A fascinating reception history of the theological, ethical, and social themes in the letters of Paul In the first decades after the death of Jesus, the letters of the apostle Paul were the chief written resource for Christian believers, as well as for those seeking to formulate Christian thought and practice. But in the years following Paul's death, the early church witnessed a proliferation of contested-and often opposing-interpretations of his writings, as teaching was passed down, debated, and codified. In this engaging study, Adela Yarbro Collins traces the reception history of major theological, ethical, and social topics in the letters of Paul from the days of his apostleship through the first centuries of Christianity. She explores the evolution of Paul's cosmic eschatology, his understanding of the resurrected body, marriage and family ethics, the role of women in the early church, and his theology of suffering. Paying special attention to the ways these evolving interpretations provided frameworks for church governance, practice, and tradition, Collins illuminates the ways that Paul's ideas were understood, challenged, and ultimately transformed by their earliest audiences.

Die Weihnachtsvorlesung gehoert zu den fest etablierten Veranstaltungen der Padagogischen Hochschule Freiburg. Jedes Jahr referieren Wissenschaftler*innen aus der Perspektive ihrer jeweiligen Disziplin zum Thema "Weihnachten". Der vorliegende Band dokumentiert eine Reihe dieser interdisziplinaren Weihnachtsvorlesungen, prasentiert neue Beitrage und bildet so die gesellschaftlich-kulturelle Prasenz und Popularitat des Weihnachtsfestes ab. Das Spektrum der Aufsatze reicht von theologischen Artikeln wie "Weihnachten im Alten Testament?" und "Weihnachten bei Martin Luther" bis zu kulturwissenschaftlichen Beitragen wie "Weihnachtsszenen im Theater" und religionspadagogischen Aufsatzen wie "Der grosse Gott wird ein kleines Kind".

This new work aimed at upper level undergraduates provides an invaluable handbook for students seriously engaging with Paul's life, letters and context. This new coursebook assesses Paul from four key areas. This book is written by several co-authors, all experts in their given fields, to give the most up-to-date and accurate information to readers - but also to present a sense of authorial continuity throughout the book. This book is divided into three main parts; the environment, life, work and person of Paul; Paul's letters and theological themes; and, the reception of Paul and his letters. As such it provides a comprehensive overview of scholarship on Paul and is the perfect handbook for the serious student wishing to engage with some of the most important writings in the New Testament. This book features maps, tables, text-boxes, up-to-date bibliographies and key points are identified throughout.

While the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece is designed for scholarly research, the Greek New Testament, 5th Revised Edition is designed for translators and students. Like NA28, this is the leading edition of the original text of the New Testament. It contains the same Greek text as NA28, differing only in some details of punctuation and paragraphing. The critical apparatus includes exegetically significant variants (fewer than NA28) but adds extensive manuscript evidence (more than NA28) for each variant, thereby offering in-depth instruction for students on how variants and the evidence for them work together. An introduction in English is included and an optional Concise Greek- English Dictionary of the New Testament by Barclay Newman is available.

Love one another, just as Jesus loves you... Follow Dr. Jeremiah through the letters of 1, 2, 3, John and Jude in a chapter-by-chapter study that will help you understand what it meant to the people at the time it was written, and what it means to Christians today. The Christians of the first century were facing a difficult battle. False teachers had emerged in their churches who were spreading a gospel that was contrary to the one proclaimed by Jesus. The situation was so distressing to John that he wrote a series of letters to call them to remember that Jesus' greatest command was for them to love God and to love one another. Similarly, Jude called on believers to remember the truth of the gospel and persevere in the face of these attacks from false teachers. Each of this study's twelve lessons is clearly organized to include: Getting Started: An opening question to introduce you to the lesson. Setting the Stage: A short reflection to explain the context of the study. Exploring the Text: The Scripture reading for the lesson with related study questions. Reviewing the Story: Questions to help you identify key points in the reading. Applying the Message: Questions to help you apply the key ideas to their lives. Reflecting on the Meaning: A closing reflection on the key teachings in the lesson. -ABOUT THE SERIES- The Jeremiah Bible Study Series captures Dr. David Jeremiah's forty-plus years of commitment in teaching the Word of God. In each study, you'll gain insights into the text, identify key stories and themes, and be challenged to apply the truths you uncover to your life. By the end of each study, you'll come away with a clear and memorable understanding of that Bible book. Each study also contains a Leader's Guide.

