Trotz einer regen paganen wie judischen Wallfahrtstradition setzt die christliche Pilgerfahrt in den Orient erst um die Mitte des 4. Jahrhunderts ein. UEber diese ersten privaten Pilgerfahrten wohlhabender Christen ins "Heilige Land" geben sogenannte Pilgerberichte Auskunft. Ziel des im Mai 2009 an der Universitat Hohenheim veranstalteten Symposions war es, das Wissen um die Pioniere christlicher Pilgerschaft aufzubereiten, um in die geschichtlichen wie politischen, aber auch in die theologisch gewandelten Rahmenbedingungen christlicher Pilgerschaft einzufuhren. Eine Auswahl der Vortrage liegt in diesem Band zur Religionsgeografie der Alten Kirche vor.

Band 9 der zweisprachigen Ausgabe der Sermones ad populum bietet die erstmalige deutsche UEbersetzung der drei Predigten zur Apostelgeschichte 148-150. Die lateinischen Texte beruhen auf dem Vergleich der bisherigen Editionen, im Fall von sermo 150 auch auf Codex I 9 der Stadtbibliothek Mainz, der als Faksimile abgedruckt wird. Die Kommentierung erlautert insbesondere UEberlieferung, Chronologie, Struktur, Stil, historische Daten, biblisches Gedankengut, Liturgie und Theologie der Predigten. Daruber hinaus werden hagiographische und archaologische Daten sowie die Verwendung der Apostelgeschichte im Gesamtwerk Augustins dargestellt.

This study has been specially commissioned to cover An Introduction to the Gospel of Luke and Themes in the Synoptic Gospels, Units AS 1 and A2 1, of the revised CCEA Religious Studies specification. It has been through a meticulous quality assurance process. The author provides a detailed introduction to the Gospel of Luke, including its key narratives and themes. She then explores the person of Jesus, as well as the passion and resurrection narratives, in the context of the synoptic gospels. Included are tasks, practice essay titles of exam standard and activities highlighting other aspects of human experience. Contents: * Understanding the Gospel of Luke * Key Narratives in Luke's Gospel * The Kingdom of God in the Parables and Miracles in Luke's Gospel * Key Themes in Luke's Gospel * Understanding the Gospel Tradition * The Person of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels * The Passion and Resurrection Narratives in the Synoptic Gospels * Synoptic Assessment: Religious Texts, Authority and Interpretation A detailed Glossary, Bibliography and Index are also provided.

The book of Revelation is the most developed example of a scriptural writer wrestling with the ideological implications of the gospel, and engaging with an opposing system in the light of what God has done in Jesus. It is an apocalypse, a letter and a prophecy. Ian Paul gives disciplined attention to the text, examines how John draws on the Old Testament, indicates how his message would have communicated and been understood in its first-century context, and makes connections with our contemporary world.

The story of the woman taken in adultery features a dramatic confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees over whether the adulteress should be stoned as the law commands. In response, Jesus famously states, "Let him who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." To Cast the First Stone traces the history of this provocative story from its first appearance to its enduring presence today. Likely added to the Gospel of John in the third century, the passage is often held up by modern critics as an example of textual corruption by early Christian scribes and editors, yet a judgment of corruption obscures the warm embrace the story actually received. Jennifer Knust and Tommy Wasserman trace the story's incorporation into Gospel books, liturgical practices, storytelling, and art, overturning the mistaken perception that it was either peripheral or suppressed, even in the Greek East. The authors also explore the story's many different meanings. Taken as an illustration of the expansiveness of Christ's mercy, the purported superiority of Christians over Jews, the necessity of penance, and more, this vivid episode has invited any number of creative receptions. This history reveals as much about the changing priorities of audiences, scribes, editors, and scholars as it does about an "original" text of John. To Cast the First Stone calls attention to significant shifts in Christian book cultures and the enduring impact of oral tradition on the preservation-and destabilization-of scripture.

Form of God, Form of a Servant examines the Greek noun morphe and seeks to discover Paul's meaning when he portrayed Christ as existing in the 'form of God' as well as taking on the 'form of a servant' in Philippians 2:6-7. This book adopts a synchronic approach to lexical semantics, and examines a cross section of Greek writers who use morphe from the classical period up through the first century A.D. The book also looks at how morphe has been interpreted throughout the church age, before exegetically examining the passage and interpreting the term in its context.

The "New York Times" bestselling author uncovers the essential message of Jesus, locked inside his most familiar parable.
"Newsweek" called "New York Times" bestselling author Timothy Keller a "C.S. Lewis for the twenty-first century" in a feature on his first book, "The Reason for God." In that book, he offered a rational explanation for why we should believe in God. Now, in "The Prodigal God," Keller takes his trademark intellectual approach to understanding Christianity and uses the parable of the Prodigal Son to reveal an unexpected message of hope and salvation.
Within that parable Jesus reveals God's prodigal grace toward both the irreligious and the moralistic. This book will challenge both the devout and skeptics to see Christianity in a whole new way.

