Kategoria BISAC: Religion >> Biblical Criticism & Interpretation - New Testament

One of the characteristic pursuits of the current phase of historical Jesus research, the so-called Third Quest, has been the serious attempt to locate Jesus within first-century CE Judaism, to seek a Jesus who could be found plausible within his Jewish context. Comparatively less emphasis has been laid on the question as to whether or how the contextually plausible picture of Jesus also suits and accounts for the history of the reception of Jesus in early Christianity.

By integrating the Jewish context, the teaching of Jesus and Christian reception history into one explanation, the...

An enigmatic collection of 114 sayings of Jesus, the 'Gospel of Thomas' was discovered in the sands of Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in the 1940's.

Here, April DeConick provides a new English translation of the entire Gospel of Thomas, which includes the original 'kernel' of the Gospel and all the sayings. Whilst most other translations are of the Coptic text with only occasional reference to the Greek fragment variants, this translation integrates the Greek and offers new solutions to complete the lacunae. A unique feature of this book is that translations to the parallels of the Gospel are...

This book explores the fascinating and enigmatic collection of 114 sayings of Jesus, the 'Gospel of Thomas' that was discovered in the sands of Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in the 1940's. Since its discovery, scholars and the public alike have been intrigued to know what the Gospel says and what light it sheds on the formation of early Christianity.



Here, DeConick provides a new English translation of the entire Gospel of Thomas, which includes the original 'kernel' of the Gospel and all the sayings. A unique feature of this book is that translations to the...

The portrait of the Samaritan mission in Acts 8:4-25 is the climax of various Lukan episodes involving the Samaritans. This work shows that the function of this portrait makes better sense in light of the historical context of the Samaritans up to and including the New Testament period, and of Luke's special interest in the Samaritans as depicted in his Gospel.

A review of the socio-ethnic and religious contexts of the Samaritans points to the conclusion that they struggled to establish the legitimacy of their identity and status as a people. In some Jewish circles, they were...

While the notion of submission (particularly women's submission) has been the focus in not only biblical studies and feminist theology but also in church structure and in the wider context of modern Christian culture, little attention has been given to the theme academically.

Deviating from the general tendency to seek answers to the issue of women's submission from creation accounts, this research focuses on Philippians 2:6-11 as the primary text and reason for embracing submission as the defining characteristic of a Christian community. The argument for submission is thus based on...

In Christology and Scripture leading biblical scholars and theologians explore the relation of theological thought to the reading of Scripture. The focus is on three inter-related issues. The first is how theologians appropriately read Scripture around Christ, and what contribution, if any, historical-criticism makes to this endeavour. The second is that of the person and work of Christ in relation to Scripture. In interaction with specific texts, contributors engage with the related questions of who Christ is and how his benefits are communicated. This leads on to the final issue of...

Since the late nineteenth century our knowledge of early Christianity and its literature has been improved significantly by the recovery of numerous ancient manuscripts. Among the most important finds are the Greek manuscripts that preserve portions of little-known early Christian gospels, such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, and the "Unknown Gospel" of Egerton Papyrus 2. These fragmentary manuscripts provide us with direct access to texts that seem to have been written at about the same time as the New Testament gospels. They allow us to study ancient writings about the life...

The Political Paul presents Paul as a political thinker. Many studies claiming Paul for Greek Hellenism discuss the influence upon him of various aspects of Hellenistic culture, but strangely neglect Hellenistic political philosophy with its roots in Classical antiquity. The Political Paul explores this dimension of PaulAEs thought within the general context of Hellenistic political reflection to focus on the intriguing body of literature known as the Pythagorean pseudepigrapha. These researches support the highly original argument that Christianity has foundations in Hellenistic kingship...

This work is an abbreviated version of the monumental, three-volume 'Matthew, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary' in the International Critical Commentary series (ICC). Davies and Allison's magisterial work is considered to be the standard work on Matthew and is still a best-selling title. Retaining all the important features of the ICC volumes, this Shorter Commentary includes the new translation of the Gospel as well as a condensed introduction and a summary of the main exegetical points in a non-technical verse-by-verse commentary. For those who lack the linguistic and historical...

Douglas Campbell gives a clear account of why much current description of Paul's theology, and of his gospel and of his theory of salvation, is so confused. After outlining the difficulties underlying much of the current debate he lays out some basic options that will greatly clarify the debate. He then engages with these options and shows how one offers far more promise than the others, sketching out some of its initial applications. Campbell then shows in more detail how another option -- the main alternative, and the main culprit in terms of many of our difficulties -- can be...

Having presented a brief history of research on 2 Corinthians, Eve-Marie Becker outlines the process of Paul's communication with the Corinthian community and considers letter-production and letter-reception at the time. She develops a "literary-historical" model for reconstructing the original separate letters (1.1-7.4; 7.5-16; 8--9; 10--13) which were later compiled to form the canonical letter. She defines - by means of linguistics and communication theory - the central theoretical elements for Pauline letter-hermeneutics.

There is a thorough exegesis of those parts of 2...