Paul writes his letter to the Philippians referencing two related forms of persecution. The Christians of Philippi are experiencing persecution by the Roman authorities who govern the Philippi. Paul himself is experiencing persecution by the Roman authorities (the Roman emperor's praetorian guard) in Rome. Roman persecution is thus the fundamental context for his letter. Paul's most basic premise in this letter is to hold high the slave, Jesus Christ! In perhaps the most moving passage he ever wrote (Phil 2:6-11) Paul delineates that Jesus did not count equality with God something to be grasped at but rather empties himself taking the form of a slave and embracing crucifixion, the slave's form of death. Accordingly. God has raised Jesus to the highest place and has caused all on the earth, above the earth, and under the earther to bow at the name of Jesus and to proclaim that Jesus alone is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Very significantly, Paul affirms that Christian slaves are ennobled by Jesus initiatives. Because these slaves now join the other Christian citizens in having "citizenship in heaven," Paul's letter constitutes a radical threat to the Roman imperial authorities in this way as well.

Practitioners of Biblical Hermeneutics have been a relatively neglected group of Biblical interpreters. For this reason, scholars have long desired an introductory work that documents the diversity of Biblical hermeneutic interpretation, beginning with Origen and extending to the present. For the first time, the Handbook brings together the texts from all of these epochs and makes them accessible through academic analyses.

This volume offers a comprehensive overview of one of the four New Testament gospels and brings a unique approach to the genre of Bible commentary. Featuring distinct Jewish and Christian voices in respectful conversation, Amy-Jill Levine and Ben Witherington, III methodologically break new ground in exploring why scholars disagree on questions of history (what actually happened, what is authorial invention, how do we address different versions of the same account), literature (what does this story tell us about Jesus and Peter, Mary Magdalene and Judas, among other characters), and theology (what can we say about resurrection and divine justice, or about Jesus as the Messiah). They show how Luke has been used to create both tragedy and hope, as well as to promote sexism, anti-semitism, and religious intolerance, thereby raising important questions regarding ethically responsible interpretation. This volume will be essential reading for theologians, clergy, and anyone interested in biblical studies and Jewish/Christian dialogue.

This study investigates why 'faith' (pistis/fides) was so important to early Christians that the concept and praxis dominated the writings of the New Testament. It argues that such a study must be interdisciplinary, locating emerging Christianities in the social practices and mentalites of contemporary Judaism and the early Roman empire. This can, therefore, equally be read as a study of the operation of pistis/fides in the world of the early Roman principate, taking one but relatively well-attested cult as a case study in how micro-societies within that world could treat it distinctively. Drawing on recent work in sociology and economics, the book traces the varying shapes taken by pistis/fides in Greek and Roman human and divine-human relationships: whom or what is represented as easy or difficult to trust or believe in; where pistis/fides is 'deferred' and 'reified' in practices such as oaths and proofs; how pistis/fides is related to fear, doubt and scepticism; and which foundations of pistis/fides are treated as more or less secure. The book then traces the evolution of representations of human and divine-human pistis in the Septuagint, before turning to pistis/pisteuein in New Testament writings and their role in the development of early Christologies (incorporating a new interpretation of pistis Christou) and ecclesiologies. It argues for the integration of the study of pistis/pisteuein with that of New Testament ethics. It explores the interiority of Graeco-Roman and early Christian pistis/fides. Finally, it discusses eschatological pistis and the shape of the divine-human community in the eschatological kingdom.

" ... denn wenn du mit deinem Mund bekennst: "Jesus ist der Herr" und in deinem Herzen glaubst: "Gott hat ihn von den Toten auferweckt", so wirst du gerettet werden." (Roem 10,9) So lautet eines der altesten Glaubensbekenntnisse des Neuen Testaments, das der Apostel Paulus in seinem Roemerbrief uberliefert hat. Es benennt den Kern des christlichen Bekenntnisses: Gott ist in Jesus Christus ein Mensch geworden, der gestorben und auferstanden ist. Aber wer war Jesus, wie sehen und verstehen ihn das Neue Testament, die Leben-Jesu-Forschung, die OEkumenischen Konzilien, moderne Theologen wie Karl Rahner und Hans Urs von Balthasar sowie populare Schriftsteller wie Gilbert Keith Chesterton und Clive Staples Lewis? Dieser Spur folgt das Buch. Es geht davon aus, dass die Person Jesus Christus eine Herausforderung fur Glaube und Verstand ist, und moechte die Argumente christlicher Denker fur die Plausibilitat des christlichen Bekenntnisses darstellen.

