rhetoric, and doing so helps to see even more clearly the pervasiveness of the legal motif in the Gospel of John. Tracing the legal character of seeking in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, for example, sheds new light on the legal character of seeking in the Fourth Gospel, especially in the enigmatic comment of Jesus at John 8:50. New insights are also offered regarding the evidentiary character of the signs of Jesus, based on comparison with Aristotle's comments about signs and rhetorical evidence in both the Poetics and Rhetoric, as well as by comparison with plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. To call the signs of Jesus evidence, however, does not remove them from the dialectical tension inherent in Johannine theology. If the signs are evidence, they are evidence in a world in which the basis of forming judgments has been problematized by the appearance of the Word in the flesh.




Luke's Wealth Ethics


Book Description

Christopher M. Hays addresses the apparent incongruity in Luke's ethical paraenesis and argues that Luke's Gospel depicts a spectrum of behaviors which actualize the basic principle of renunciation of all. --Book Jacket.




The Fiscus Judaicus and the Parting of the Ways


Book Description

Slightly revised version of the authoor's thesis (Ph.D.)--Groningen, Netherlands, 2009.




Trying Man, Trying God


Book Description

Revised version of the author's thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Chicago, 2009.




Synoptic Problems


Book Description

This volume contains a collection of twenty-one essays of John S. Kloppenborg, with four foci: conceptual and methodological issues in the Synoptic Problem; the Sayings Gospel Q; the Gospel of Mark; and the Parables of Jesus. Kloppenborg, a major contributor to the Synoptic Problem, is especially interested in how one constructs synoptic hypotheses, always aware of the many gaps in our knowledge, the presence of competing hypotheses, and the theological and historical entailments in any given hypothesis. Common to the essays in the remaining three sections is the insistence that the literature, thought and practices of the early Jesus movement must be treated with a deep awareness of their social, literary, and intellectual contexts. The context of the early Jesus movement is illumined not simply by resort to the literary and historical sources produced by Greek and Roman elites but, more importantly, by data gathered from documentary sources available in non-literary papyri.




Cross-bearing in Luke


Book Description

Luke records twice how Jesus called on people to take up or carry their crosses. He also reports how Simon of Cyrene carried Jesus' cross behind Jesus. No metaphorical uses of the well-known phenomenon of cross-bearing were confirmed in any language prior to the Gospels. The idiom was also unknown in Semitic languages. What did a call to become a voluntary cross-bearer sound like before the cross became kitsch? In Luke's Gospel, cross-bearing is connected with self-denial and hating one's family. Not only the disciples, but all are called on to take up their crosses. Since cross-bearing is a daily duty, it can hardly refer to martyrdom, and cannot be linked to imitation. Sverre Boe argues that the cross signifies death through radical self-denial, but not as ascetic exercises. His book includes a survey of the history of scholarship on the five Synoptic texts of cross-bearing.




Language and Identity in Ancient Narratives


Book Description

When a Christian writer refers to Jesus as "the Lord," what does it signify? Is it primarily a way of making a political or theological statement, or might social concerns have had more influence on the writer's choice of words? Studies of early Christianity regularly depend on a nuanced understanding of lexical significance, but current research often fails to consider social aspects of "what words mean." Julia A. Snyder argues that methodological improvements are needed in how lexical significance in ancient Greek texts is determined, based on an analysis of the relationship between speech patterns and addressee identity in the Acts of the Apostles, Acts of John, and Acts of Philip. She also illustrates how sociolinguistic variation contributes to characterization and the construction of Christian identity in the narratives, how it sheds light on the rewriting of ancient texts, and how it informs the question of whether apostolic narratives were produced for evangelistic purposes.