First published in 2011, The Jewish Annotated New Testament was a groundbreaking work, bringing the New Testament's Jewish background to the attention of students, clergy, and general readers. In this new edition, eighty Jewish scholars bring together unparalleled scholarship to shed new light on the text. This thoroughly revised and greatly expanded second edition brings even more helpful information and new insights to the study of the New Testament. * Introductions to each New Testament book, containing guidance for reading and specific information about how the book relates to the Judaism of the period, have been revised and augmented, and in some cases newly written. * Annotations on the text-some revised, some new to this edition-provide verse-by-verse commentary. * The thirty essays from the first edition are thoroughly updated, and there are twenty-four new essays, on topics such as "Mary in Jewish Tradition,", "Christology," and "Messianic Judaism." * For Christian readers The Jewish Annotated New Testament offers a window into the first-century world of Judaism from which the New Testament springs. There are explanations of Jewish concepts such as food laws and rabbinic argumentation. It also provides a much-needed corrective to many centuries of Christian misunderstandings of the Jewish religion. * For Jewish readers, this volume provides the chance to encounter the New Testament-a text of vast importance in Western European and American culture-with no religious agenda and with guidance from Jewish experts in theology, history, and Jewish and Christian thought. It also explains Christian practices, such as the Eucharist. The Jewish Annotated New Testament, Second Edition is an essential volume that places the New Testament writings in a context that will enlighten readers of any faith or none.

Alfred Heidenreich addresses the puzzling apparent contradictions in the Gospels head on, and argues that these difficulties are necessary to encourage us to make an active spiritual effort to understand.

Muchos cristianos se sienten poco preparados e inciertos cuando se trata de vivir cada dia como seguidores de Cristo. A menudo sabemos lo que se supone que debemos hacer, e incluso por que se supone que debemos hacerlo. Sin embargo, cuando nos falta confianza en nosotros mismos y en nuestro desarrollo espiritual, no podemos vivir audazmente para marcar la diferencia en nuestro mundo. Como uno de los principales maestros biblicos del mundo, el Dr. David Jeremiah quiere que los lectores sepan que esta falta de confianza es innecesaria e inutil. De hecho, la Biblia deja claro que, de la misma manera que los excursionistas habiles empacan todos los suministros necesarios antes de un viaje, Dios mismo equipa a todos los creyentes con todo lo que necesitan para caminar y trabajar con confianza como miembros de su reino. Todo lo que necesita continua con el enfoque del Dr. Jeremiah de ayudar a la iglesia a luchar por la victoria espiritual a traves de Cristo. Utilizando su profundidad, sabiduria y compasion distintivas, el Dr. Jeremiah explora 2 Pedro 1: 5-10 para resaltar siete herramientas criticas que Dios proporciona a cada uno: virtud, conocimiento, dominio propio, perseverancia, piedad, bondad fraternal y amor. Cuando usamos el equipo que Dios proporciona, podemos vivir con confianza sabiendo que nunca tropezaremos.

The Word Biblical Commentary delivers the best in biblical scholarship, from the leading scholars of our day who share a commitment to Scripture as divine revelation. This series emphasizes a thorough analysis of textual, linguistic, structural, and theological evidence. The result is judicious and balanced insight into the meanings of the text in the framework of biblical theology. These widely acclaimed commentaries serve as exceptional resources for the professional theologian and instructor, the seminary or university student, the working minister, and everyone concerned with building theological understanding from a solid base of biblical scholarship. Overview of Commentary Organization Introduction-covers issues pertaining to the whole book, including context, date, authorship, composition, interpretive issues, purpose, and theology. Each section of the commentary includes: Pericope Bibliography-a helpful resource containing the most important works that pertain to each particular pericope. Translation-the author's own translation of the biblical text, reflecting the end result of exegesis and attending to Hebrew and Greek idiomatic usage of words, phrases, and tenses, yet in reasonably good English. Notes-the author's notes to the translation that address any textual variants, grammatical forms, syntactical constructions, basic meanings of words, and problems of translation. Form/Structure/Setting-a discussion of redaction, genre, sources, and tradition as they concern the origin of the pericope, its canonical form, and its relation to the biblical and extra-biblical contexts in order to illuminate the structure and character of the pericope. Rhetorical or compositional features important to understanding the passage are also introduced here. Comment-verse-by-verse interpretation of the text and dialogue with other interpreters, engaging with current opinion and scholarly research. Explanation-brings together all the results of the discussion in previous sections to expose the meaning and intention of the text at several levels: (1) within the context of the book itself; (2) its meaning in the OT or NT; (3) its place in the entire canon; (4) theological relevance to broader OT or NT issues. General Bibliography-occurring at the end of each volume, this extensive bibliographycontains all sources used anywhere in the commentary.

This accessible and balanced introduction helps readers sort out key views on the most important debated issues in New Testament studies. Well-known New Testament scholar Nijay Gupta fairly presents the spectrum of viewpoints on thirteen topics and offers reflections on why scholars disagree on these matters. Written to be accessible to students and readers without advanced training in New Testament studies, this book will serve as an excellent supplementary text for New Testament introduction courses.