How can we understand God's revelation to us? Throughout the church's history, theologians have often answered this question by appealing to a doctrine of illumination whereby the Holy Spirit shapes our knowledge and understanding of Scripture. Without denying the role of the Holy Spirit or the cognitive role of illumination, Ike Miller casts a broader vision of divine illumination and its role in the Christian life. In his constructive approach, Miller argues for a fully trinitarian view of illumination that forms not just our intellect, but also appeals to the affections and encourages our ethical action. In order to develop this theology of illumination, he explores both Augustine's and Karl Barth's readings of the Gospel and Epistles of John, including Barth's previously untranslated lectures on the Gospel of John. In light of his careful study of both the Johannine literature and the theologies of two giants from Christian history, Miller lays out a doctrine of illumination whereby we are enabled to know the Father and participate in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Studies in Christian Doctrine and Scripture, edited by Daniel J. Treier and Kevin J. Vanhoozer, promotes evangelical contributions to systematic theology, seeking fresh understanding of Christian doctrine through creatively faithful engagement with Scripture in dialogue with church.

This study brings three different kinds of readers of the Gospel of John together with the theological goal of understanding what is meant by Incarnation and how it relates to Pascha, the Passion of Christ, how this is conceived of as revelation, and how we speak of it. The first group of readers are the Christian writers from the early centuries, some of whom (such as Irenaeus of Lyons) stood in direct continuity, through Polycarp of Smyrna, with John himself. In exploring these writers, John Behr offers a glimpse of the figure of John and the celebration of Pascha, which held to have started with him. The second group of readers are modern scriptural scholars, from whom we learn of the apocalyptic dimensions of John's Gospel and the way in which it presents the life of Christ in terms of the Temple and its feasts. With Christ's own body, finally erected on the Cross, being the true Temple in an offering of love rather than a sacrifice for sin. An offering in which Jesus becomes the flesh he offers for consumption, the bread which descends from heaven, so that 'incarnation' is not an event now in the past, but the embodiment of God in those who follow Christ in the present. The third reader is Michel Henry, a French Phenomenologist, whose reading of John opens up further surprising dimensions of this Gospel, which yet align with those uncovered in the first parts of this work. This thought-provoking work brings these threads together to reflect on the nature and task of Christian theology.

In recent decades Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, and Slavoj Zizek have shown the centrality of Paul to western political and philosophical thought and made the Apostle a central figure in left-wing discourses far removed from traditional theological circles. Yet the recovery of Paul beyond Christian theology owes a great deal to the writings of the Jewish rabbi and philosopher Jacob Taubes (1923-1987). Pauline Ugliness shows how Paul became an effective tool for Taubes to position himself within European philosophical debates of the twentieth century. Drawing on Nietzsche's polemical readings of the ancient apostle as well as Freud's psychoanalysis, Taubes developed an imaginative and distinct account of political theology in confrontations with Carl Schmitt, Theodor Adorno, Hans Blumenberg, and others. In a powerful reconsideration of the apostle, Taubes contested the conventional understanding of Paul as the first Christian who broke definitively with Judaism and drained Christianity of its political potential. As a Jewish rabbi steeped in a philosophical tradition marked by European Christianity, Taubes was, on the contrary, able to emphasize Paul's Jewishness as well as the political explosiveness of his revolutionary doctrine of the cross. This book establishes Taubes's account of Paul as a turning point in the development of political theology. Loland shows how Taubes identified the Pauline movement as the birth of a politics of ugliness, the invention of a revolutionary criticism of the 'beautiful' culture of the powerful that sides instead with the oppressed.

