Valentinianism: New Studies offers fresh contributions by leading experts on the history of the Valentinian "Gnostic" church, on contested aspects of Valentinian doctrine, and on the use and interpretation of the New Testament by the Valentinians.

This introduction to Gnosis by Christoph Markschies combines great clarity with immense learning.In his Introduction Markschies defines the term Gnosis and its relationship to 'Gnosticism', indicating why Gnosis is preferable and sketches out the main problems. He then treats the sources, both those in the church fathers and heresiologists, and the more recent Nag Hammadi finds. He goes on to discuss early forms of 'Gnosis' in antiquity, Jewish and Christian (New Testament) and the early Gnostics; the main representatives of Gnosis, especially Valentinus and Marcion; Manichaeism as the culmination and end-point of Gnosis; ancient communities of 'Gnostics'; and finally 'Gnosis' in antiquity and the present.There is a useful chronological table and an excellent select bibliography.

Current tendencies in religious studies and theology show a growing interest for the interchange between religions and the cultures of rationalization surrounding them. The studies published in this volume, based on the international conferences of both the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften and the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, aim to contribute to this field of interest by dealing with concepts and influences of rationalization in Judaism, Christianity, Islam and religion in general. In addition to taking a closer look at the immediate links in the history of tradition between those rationalizing movements and evolutions in religion, emphasis is put on intellectual-historical convergences: Therefore, the articles are led by central comparative questions, such as what factors foster/hinder rationalization?; where are criteria for rationalization drawn from?; in which institutions is rationalization taking place?; who propagates, supports and utilizes rationalization?

This volume pays tribute to the diversity of Adolf Deissmann's work as philologist, theologian and ecumenist and attempts to contextualise contemporary debates on his contribution historically. Dieser Sammelband wurdigt das facettenreiche Schaffen Adolf Deissmanns als Philologe, Theologe und OEkumeniker und versucht, die zeitgenoessischen Debatten um seine Leistungen historisch zu kontextualisieren.

The dawn of the modern age posed challenges to all of the world's religions - and since then, religions have countered with challenges to modernity. In Religious Responses to Modernity, seven leading scholars from Germany and Israel explore specific instances of the face-off between religious thought and modernity, in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. As co-editor Christoph Markschies remarks in his Foreword, it may seem almost trivial to say that different religions, and the various currents within them, have reacted in very different ways to the "multiple modernities" described by S.N. Eisenstadt. However, things become more interesting when the comparative perspective leads us to discover surprising similarities. Disparate encounters are connected by their transnational or national perspectives, with the one side criticizing in the interest of rationality as a model of authorization, and the other presenting revelation as a critique of a depraved form of rationality. The thoughtful essays presented herein, by Simon Gerber, Johannes Zachhuber, Jonathan Garb, Rivka Feldhay, Paul Mendes-Flohr, Israel Gershoni and Christoph Schmidt, provide a counterweight to the popularity of some all-too-simplified models of modernization.

Current tendencies in religious studies and theology show a growing interest for the interchange between religions and the cultures of rationalization surrounding them. The studies published in this volume, based on the international conferences of both the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften and the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, aim to contribute to this field of interest by dealing with concepts and influences of rationalization in Judaism, Christianity, Islam and religion in general. In addition to taking a closer look at the immediate links in the history of tradition between those rationalizing movements and evolutions in religion, emphasis is put on intellectual-historical convergences: Therefore, the articles are led by central comparative questions, such as what factors foster/hinder rationalization?; where are criteria for rationalization drawn from?; in which institutions is rationalization taking place?; who propagates, supports and utilizes rationalization?

The question of the relationship between religion and rationality is highly relevant in today s world, as demonstrated by the debates that rage to this day concerning religious conflicts and their underpinnings in rationality. The conference proceedings in this volume examine this complex relationship by looking at a number of different sacred texts. This medium shows how religion can be classified in terms of rational coherencies. However, the very fact that religion is manifested in texts creates a paradox that places religion in an ongoing dialogue with rationality and this in turn is a precondition for religion s continued existence through time."

Die Reihe Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZNW) ist eine der renommiertesten internationalen Buchreihen zur neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft. Seit 1923 publiziert sie wegweisende Forschungsarbeiten zum fruhen Christentum und angrenzenden Themengebieten. Die Reihe ist historisch-kritisch verankert und steht neuen methodischen Ansatzen, die unser Verstandnis des Neuen Testaments befoerdern, gleichfalls offen gegenuber.

In this volume, Christoph Markschies presents a collection of papers on Origen, the Christian theologian from Alexandria (died approx. 254 AD), who is regarded as the first Christian thinker to work in a rigorous and systematic philosophical manner. The papers in the volume treat philological problems presented by Origen's texts, examine theological ideas he developed, and consider the parts played by Eusebius, the Church historian, and Ambrosius, Bishop of Milan, who as two key theologians from the fourth century continued the traditions established by Origen in both East and West.

