Paul has been regarded as being uncritical of the Roman Empire for a long time, not least because of his apparent call to obey the state in Rom 13:1-7. However, recent scholarship has questioned this assumption by pointing to "hidden criticism" in the letters of the apostle. But how can we decide, in a methodologically sound way, whether such a counter-imperial message lies beneath the surface of the text? On the basis of insights from the philosophy of science, Christoph Heilig suggests several analytical steps for examining this paradigm. He concludes that the hypothesis that we can...

In this close reading of Second Corinthians and examination of prevailing attitudes toward death in Greco-Roman Corinth, Richard I. Deibert proposes Paul's physical mortality as the window through which to understand both the mystery of his collapsing authority in Corinth and the heart of his gospel. In his own experience of physical dying, Paul experiences the -deadness- of the resurrected Jesus, which paradoxically communicates life to him and through him to his congregations. Paul discovers that death has been transfigured into a source of life and, consequently, that human mortality has...

Derek R. Brown sheds new light on a subject often overlooked in New Testament studies - the references to the figure of Satan in the undisputed Pauline letters. He contends that the references to Satan are best understood when considered in light of Paul's apocalyptic theology and apostolic responsibility to his churches. Drawing on an analysis of these two interpretive categories - as well as a discussion of the various images of "Satan" in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Jewish traditions - the author concludes that Paul fundamentally characterizes Satan in his letters as the apocalyptic...

In this work, Joshua Leim attempts to bring greater clarity to the articulation of Jesus' identity in Matthew by attending more precisely to two linguistic patterns woven deeply into the entire narrative's presentation of Jesus: Matthew's christological use of "worship/obeisance" language (proskyneo) and his paternal-filial idiom. Along with exploring the role these linguistic patterns play in the narrative, the author attempts to hear such language in relation to early Judaism and its articulation of the identity of the God of Israel. The study of these various elements yields the conclusion...

Frantisek Abel explores one of the topical issues of Paul's theology, namely the role and influence of the Jewish Pseudo-epigraphs, literature written during Greek and early Roman periods (4th century BCE to the 2nd century CE), on Paul's theological thinking. Within this corpus the idea of eschatological concepts, such as the concept regarding the coming of the Messiah and the Last Judgment in particular, arises frequently. It is similar in the case of the Psalms of Solomon with the Last Judgment as the main topic of this pseudepigraphon. Through close analysis and exploration of particular...

Although recent discussions on Matthew have emphasized the document's setting within Judaism, these studies have not analyzed how the Jewish figure of John the Baptist functions within this setting. Brian Dennert steps into this gap, arguing that Matthew presents Jesus to be the continuation and culmination of John's ministry in order to strengthen the claims of Matthew's group and to vilify the opponents of his group. By doing this he encourages Jews yet to align with Matthew's group (particularly those who esteem the Baptist) and to gravitate away from its opponents. The author examines...

Does the letter to the Hebrews confirm traditional notions of Jewish identity, does it articulate a fresh notion of Christian identity, or is neither of these alternatives adequate? Taking the motif of the "people of God" in Hebrews as his starting point, Ole Jakob Filtvedt explores these questions, and argues that the answer must be related to a paradoxical tension between newness and continuity in Hebrews. Prior attempts to read Hebrews within a supersessionist paradigm are critiqued, but so are more recent interpretations that see Hebrews as confirming a "radical new perspective" on...

Baptism, for Paul, is a christological event that he also uses in his ethical argument. The discussion of the relationship between Paul's theology and ethics has made use of the terms 'indicative' and 'imperative' since Wernle and Bultmann. As subsequent discussion has shown, these terms are problematic not only because of their rigidity and ambiguity. In this study, Samuli Siikavirta focuses on Romans 6-8, the key text for the interplay between Paul's theological and ethical material. He brings the discussion back to what he sees as central to this interaction: baptism and its cognition....

This volume represents the diverse range of research interests in the Book of Revelation operative in current British research, examining questions of genre, structure, composition, scriptural reuse, exegesis, thematic issues, and reception history. This collection, from a distinguished and diverse group of senior and junior scholars, is accessible to a broad range of readers, and is relevant for a number of critical conversations pertaining not only to the Apocalypse, but also to broader avenues of discourse in New Testament and Early Christian studies. Contributors: Garrick V. Allen,...