This study investigates why 'faith' (pistis/fides) was so important to early Christians that the concept and praxis dominated the writings of the New Testament. It argues that such a study must be interdisciplinary, locating emerging Christianities in the social practices and mentalites of contemporary Judaism and the early Roman empire. This can, therefore, equally be read as a study of the operation of pistis/fides in the world of the early Roman principate, taking one small but relatively well-attested cult as a case study in how micro-societies within that world could treat it distinctively. Drawing on recent work in sociology and economics, the book traces the varying shapes taken by pistis/fides in Greek and Roman human and divine-human relationships: whom or what is represented as easy or difficult to trust or believe in; where pistis/fides is 'deferred' and 'reified' in practices such as oaths and proofs; how pistis/fides is related to fear, doubt and scepticism; and which foundations of pistis/fides are treated as more or less secure. The book then traces the evolution of representations of human and divine-human pistis in the Septuagint, before turning to pistis/pisteuein in New Testament writings and their role in the development of early Christologies (incorporating a new interpretation of pistis Christou) and ecclesiologies. It argues for the integration of the study of pistis/pisteuein with that of New Testament ethics. It explores the interiority of Graeco-Roman and early Christian pistis/fides. Finally, it discusses eschatological pistis and the shape of the divine-human community in the eschatological kingdom.

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.

In this book, Madison N. Pierce analyzes the use of prosopological exegesis by the author of Hebrews in almost every major quotation of Scripture. She shows that the author uses Scripture in a consistent way that develops his characterization of God - Father, Son, and Spirit - and that results in a triune portrait of God in Hebrews. Offering a detailed reading of several passages, she also demonstrates how the author's portrayal of God is consistent with later theological developments. Pierce's method replaces atomistic approaches and allows readers to see a clear pattern of usage across the entire epistle. It offers researchers a tool for examining quotations of New Testament Scripture and will be of particular interest to those working in the field of trinitarian theology.

El fin del mundo y la vida despues de la muerte son cuestiones que inquietan el corazon de los hombres desde tiempos inmemoriales. Los cristianos contemporaneos de Pablo ya se preguntaban ?como resucitan los muertos? (1 Cor. 15,35), interrogandose no solo por el destino del hombre despues de la muerte sino por el sentido que tiene vivir una vida en este mundo como ciudadanos del cielo (cf. Ad Diognetum 5,9), en un mundo que esta condenado a la destruccion, segun la doctrina cristiana tradicional. La Biblia ofrece respuestas puntuales a tales interrogantes ... los problemas vienen cuando se descrubre que un mismo texto biblico puede ser entendido no solo en modo diverso sino hasta contradictorio. El presente volumen analiza la interpretacion de dos pasajes clave de la I ad Corinthios en textos pertenecientes a la literatura cristiana antigua, tratando de esclarecer tematicas que no encuentran aun respuestas satisfactorias.

In the final nine chapters of the Gospel of Mark, Jesus increasingly struggles with his disciples' incomprehension of his unique concept of suffering messiahship and with the opposition of the religious leaders of his day. The Gospel recounts the events that led to Jesus' arrest, trial, and crucifixion by the Roman authorities, concluding with an enigmatic ending in which Jesus' resurrection is announced but not displayed. In this volume New Testament scholar Joel Marcus offers a new translation of Mark 8-16 as well as extensive commentary and notes. He situates the narrative within the context of first-century Palestine and the larger Greco-Roman world; within the political context of the Jewish revolt against the Romans (66-73 C.E.); and within the religious context of the early church's sometimes rancorous engagement with Judaism, pagan religion, and its own internal problems. For religious scholars, pastors, and interested lay people alike, the book provides an accessible and enlightening window on the second of the canonical Gospels.

After more than 50 years as a lawyer, having been a clerk, Judge's associate, barrister, solicitor, law teacher, and five various types of judicial officer, Alan Hogan decided to retire, in order to do something different. He obtained a Masters degree, majoring in Biblical Studies, at the Catholic Institute of Sydney. He was astonished at how little he had known about the fundamental documents of his religion. This book is an attempt to share some of what he learnt about the New Testament with other Catholics, and with anyone else who may be interested. It is not so much a book about the New Testament as a plan for reading all the books that go to make it up, roughly in the order in which they were written, with such additional information as to make available the message that each author intended to convey.