This book illustrates in detail the range of understandings of the human condition in New Testament times.

This book is novel in its questioning of the adequacy of interpreting Paul from the perspective of the Reformation and in its application of sociological methods to the New Testament. 'In the past few years or so Paul's theology, especially his relationship to Judaism, has become a highly controversial topic in NT studies. In this book Watson launches into that controversy with one of the most important and adventurous contributions to date, which is sure to spark off further controversies in its wake ... that he has managed to produce strikingly novel but not wild or idiosyncratic results is...

Scholarly assessment of Jewish communities in the Hellenistic and Graeco-Roman Diaspora has, in the past, been dominated by our knowledge of the large and influential communities in Rome and Alexandria. This book brings together the evidence for significant Jewish communities in another part of the Diaspora, namely Asia Minor. By collating archaeological, epigraphic, classical, New Testament and patristic sources, the book provides an invaluable and coherent description of the life of Jewish communities in Asia Minor, and so gives a more complete picture than was previously available of...

This book examines the roles and functions that women assumed in the early Christian communities from AD 33 to the Council of Nicaea. It surveys, too, the views about women held by various New Testament authors including Paul and the Evangelists.

In recent years an increasing number of interpreters have found dramatic and verbal ironies widely distributed in Mark's Gospel. This lucid study makes an important contribution to our understanding of Mark's irony, and combines a literary-critical approach with insights gained from the sociology of knowledge. Professor Camery-Hoggatt argues that Mark's ironies are intentional, and that irony comprises an integral factor in Mark's overall strategy of composition: irony is a subtle means to achieve apologetic and paradigmatic ends.

This study examines one significant theological theme in Luke-Acts, that of 'The plan of God'. It traces the way this theme is developed throughout Luke-Acts, both through direct statements by the writer and through various associated means such as divine appearances, signs and wonders, the fulfilment of prophecy, and indications of fate as of necessity. Dr Squires locates Luke's use of this theme in the context of the history-writing of the Hellenistic period, noting numerous passages in those works which illumine Luke's theological purposes. His book shows how the notion of the plan of God...

This study shows how classical Greek and Hellenistic philosophical and ethical traditions inform Paul's Letter to the Romans. It concentrates especially on Protreptic, a kind of literature deriving its name from the title of a lost writing of Aristotle that has been largely reconstructed by scholars in our time. The Protreptic writers seek to awaken their readers to a realization of human frailty and then to commit themselves to a new way of life. Guerra shows also how the political conditions of Nero's Rome are reflected herein.

This study combines an analysis of the argumentative complexities of Romans 1-8 with the presentation of modern theories of how meaning arises and functions. These theories (especially as represented by Umberto Eco) shed important light on two central questions raised by Paul's method: why does he reason so persistently about matters that depend ultimately on supernatural enlightenment, and why, where he does, are his arguments often so unclear and so hard to reduce to logical consistency? This book seeks to answer both questions.

Mark's Gospel has attracted an enormous amount of scholarly attention over recent decades. The major themes of the Gospel have been studied exhaustively and from a variety of critical perspectives. But at least one important theme in Mark has been comparatively overlooked in recent study: the theme of faith. This critically-acclaimed study redresses such neglect through a thorough exegetical and literary study of all the references to faith in Mark's composition.

This study reconstructs the apocalyptic eschatology in Matthew's Gospel so that we may understand his time and concerns. Sociological analysis of apocalypticism in Judaism and early Christianity shows that such a comprehensive world view, which emphasized the final judgement and its aftermath within a dualistic and deterministic framework, was adopted by minority or sectarian groups undergoing a situation of great crisis. The Matthean community, after the first Jewish war against Rome, came into conflict with Judaism, gentiles and the larger Christian movement. Matthew's distinctive vision...