Nordic Interpretations of the New Testament


Book Description

This volume brings together contributions from the ongoing conversation among New Testament scholars from the Nordic Countries, namely Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. The aim is to challenge the New Testament texts and their interpretations but also to be challenged by these texts and interpretation, i.e., how to read, interpret and contextualize the impact of these texts, and how to conceptualize the power and authority attributed to them. As neighbours in peripheral Europe, partly sharing language and history, scholars of this region also aim to participatie in the broader international discourse. The fact that their common academic language is English begs the question whether many of the current essays could have been written in different settings, since they do not explicitly reflect on contextual issues. Or is this the case? What characterizes that part of the world are social democracies with relatively high standards of living, a strong protestant past but an increasing multicultural population, public welfare systems, and gender equality. Public universities still have money and can prioritize mobility and internationalisation; accordingly, although few people live in the Nordic countries relatively many biblical scholars have roots there.




Other Voices in Old Testament Interpretation


Book Description

The main goal of this book is to provide a collection of essays (formerly only available separately in various academic journals) that offer untraditional and original exegetical insights into, or solutions to, popular or problematic Old Testament texts and topics. It illustrates the science and art of exegesis by an author within a broad evangelical context and demonstrates the interpretive value of reading biblical texts without prejudice to tradition and with careful attention to their historical and cultural contexts.




The Nordic Bible


Book Description




Early Christians Adapting to the Roman Empire


Book Description

In Early Christians Adapting to the Roman Empire: Mutual Recognition Niko Huttunen challenges the interpretation of early Christian texts as anti-imperial documents. He presents examples of the positive relationship between early Christians and the Roman society. With the concept of “recognition” Huttunen describes a situation in which the parties can come to terms with each other without full agreement. Huttunen provides examples of non-Christian philosophers recognizing early Christians. He claims that recognition was a response to Christians who presented themselves as philosophers. Huttunen reads Romans 13 as a part of the ancient tradition of the law of the stronger. His pioneering study on early Christian soldiers uncovers the practical dimension of recognizing the empire.




Becoming John


Book Description

In this new analysis of the Gospel of John, Kari Syreeni argues that the gospel is a heavily reworked edition of an earlier Johannine work, and that the original did not include Jesus' passion. Syreeni theorizes that the original gospel ended at Chapter 12, with the notion of Jesus' disappearance from the world, and that the passion narrative was incorporated by a later editor freely using the existing gospels of Mark and Matthew. Syreeni suggests that the letters of John - written after the predecessor gospels but before the final edition - reveal a schism in the Johannine community that was caused by the majority faction's acceptance of Jesus' death and resurrection, as it was then recorded in the new gospel. By exploring the gospel's different means of legitimizing the passion story, such as the creation of the 'Beloved Disciple' to witness Jesus' passion, and the foreshadowing of the resurrection of Jesus in the miracle of Lazarus, Syreeni provides a bold and provocative case for a new understanding of John.




Linguistic Analysis of the Greek New Testament


Book Description

In this volume, a leading expert brings readers up to date on the latest advances in New Testament Greek linguistics. Stanley Porter brings together a number of different studies of the Greek of the New Testament under three headings: texts and tools for analysis, approaching analysis, and doing analysis. He deals with a variety of New Testament texts, including the Synoptic Gospels, John, and Paul. This volume distills a senior scholar's expansive writings on various subjects, making it an essential book for scholars of New Testament Greek and a valuable supplemental textbook for New Testament Greek exegesis courses.




Hebrew Bible / Old Testament. III: From Modernism to Post-Modernism. Part I: The Nineteenth Century - a Century of Modernism and Historicism


