In this book, Meghan Henning explores the rhetorical function of the early Christian concept of hell. Building upon classical rhetorical techniques and the descriptions of Hades in Greek and Roman literature, she contends that the ancient Christian concept of hell was developed as a part of a distinctively Christian paideia. She traces the history of this interpretive process, illustrating the ways in which early Christians drew upon the Greek and Roman system of ethical and cultural education, to create and maintain their own culture. By doing this the author demonstrates that Matthew's...

Benjamin A. Edsall provides a new approach to the classic quest for the preaching and teaching (or the kerygma, didache and catechesis) of the early Church. His method draws on ancient communication practices whereby communicators rely on knowledge they expect their audience to possess. This reconstruction of early Christian instruction is based on rhetorical cues in 1 Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians and Romans. Passages are grouped and analyzed according to the way in which they function as appeals to knowledge. This Pauline lens, the author argues, illuminates not only Paul's formative...

The claim that Revelation's hymns function as did Classical tragic choral lyrics insofar as they comment upon or interpret the surrounding narrative has become axiomatic in studies of Revelation. Justin Jeffcoat Schedtler marks an advance in this line of inquiry by offering an exegetical analysis of Revelation's hymns alongside a presentation of the forms and functions of ancient tragic choruses and choral lyrics. Evaluating the hymns in light of the varieties and complexities of ancient tragic choruses, he demonstrate that they are not best evaluated in terms of choral lyrics generally, but...

Information about Ancient Christianity is preserved in literary texts. These sources contain passages that became liturgical texts during their history of reception while the context or form of some of them could suggest their ritualized use in the churches of New Testament times. The essays in this volume elaborate on the question of how ancient pieces of liturgy might be found in the extant literature. It also asks how readers of these literary texts can avert the risk of anachronistic reconstructions of ancient liturgies. The topics of this collection range from Jewish Early Medieval...

The projected Historical and Theological Lexicon of the Septuagint will offer historical studies of Septuagint words, retracing their usage from early authors, over koine Greek and the translation itself, into Jewish-Hellenistic and early Christian literature. The latter two of these phases were the object of a workshop held in 2011 whose proceedings are published in this volume. The reception of the Septuagint in Greek-speaking Judaism and Christianity raises many questions: How do Jewish or Christian authors writing in Greek handle the difference existing for some words between the...

The Greek word ekklesia originally meant the civic assembly of all citizens in the classical Greek democracy. Young-Ho Park argues that the strong civic connotation of this term continued to operate in the political culture of the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The use of ekklesia in second-temple Judaism should also be understood as part of this political culture in which the Jews were substantially incorporated. By adopting this civic term in his letters to his local Gentile congregations, Paul effectively created a symbolic universe in which the Christ worshippers saw themselves as the...

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...