In this essay collection, the authors describe the trend toward synchronic methods in biblical exegesis, or interpreting biblical texts as the result of a literary rather than a historical process, and discuss and apply fifteen specific methods to interpreting Old and New Testament texts.

This study examines love in John's Gospel. It attempts to answer the question in what way love in the Johannine Gospel receives its narratively-imaginative stature. John's Gospel develops a love story which is different from any other narrative. Much attention is given to the cultural contextualisation as well as to the narrative and imaginative textualisations of the various love relationships. In this, Jesus' relationship with his beloved disciple plays a central role. The study concludes that all other love relationships -- the relationship of Jesus with his father, mother, brothers and...

This study describes the embedding of the Gospel of John in the city life of Ephesus. It uses the epigraphical and historical materials of first-century Ephesus as the point of reference for a reading of John. The study is a specific demonstration of the linguistic supposition that the use of the same (combination of) words in different co-texts evokes semantic similarities and dissimilarities which influence the process of giving meaning to a text. Reading John against the background of Ephesus influences its impact. Five topics have been selected: the use of names; the use of the titles for...

This composite, post-colonial and multi-dimensional volume contains sixteen original essays by distinguished Jewish and Christian Scripture scholars on a wide range of perspectives on the relation between Jesus and women as portrayed in the New Testament Gospels, as historically re-constructed in the context of Second Temple Judaisms and of Mediterranean society, as well as in present actualizations.
The contributions reflect the different social locations of interpreters from all continents and testify to the richness of methods employed in biblical interpretation at the end of the 20th...