Book Description

Dieser erste Teilband des dritten und letzten Bandes des HBOT-Projekts setzt die kritische Darstellung der ganzen Rezeptions-, Auslegungs- und Forschungsgeschichte der Hebräischen Bibel / des Alten Testaments fort und berücksichtigt die neuen Aspekte dieser Geschichte im neunzehnten Jahrhundert, und zwar auf jüdischer wie auf christlicher Seite, unter katholischen wie unter protestantischen Theologen und Forschern. Dabei macht sich vor allem eine neue Faszination des Phänomens einer vielfältigen und bunten Geschichte bemerkbar; die »Geschichte« rückt in den Brennpunkt, und mit dem immer breiter ausgreifenden und vielfältigen historischen Kontext tritt ein entschieden stärkeres Interesse an historischen Fragestellungen bei der Auslegung und Erforschung der Bibel in den Vordergrund. Diese Kursänderung kommt namentlich an den Tag, wenn das Alte Testament in seinen vorderorientalischen Kontext näher eingeordnet wird, während die Bezüge zur Kirche und Synagoge mehr oder weniger geschwächt werden. Sobald eine historisch-kritische Annäherungsweise und Methode in der Bibelforschung allmählich an Dominanz gewinnt, gerät das Verhältnis zwischen der neuen wissenschaftlichen Exegese und der herkömmlichen kirchlichen Auslegung des Alten Testaments mehrfach in eine Krise, und zudem werden Streitigkeiten zwischen Fronten hervorgerufen; doch enthält diese weithin krisenhafte Lage noch Möglichkeiten fruchtbarer Neuorientierungen – in der Bibelwissenschaft wie in Leben und Lehre der Kirchen. Dabei greift das auslaufende 19. Jahrhundert auf das 20. Jahrhundert aus.




The Construction of Exodus Identity in Ancient Israel


Book Description

Collective identity creates a sense of "us-ness" in people. It may be fleeting and situational or long-lasting and deeply ingrained. Competition, shared belief, tragedy, or a myriad of other factors may contribute to the formation of such group identity. Even people detached from one another by space, anonymity, or time, may find themselves in a context in which individual self-concept is replaced by a collective one. How is collective identity, particularly the long-lasting kind, created and maintained? Many literary and biblical studies have demonstrated that shared stories often lie at the heart of it. This book examines the most repeated story of the Hebrew Bible--the exodus story--to see how it may have functioned to construct and reinforce an enduring collective identity in ancient Israel. A tool based on the principles of the social identity approach is created and used to expose identity construction at a rhetorical level. The author shows that exodus stories are characterized by recognizable language and narrative structures that invite ongoing collective identification.




The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible


Book Description

"The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible brings together 37 essential essays written by leading international scholars, examining crucial points of analysis within the field of feminist Hebrew Bible studies. Organized into four major areas - globalization, neoliberalism, media, and intersectionality, the essays collectively provide vibrant, relevant, and innovative contributions to the field. The topics of analysis focus heavily on gender and queer identity, with essays touching on African, Korean, and European feminist hermeneutics, womanist and interreligious readings, ecofeminist and animal biblical studies, migration biblical studies, the role of gender binary voices in evangelical-egalitarian approaches, or the examination of scripture in light of trans women's voices. The volume includes essays examining the Old Testament as recited in music, literature, film, and video games. In short, the book offers a vision for feminist biblical scholarship beyond the hegemonic status quo prevalent in the field of biblical studies, in many religious organizations and institutions that claim the Bible as a sacred text, and among the public that often mentions the Bible to establish religious, political, and socio-cultural restrictions for gendered practices. The exegetically and hermeneutically diverse essays demonstrate that feminist biblical scholarship forges ahead with the task of engaging manifold issues and practices that keep the gender caste system in place even in the early part of the twenty-first century. The essays of this volume thus offer conceptual and exegetical ways forward at a historic moment of global transformation and emerging possibilities"--




Ethical Ambiguity in the Hebrew Bible


Book Description

In this book, Shira Weiss elucidates the moral tradition of the Hebrew Bible by subjecting ethically challenging biblical texts to moral philosophical analysis. Examining the most essential questions of Jewish Thought, she uses contemporary philosophy to decipher Scriptural ethics as uncovered from a variety of biblical stories. Aided by ancient, medieval, and contemporary resources, Weiss presents a comprehensive discussion of enduring ethical questions that arise from biblical narrative and continue to be contested in modern times. She shows how such analysis can unsettle assumptions and beliefs, as well as foster moral reflection. Ethical Ambiguity in the Hebrew Bible will be of interest to scholars and students of ethics, philosophy, Jewish thought, biblical theology, and exegesis.