God is unbounded. God became flesh. While these two assertions are equally viable parts of Western Christian religious heritage, they stand in tension with one another. Fearful of reducing God's majesty with shallow anthropomorphisms, philosophy and religion affirm that God, as an eternal being, stands wholly apart from creation. Yet the legacy of the incarnation complicates this view of the incorporeal divine, affirming a very different image of God in physical embodiment. While for many today the idea of an embodied God seems simplisticaeven pedestrianaChristoph Markschies reveals that in antiquity, the educated and uneducated alike subscribed to this very idea. More surprisingly, the idea that God had a body was held by both polytheists and monotheists. Platonic misgivings about divine corporeality entered the church early on, but it was only with the advent of medieval scholasticism that the idea that God has a body became scandalous, an idea still lingering today. In God's Body Markschies traces the shape of the divine form in late antiquity. This exploration follows the development of ideas of God's corporeality in Jewish and Greco-Roman traditions. In antiquity, gods were often like humans, which proved to be important for philosophical reflection and for worship. Markschies considers how a cultic environment nurtured, and transformed, Jewish and Christian descriptions of the divine, as well as how philosophical debates over the connection of body and soul in humanity provided a conceptual framework for imagining God. Markschies probes the connections between this lively culture of religious practice and philosophical speculation and the christological formulations of the church to discover how the dichotomy of an incarnate God and a fleshless God came to be. By studying the religious and cultural past, Markschies reveals a Jewish and Christian heritage alien to modern sensibilities, as well as a God who is less alien to the human experience than much of Western thought has imagined. Since the almighty God who made all creation has also lived in that creation, the biblical idea of humankind as image of God should be taken seriously and not restricted to the conceptual world but rather applied to the whole person.

How did Christians in Classical Antiquity view history? How did they apply and modify traditional biblical options - for example the view of the apocalypse or salvation - in their interpretation of contemporary times? What role did the "Imperial Crisis" in the 3rd century and the changes in the 4th century play for the Christian's interpretation of history? Did Eusebius of Caesarea, the first Christian historian, merely write a "collection of materials" or was he guided by contemporary standards of academic historiography?This study provides answers to these questions and to other controversial issues in the discussion of Christian historiography in Classical Antiquity.

A facsimile reproduction of Adolf von Harnack s book of the minutes of the 1897?1928 church fathers commission, with a diplomatic transcript. This volume provides extensive insight into the work of the church fathers commission, which since 1891, within the Prussian Academy of Science, was in charge of editing the Griechische Christliche Schriftsteller and which has continued up to the present its activities of publication and research within the context of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. The editor presents here the book of minutes which Adolf von Harnack kept from 1897 to 1928 for the church fathers commission, and in which he noted the discussions and results of their meetings. The historical document of the famous church historian, informative for the history of patristic studies, is presented here both as a facsimile of the original, as well as made available in a diplomatic transcript by Stefan Rebenich. Christoph Markschies sketches the scholarly and historical context of Adolf von Harnack s book of minutes from a present-day perspective."

Fragen des KArpers und der KArperlichkeit finden zunehmend das Interesse der kulturwissenschaftlichen Forschung; gerade dem spAtantiken Christentum gilt in diesem Zusammenhang immer wieder besondere Beachtung. Der Sammelband stellt in den Mittelpunkt das Motiv des leidenden KArpers, der aufgefasst ist als kulturelles Symbol und Kommunikationsmedium bei Integration und Abgrenzung des Christentums in seinem Bezug auf die spAtantike Gesellschaft und Geisteswelt. MAnchsaskese und Martyrium, Krankheit und Schmerz bilden die wichtigsten Bezugspunkte der einzelnen BeitrAge.

Die Frage nach den Weltbildern als einer fundamentalen Kategorie von Weltwahrnehmung wird in den Geistes- und Kulturwissenschaften seit langer Zeit diskutiert. Dabei wurde immer wieder auch Gebrauch von Bildern gemacht, die das Weltbild einer bestimmten Kultur darzustellen versuchen. Nicht gefragt worden ist bislang, ob und in welchem Mass hierbei Visualitat ein Aspekt von Weltbildern ist. Diese Frage ist inzwischen angesichts vielfaltiger Entwicklungen in verschiedenen Wissenschaftsbereichen akut geworden. Zum einen wurde in den kulturwissenschaftlichen Diskussionen der vergangenen Jahre zunehmend deutlich, wie grundlegend die Bedeutung der Bildlichkeit fur alle Bereiche der Weltwahrnehmung ist. Gleichzeitig hat die Entwicklung der Kognitionswissenschaften zu komplementaren Einsichten aus naturwissenschaftlicher Sicht gefuhrt. Der vorliegende Band versucht daher, diese verschiedenen Diskussionsstrange zusammenzufuhren. Autoren aus Theologie und Byzantinistik, Wissenschafts- und Kunstgeschichte, Philosophie und Astrophysik reprasentieren die Diversitat der methodischen und inhaltlichen Zugange zu diesem Thema.

