Preston M. Sprinkle examines the interpretation of Lev 18:5 (awhich if a person does he will live by them) in early Judaism and in Paul. This passage from Leviticus, used in later Old Testament tradition (Ezek 20:11, 13, 21; Neh 9:29), became one of the more important verses from the Hebrew Bible for early Jewish reflection on the notion that obedience to the Mosaic law will lead to eternal life. The apostle Paul cites the passage on two occasions (Gal 3:12; Rom 10:5) and his interpretation of it is highly debated. While scholars often discuss its meaning in Paul, a thorough examination of...

This book is a sustained investigation of the interpretation of righteousness ( ) in Romans as it undergoes personification within a metaphoric and narratorial setting. The argument has, as its starting point, the assertion that previous treatments of righteousness in Romans, and particularly within the New Perspective, have failed adequately to take account of the poetic, connotative, and metaphoric nature of Paul's language. As a way forward, David J. Southall assesses recent literary theorists and endorses their conclusions that metaphor, narrative and personification are tropes of...

Critical studies of the two 'test cases' for James D.G. Dunn's 'New Perspective on Paul, ' Paul's Damascus experience and Gal 3:10-14, reaffirm the Reformation interpretation of Paul's doctrine of justification and confirm that Paul obtained that doctrine from his Damascus experience. The discovery that Isaiah 42 influenced Paul's interpretation of his apostolic call helps explain how Paul developed his antithesis between the Spirit and the flesh/law and why he insists on the impossibility of justification by works of the law. Contrary to the assumption of the 'New Perspective School', Seyoon...

The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) was the most important festival of late-antique Judaism, but its influence on Christianity was not generally recognized. Daniel Stokl Ben Ezra here not only reveals the profound influence of Yom Kippur on early Christianity up to the fifth century but also offers the first detailed analysis of the festival itself. He examines the rituals of and the concepts underlying Yom Kippur in various types of Second Temple and rabbinic Judaism. In detailed analyses of many New Testament and extra-canonical writings, as well as Gnostic and early mystical texts, the...

This book significantly expands our understanding of the life and work of Polycarp of Smyrna. Part One establishes that the anonymous apostolic presbyterquot;, whose oral teaching is cited intermittently by Irenaeus in Against Heresies 4.27.1 through 4.32.1, is in fact Polycarp. The fragments of teaching preserved by Irenaeus shed valuable light upon his relationship with Polycarp, establishing that Irenaeus' contact with his teacher was neither fleeting nor shallow. They also reveal Polycarp's important role in opposing the early effects of the Marcionite movement and gain a valuable...