As biblical studies becomes increasingly fragmented, this collection of essays brings together a number of leading scholars in order to show how historical reconstruction, philology, metacriticism, and reception history can be part of a collective vision for the future of the field. This collection of essays focuses more specifically on critical questions surrounding the construction of ancient Israel(s), 'minimalism', the ongoing significance of lexicography, the development of early Judaism, orientalism, and the use of the Bible in contemporary political discourses. Contributors include John van Seters, Niels Peter Lemche, Ingrid Hjelm, and Philip R. Davies.

This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched. Harnessing Chaos is an explanation of changes in dominant politicized assumptions about what the Bible 'really means' in English culture since the 1960s. James G. Crossley looks at how the social upheavals of the 1960s, and the economic shift from the post-war dominance of Keynesianism to the post-1970s dominance of neoliberalism, brought about certain emphases and nuances in the ways in which the Bible is popularly understood, particularly in relation to dominant political ideas. This book examines the decline of politically radical biblical interpretation in parliamentary politics and the victory of (a modified form of) Margaret Thatcher's re-reading of the liberal Bible tradition, following the normalisation of (a modified form of) Thatcherism more generally. Part I looks at the potential options for politicized readings of the Bible at the end of the the1960s, focussing on the examples of Christopher Hill and Enoch Powell. Part II analyses the role of Thatcher's specific contribution to political interpretation of the Bible and assumptions about 'religion'. Part III highlights the importance of (often unintended) ideological changes towards forms of Thatcherite interpretation in popular culture and with particular reference to Monty Python's Life of Brian and the Manchester music scene between 1976 and 1994. Part IV concerns the modification of Thatcher's Bible, particularly with reference to the embrace of socially liberal values, by looking at the electoral decline of the Conservative Party through the work of Jeffrey Archer on Judas and the final victory of Thatcherism through Tony Blair's exegesis. Some consideration is then given to the Bible in an Age of Coalition and how politically radical biblical interpretations retain a presence outside parliamentary politics. Harnessing Chaos concludes with reflections on why politicians in English politicians bother using the Bible at all.

This title provides a general introduction to Jewish law (Torah) for students of New Testament studies. This book will provide a general introduction to Jewish law (Torah) for students of New Testament studies. It will include a general discussion on the role of Jewish law in understanding Christian origins with particular reference to correcting the harsh and negative evaluations in a previous generation of scholarship and to showing how an understanding of Jewish law is extremely important in understanding the emergence of Christianity. There will also be a general chapter of the origins and sources of early Jewish law, including the biblical texts, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the pseudepigrapha, Josephus, Philo, and early rabbinic material. This will also provide a general introduction to the different ways Jewish law was interpreted. The rest of the book will be taken up by short chapters which will provide specific examples of Jewish law based on issues raised in the New Testament. These will include areas such as circumcision, Sabbath, food and purity, divorce, eye for an eye, family loyalties, ethnicity, and oaths. Throughout, the focus will not be on the 'correct' interpretation or historical accuracy of given gospel passages but rather the areas of Jewish law which illuminate the given New Testament passage. The idea is to provide readers with specific legal contexts for their own interpretations of New Testament passages. "Continuum's Guides for the Perplexed" are clear, concise and accessible introductions to thinkers, writers and subjects that students and readers can find especially challenging - or indeed downright bewildering. Concentrating specifically on what it is that makes the subject difficult to grasp, these books explain and explore key themes and ideas, guiding the reader towards a thorough understanding of demanding material.

Class Struggle in the New Testament engages the political and economic realities of the first century to unmask the mediation of class through several New Testament texts and traditions. Essays span a range of subfields, presenting class struggle as the motor force of history by responding to recent debates, historical data, and new evidence on the political-economic world of Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels. Chapters address collective struggles in the Gospels; the Roman military and class; the usefulness of categories like peasant, retainer, and middling groups for understanding the world of Jesus; the class basis behind the origin of archangels; the Gospels as products of elite culture; the implication of capitalist ideology upon biblical interpretation; and the New Testament's use of slavery metaphors, populist features, and gifting practices. This book will become a definitive reference point for future discussion.

'Jesus in an Age of Neoliberalism' analyses the ideology underpinning contemporary scholarly and popular quests for the historical Jesus. Focusing on cultural and political issues, the book examines postmodernism, multiculturalism and the liberal masking of power. The study ranges across diverse topics: the dubious periodisation of the quest for the historical Jesus; 'biblioblogging'; Jesus the 'Great Man' and western individualism; image-conscious Jesus scholarship; the 'Jewishness' of Jesus and the multicultural Other; evangelical and 'mythical' Jesuses; and the contradictions between personal beliefs and dominant ideological trends in the construction of historical Jesuses. 'Jesus in an Age of Neoliberalism' offers readers a radical revisioning of contemporary biblical studies.