In Biblical Theology, Ben Witherington, III, examines the theology of the Old and New Testaments as a totality. Going beyond an account of carefully crafted Old and New Testament theologies, he demonstrates the ideas that make the Bible a sacred book with a unified theology. Witherington brings a distinctive methodology to this study. Taking a constructive approach, he first examines the foundations of the writers' symbolic universe - what they thought and presupposed about God - and how they revealed those thoughts through the narratives of the Old and New Testaments. He also shows how the historical contexts and intellectual worlds of the Old and New Testaments conditioned their narratives, and, in the process, created a large coherent Biblical world view, one that progressively reveals the character and action of God. Thus, the Yahweh of the Old Testament, the Son in the Gospels, and the Father, Son, and Spirit in the New Testament writings are viewed as persons who are part of the singular divine identity. Witherington's progressive revelation approach allows each part of the canon to be read in its original context and with its original meaning.

In this fully revised new edition of a pioneering study of John's gospel, John Ashton explores fresh topics and takes account of the latest scholarly debates. Ashton argues first that the thought-world of the gospel is Jewish, not Greek, and secondly that the text is many-layered, not simple, and composed over an extended period as the evangelist responded to the changing situation of the community he was addressing. Ashton seeks to provide new and coherent answers to what Rudolf Bultmann called the two great riddles of the gospel: its position in the development of Christian thought and its central or governing idea. In arguing that the first of these should be concerned rather with Jewish thought Ashton offers a partial answer to the most important and fascinating of all the questions confronted by New Testament scholarship: how did Christianity emerge from Judaism? Bultmann's second riddle is exegetical, and concerns the message of the book. Ashton's answer highlights a generally neglected feature of the gospel's concept of revelation: its debt to Jewish apocalyptic.

Mark, Manuscripts, and Monotheism is organized into three parts: Mark's Gospel, Manuscripts and Textual Criticism, and Monotheism and Early Jesus-Devotion. With contributors hailing from several different countries, and including both senior and junior scholars, this volume contains essays penned in honor of Larry W. Hurtado by engaging and focusing upon these three major emphases in his scholarship. The result is not only a fitting tribute to one of the most influential New Testament scholars of present times, but also a welcome survey of current scholarship.

In this book, Will N. Timmins provides a close rereading of Romans 7 within its literary-argumentative context and offers a fresh and compelling solution to the identity of the 'I' in this text. Challenging existing paradigms, which fail to provide both literary coherence and theological plausibility, he develops his own positive theory about the device. Along the way he also re-examines a number of key texts within the letter, which have hitherto not been given due weight within the scholarly discussion. This study offers a fresh and satisfying solution to one of the Bible's most notorious cruxes, and contributes to our understanding of the apostle Paul's thought. It will be of interest to all scholars and students within the fields of biblical studies and Christian theology.

In this book, Sabine R. Huebner explores the world of the protagonists of the New Testament and the early Christians using the rich papyrological evidence from Roman Egypt. This gives us unparalleled insights into the everyday lives of the non-elite population in an area quite similar to neighboring Judaea-Palestine. What were the daily concerns and difficulties experienced by a carpenter's family or by a shepherd looking after his flocks? How did the average man or woman experience a Roman census? What obstacles did women living in a patriarchal society face in private, in public, and in the early Church? Given the flight of Jesus' family into Egypt, how mobile were the lower classes, what was their understanding of geography, and what costs and dangers were associated with travel? This volume gives a better understanding of the structural, social, and cultural conditions under which figures from the New Testament lived.

The apostle Paul founded many churches in the Roman Empire, but it is clear he did not do this work alone. Rather, he relied on trusted companions such as Timothy and Titus to support the ongoing work in these communities. As Paul neared the end of his life, he wrote personal letters to these men to encourage them in their ministry and provide final guidelines for how live and lead for Christ. In particular, we find him urging these coworkers to maintain purity in the church, faithfully endure for the gospel, preach sound doctrine, pursue godliness, and maintain order as they built up other leaders. Paul's words compel believers today to also pursue their calling in the church . . . even when that means dealing with hardheaded and unruly fellow believers! David Jeremiah is the founder of Turning Point, an international ministry committed to providing Christians with sound Bible teaching through radio and television, the Internet, live events, and resource materials and books. He is the author of more than fifty books, including A Life Beyond Amazing, Overcomer, and The Book of Signs. Dr. Jeremiah serves as the senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church in San Diego, California, where he resides with his wife, Donna. They have four grown children and twelve grandchildren.

Let the wisdom of Colossians transform relationships in every area of your life -- home, church, and even the world -- with this study guide from renowned Bible teacher Joyce Meyer. Paul's letter to the Colossians reminds us that as we have died with Christ, so, too, do we need to die to our sins. It encourages us that because we have also been raised in Him, we must submit to Jesus and adopt qualities motivated by Christian love. In this comprehensive study tool, Joyce Meyer's commentary on Colossians affirms the Lordship of Christ and offers practical advice on family, relationships, and faith.