Praktiken visueller Welterzeugung in Form von Weltbildern lassen sich bereits in der Antike beobachten und haben sich bis heute als Mittel zur Konstruktion von Ordnungsvorstellungen bewahrt. Seit jeher steht der begrifflichen Ordnung der Welt eine modellhaft anschauliche Ordnung gegenuber. Die grundlegende Bedeutung, die Anschaulichkeit fur unser Verstandnis von der Welt spielt und die die vielfaltigsten Weltbilder hervorgebracht hat, ist jedoch mehr als eine blosse Wiederholung des Sehens. Die Bildwelten der Weltbilder geben uns nicht nur ein anschauliches Bild von der Welt und vom Kosmos. Sie sind zugleich wirkungsmachtige Instrumente zum praktischen und theoretischen Handeln in der Welt und formen auf unterschiedlichste Weise unsere Vorstellungen von der Welt und unsere Weltanschauung. Die grundlegenden Fragen, die dabei gestellt werden, haben sich durch die Jahrhunderte nicht wirklich geandert. Sie betreffen die den Menschen umfassende Ordnung und seine Stellung innerhalb dieser Ordnung: Welche Gestalt hat die Welt? Welche Krafte und Ideen wirken in ihr? Woraus besteht sie? Wie ist sie entstanden? Wie sieht ihre Zukunft aus? Bereits die fruhen Beispiele von Weltbildern machen deutlich, dass die sowohl in Bildern als auch in Erzahlungen zur Erscheinung gebrachte Wirklichkeit immer eine vom Menschen hervorgebrachte ist und daher stets interpretierte Wirklichkeit und symbolische Konstruktion bedeutet. Die gesammelten Beispiele reprasentieren zugleich unterschiedliche visuelle Medien, die im Dienst der Konstruktion der Welt als Bild stehen. Damit ist die Geschichte der Weltbilder nicht nur eine Geschichte wechselnder Weltvorstellungen, sondern zugleich auch eine Geschichte wechselnder Darstellungsmethoden und unterschiedlicher Tragermedien. Der Atlas der Weltbilder behandelt ein breites Spektrum von Artefakten und schreitet einen grossen zeitlichen Bogen ab, der mit altorientalischen und altagyptischen Weltkonzeptionen beginnt und mit aktuellen Simulationen der Astrophysik endet. Der Atlas der Weltbilder dokumentiert somit Aspekte der Kulturgeschichte visueller Welterzeugung in Form von Weltbildern aus den zuruckliegenden zweieinhalb Jahrtausenden. Paradigmatische Analysen der Prinzipien und Funktionen sowie der Geschichte und Bedeutung von Weltbildern geben erstmals umfassenden Aufschluss uber dieses umfangreiche Themengebiet."

The edition by Karl Holl (1866-1926) of the short anti-heretical text "Ancoratus" and the huge work "Panarion Omnium Haeresium" by the 4th century Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis (Cyprus) is one of the most significant editions in the series "Greek Christian Authors" from the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy. Following the publication of corrected and expanded reprints (Vol. 1: 2007; Vol. 2: 1980; Vol. 3: 1985) the large complete index can now go to print. It contains detailed indexes of names, passages, words and subjects, together with an index of grammatical particularities. The volume is based on a manuscript by Karl Holl, which, together with the rest of the edition, was continued after his death by Hans Lietzmann (1875-1942). In recent years it has again been thoroughly checked, revised and extended in the Berlin Institute.

Tension between unity and diversity plagues any attempt to recount the development of earliest Christianity. Explanations run the gamutafrom asserting the presence of a fully formed and accepted unity at the beginning of Christianity to the hypothesis that understands orthodox unity as a later imposition upon Christianity by Rome. In Christian Theology and Its Institutions in the Early Roman Empire , Christoph Markschies seeks to unravel the complex problem of unity and diversity by carefully examining the institutional settings for the development of Christian theology. Specifically, Markschies contends that theological diversity is closely bound up with institutional diversity. Markschies clears the ground by tracing how previous studies fail to appreciate the critical role that diverse Christian institutions played in creating and establishing the very theological ideas that later came to define them. He next examines three distinct forms of institutional lifeathe Christian institutions of (higher) learning, prophecy, and worshipaand their respective contributions to Christianity's development. Markschies then focuses his attention on the development of the New Testament canon, demonstrating how different institutions developed their own respective "canons," while challenging views that assign a decisive role to Athanasius, Marcion, or the Gnostics. Markschies concludes by arguing that the complementary model of the "identity" and "plurality" of early Christianity is better equipped to address the question of unity and diversity than Walter Bauer's cultural Protestant model of "orthodoxy and heresy" or the Jesuit model of the "inculturation" of Christianity.

Defining the term Gnosis and its relationship to Gnosticism, this book indicates why Gnosis may be preferable and sketches out the main problems. It then treats the sources, both those in the church fathers and heresiologists, and the more recent Nag Hammadi finds. It goes on to discuss early forms of Gnosis in antiquity, Jewish and Christian (New Testament) and the early Gnostics; the main representatives of Gnosis, especially Valentinus and Marcion; Manichaeism as the culmination and end-point of Gnosis; ancient communities of Gnostics; and finally Gnosis in antiquity and the present.