Writing History, Constructing Religion presents a much-needed interdisciplinary exploration of the significance of debates among historians, scholars of religion and cultural theorists over the 'nature' of history to the study of religion. The distinguished authors discuss issues related to definitions of history, postmodernism, critical theory, and the impact on the study and analysis of religious traditions; exploring the application of writing 'history from below', discussions of 'truth' and 'objectivity' as opposed to power and ideology, crises of representation, and the place of theory in the 'historicized' study of religion(s). Addressing conceptual debates in a wide range of historical and empirical contexts, the authors critically engage with issues including religious nationalism, Nazism, Islam and the West, secularism, religion in post-Communist Russia, ethnicity and post modernity. This book constitutes a significant step towards the self-reflexive and interdisciplinary study of religions in history.

Judaism, Jewish Identities and the Gospel Tradition is a collection of essays focused on what is now a major issue in contemporary gospel studies. The essays are in honour of Maurice Casey who has made major contributions to our understanding of the Jewish context of Jesus and the gospels. Fittingly, however, this collection of essays will avoid the conventional festschrift format and is designed to be a detailed analysis in its own right. This volume will look at the ways in which Judaism can function as an analytical concept in gospel scholarship. This will include an overview of the ways in which Judaism is used in the canonical gospels and how this relates to the idea of a Jewish Jesus, in addition to specific examples of similarities with, and differences from, various Jewish traditions in the gospels, constructions of gender, the impact of the historical Jesus, and the significant steps toward Christian distinctiveness made in the gospel of John. Contributors include Andrew Angel, Roger D. Aus, George J. Brooke, David Bryan, Bruce Chilton, Daniel Cohen, James G. Crossley, Wendy E. S. North, and Catrin Williams, with a preface by C. K. Barrett.

Judaism, Jewish Identities and the Gospel Tradition is a collection of essays focused on what is now a major issue in contemporary gospel studies. The essays are in honour of Maurice Casey who has made major contributions to our understanding of the Jewish context of Jesus and the gospels. Fittingly, however, this collection of essays will avoid the conventional festschrift format and is designed to be a detailed analysis in its own right. This volume will look at the ways in which Judaism can function as an analytical concept in gospel scholarship. This will include an overview of the ways in which Judaism is used in the canonical gospels and how this relates to the idea of a Jewish Jesus, in addition to specific examples of similarities with, and differences from, various Jewish traditions in the gospels, constructions of gender, the impact of the historical Jesus, and the significant steps toward Christian distinctiveness made in the gospel of John. Contributors include Andrew Angel, Roger D. Aus, George J. Brooke, David Bryan, Bruce Chilton, Daniel Cohen, James G. Crossley, Wendy E. S. North, and Catrin Williams, with a preface by C. K. Barrett.

'Jesus in an Age of Neoliberalism' analyses the ideology underpinning contemporary scholarly and popular quests for the historical Jesus. Focusing on cultural and political issues, the book examines postmodernism, multiculturalism and the liberal masking of power. The study ranges across diverse topics: the dubious periodisation of the quest for the historical Jesus; 'biblioblogging'; Jesus the 'Great Man' and western individualism; image-conscious Jesus scholarship; the 'Jewishness' of Jesus and the multicultural Other; evangelical and 'mythical' Jesuses; and the contradictions between personal beliefs and dominant ideological trends in the construction of historical Jesuses. 'Jesus in an Age of Neoliberalism' offers readers a radical revisioning of contemporary biblical studies.

The link between historical Jesus studies and the broader cultural contexts has been largely lost in contemporary scholarship, with the heritage of the Jesus scholarship from the nineteenth century being detached from its cultural context and with the history of Jesus scholarship being buried as a topic in the development of methods and issues in New Testament studies. As a result most presentations of the historical Jesus are historiographically and hermeneutically na?ve, assuming an objective posture, with little or no reflection on their ideological presuppositions. Therefore, consciously or unconsciously, they often represent hegemonic positions. This collection of essays starts from a different position, by questioning the use of presentations of Jesus to defend and protect hegemonic or mono-cultural contexts, and thereby explicitly or implicitly favour a development towards a more inclusive society for persons from different ethnic, racial, national, gender and sexual orientation backgrounds. This collection of essays will look at the cultural and ideological beginnings of historical Jesus studies in the nineteenth century and expose the underlying presuppositions of hegemony in contemporary presentations of Jesus, viewed from the perspective of cultural complexity.

