This monograph on John 9 makes extensive use of premodern Christian exegesis as a resource for New Testament studies. The study reframes the existing critique of the two-level reading of John 9 as allegory in terms of premodern exegetical practices. It offers a hermeneutical critique of the two-level reading strategy as a kind of figural exegesis, rather than historical reconstruction, through an extensive comparison with Augustine's interpretation of John 9. A review of several premodern Christian readings of John 9 suggests an alternative way of understanding this account in terms of...

This book is dedicated entirely to the interpretation of Paul's Letter to Philemon. The letter is approached from a wide variety of perspectives, thus yielding several new insights into its interpretation. In a first essay the tendencies in the research on the letter since 1980 are outlined. This is followed by essays devoted to the epistolary analysis and to a rhetorical-psychological interpretation of the letter; as well as an essay devoted to the rhetorical function of stylistic form in the letter. After this there are two essays devoted to situating the letter in its ancient context:...

Gustav Adolf Deissmann (1866-1937) was an extraordinary German theologian who gained considerable international repute during his lifetime for his many pioneering contributions in the widely divergent fields of postclassical Greek philology, lexicography, the archaeological excavations of ancient Ephesus, international conciliation and the ecumenical movement. He was the recipient of numerous national and international distinctions, including eight honorary doctorates from six different countries, and was nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet until recent years this once...

Informed by the understanding that all texts are intertexts, this work develops and employs a method that utilizes the concept of intertextuality for the purpose of exploring the history of interpretation of a biblical text. With Day One, Genesis 1.1-5, as the primary text, the intertextuality of this biblical text is investigated in its Hebrew (Masoretic Text) and Greek (Septuagint) contexts. The study then broadens to take up the intertextuality of Day One in other Hebrew and Greek texts up to c. 200 CE, moving from Hebrew texts such as Ben Sira and the Dead Sea Scrolls to Greek texts...

Since Origen and Chrysostom, John's Gospel has been valued as the most spiritual among the New Testament writings. Although Origen recognizes the Stoic character of John's statement that "God is pneuma" (4:24), an examination of the gospel in light of Stoic physics has not yet been carried out. Combining her insight into Stoic physics and ancient physiology, the author situates her thesis in the major discussions of modern Johannine scholarship - e.g. the role of the Baptist and the function of the Johannine signs - and demonstrates new solutions to well-known problems.
The Stoic study...

This book suggests that gossip can be used as an interpretive key to understand more of early Christian identity and theology. Insights from the multi disciplinary field of gossip studies help to interpret what role gossip plays, especially in relation to how power and authority are distributed and promoted. A presentation of various texts in Greek, Hebrew and Latin shows that the relation between gossip and gender is complex: to gossip was typical for all women and risky for elite men who constantly had to defend their masculinity. Frequently the Pastoral Epistles connect gossip to false...

Scholars have long recognized the importance of Paul's citations from the Pentateuch for understanding the argument of Galatians. But what has not been fully appreciated is the key role that Isaiah plays in shaping what Paul says and how he says it, even though he cites Isaiah explicitly only once (Isaiah 54:1 in Galatians 4:27). Using an intertextual approach to trace more subtle appropriations of Scripture (i.e., allusions, echoes and thematic parallels), Harmon argues that Isaiah 49-54 in particular has shaped the structure of Paul's argument and the content of his theological...