This book discusses the interaction between history, rabbinic literature and feminist studies. Recent approaches to rabbinic literature have overturned the traditional view of these writings and new literary methods were suggested, mostly denying them all historical value. But rabbinic literature constitutes the main source for the lives of Jews in Palestine and Babylonia during the late Roman period, and thus should not be totally rejected. This study suggests a new post-literary approach, i.e. it discusses the residue of the texts after these have been analyzed and dissected by literary...

This volume combines articles of established scholars on Jewish and New Testament studies in honor of the New Testament scholar Prof.Dr. Heinz-Wolfgang Kuhn, Munich. The articles deal with various aspects of his work on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Archeology (Bethsaida), Jewish and New Testament Studies. Some of the contributions focus especially on aspects of eschatology in the time of the first century.

The discovery of the Genizah manuscipt collection is nothing less than a revolution for the knowledge of Hebrew literature and Jewish culture in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. One of the main results of one hundred years of Genizah research is the rediscovery of Hebrew liturgical poetry which shed much light on various aspects of Jewish studies. For the last half century it has been almost comonplace to discover new poems, unknown poets, novel uses of poetry and unfamiliar poetic versions of familiar prose texts within liturgical settings being revealed among the manuscripts and...

This volume provides important new insights into the concept of "forgiveness" in early Christian literature. In contrast to much of the existing literature on the notion of forgiveness, which usually focuses on the preconditions for being forgiven, the author sets out to describe the actual meanings and connotations of this concept during the period in which the New Testament was being formed. In early Christian texts the notion of forgiveness is expressed in a variety of ways. On the basis of detailed analysis of a number of early Christian and contemporary Jewish prayers the author uncovers...

Twenty-seven interdisciplinary essays on aspects of Judaism in the Greco-Roman world, exemplifying a wide range of techniques, by a well-known scholar. Three are previously unpublished, including a reappraisal of the Judaism and Hellenism debate and a study of the Sardis synagogue. The book's overall coherence derives from the author's long-standing interests in the analysis of texts as documents of cultural and religious interaction, and in how Jewish communities were woven into the social fabric of Greek cities in the Hellenistic and Roman East. The four sections are: Greeks and Jews,...

Paul's Jewish background and his use of Scripture have been enduring interest within New Testament scholarship. This study contributes to this discussion by examing the presence and function of Scripture in I Cor. 1:18-3:23. The author examines the precence and function of Scripture in the form of six citations, two allusions, and seven echoes within I Cor. 1:19-3:23. From the examination of the function of these texts, this work concludes that Paul's use of Scripture agrees with its original context and stands in line with a majority of early Jewish tradition. Moreover, this study suggests...

Study of the exegesis of the Old Testament tradition on the matriarch Rachel. The centre of the study is Rachel's complaint in Jeremiah 31.15-17. After an analysis of the Old Testament texts, the reception of these traditions in ancient translations in the Pseudepigrapha, in Philo of Alexandria, in Flavius Josephus as well as in the New Testament is investigated. The main part of the study is represented by source material in the Rabbinic literature. The study is concluded by an overview of the interpretation of the Rachel figure in patristic literature. The sources containing the Rachel...

This volume deals with the encounter of Early Christianity with Hellenistic culture, particularly with the question of ancient rhetorical influence on the First Letter of Clement. It contains reprints of two classical studies by A. von Harnack and W. Jaeger, which were seminal for the understanding the letter against a Hellenistic background, furthermore it makes an important essay of the Dutch scholar W.C. van Unnik on the literary and rhetorical genre of First Clement (genos symbouleutikon) for the first time available in English. The editors also present two new studies: Breytenbach...

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...

This volume contains the author's 'late harvest' from the fruits of half a century scholarly research in the fields of the New Testament. The essays on Paul oppose the view of history held by the 'Tubingen School' (F.C. Baur), and point out the importance of literary criticism for the theological interpretation of the pauline letters. The essays on the Letter to the Hebrews assign the appropriate historical place within early Christianity to this New Testament book. The essays on the synoptic gospels force the crisis of synoptic form criticism, and give convincing reasons for the alternative...