This book will apply the work of Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman, Edward Said and several others on international politics and the supportive role of the media, intellectuals and academics to contemporary Christian origins and New Testament scholarship. Part One will look at the ways in which New Testament and Christian origins scholarship has historically been influenced by its political and social settings over the past hundred years or so. Moving on to the present, the following chapter will then apply Herman and Chomsky's propaganda model of manufacturing consent in the mass media to the recent explosion of biblical scholars writing on the internet, in particularly biblio-bloggers. It is clear that political views in biblio-blogging conform strikingly to the emphases that come through in Herman and Chomskys analysis of the mass media and intellectuals, particularly with the standard lines on the war on terror and views on the contemporary Middle East. The rest of the book will take up modified key areas of the propaganda model in more detail.Part Two will look at the Orientalist rhetoric of clashing civilisations and how this relates to the war on terror and the creation of Islam, Arabs, Middle East etc. as the Great Enemy in the media and relevant intellectual thought since the 1970s and, to use Derek Gregorys phrase, hideously emboldened in the war on terror. The next chapter will then show how this context has had a highly noticeable impact on the use of social sciences in New Testament and Christian origins scholarship, in particular the stark generalisations of scholars using cultural/social anthropology based on contemporary studies of the Middle East. Disturbingly, some of thisscholarship has many rhetorical links with Anglo-American foreign policy interests in the Middle East and beyond, making some politically charged statements that cohere closely with recent intellectual defences of actions in Iraq, Palestine and beyond.Part Three will look at issues of Palestine and Israel in the media alongside Christian, secular and relevant intellectual thought since the Six Day War of 1967, focusing in particular on the dramatic shift towards widespread support for Israel. This will also include an analysis of the recent and controversial case of Nadia Abu el-Hajs tenure at Barnard. The following chapter will show how this interest in Israel has had a profound impact on historical Jesus and Christian origins studies, particularly the strange emphasis on Jewishness and misplaced allegations of antisemitism since the 1970s. It will also be seen that despite the shift in support of Israel this is rarely done for love of Jews, Judaism, Israel or Israelis because there remains a notable cultural, political and religious superiority in Anglo-American scholarship. While owing much also to an Orientalist tradition, this too is strongly echoed in scholarship of Christian origins where, for all the emphasis on the Jewishness of Jesus and the first Christians, it is extremely common to find Jesus or the first Christians being better than Judaism or overriding key symbols of Judaism as constructed by scholarship, done, ironically, by frequent ignoring of relevant Jewish texts. The end results of contemporary scholarship are not dramatically different from the results of the anti-Jewish and antisemitic scholarship of much of the twentieth century.

This book will apply the work of Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman, Edward Said and several others on international politics and the supportive role of the media, intellectuals and academics to contemporary Christian origins and New Testament scholarship. Part One will look at the ways in which New Testament and Christian origins scholarship has historically been influenced by its political and social settings over the past hundred years or so. Moving on to the present, the following chapter will then apply Herman and Chomskys propaganda model of manufacturing consent in the mass media to the recent explosion of biblical scholars writing on the internet, in particularly biblio-bloggers. It is clear that political views in biblio-blogging conform strikingly to the emphases that come through in Herman and Chomskys analysis of the mass media and intellectuals, particularly with the standard lines on the war on terror and views on the contemporary Middle East. The rest of the book will take up modified key areas of the propaganda model in more detail.Part Two will look at the Orientalist rhetoric of clashing civilisations and how this relates to the war on terror and the creation of Islam, Arabs, Middle East etc. as the Great Enemy in the media and relevant intellectual thought since the 1970s and, to use Derek Gregorys phrase, hideously emboldened in the war on terror. The next chapter will then show how this context has had a highly noticeable impact on the use of social sciences in New Testament and Christian origins scholarship, in particular the stark generalisations of scholars using cultural/social anthropology based on contemporary studies of the Middle East. Disturbingly, some of thisscholarship has many rhetorical links with Anglo-American foreign policy interests in the Middle East and beyond, making some politically charged statements that cohere closely with recent intellectual defences of actions in Iraq, Palestine and beyond.Part Three will look at issues of Palestine and Israel in the media alongside Christian, secular and relevant intellectual thought since the Six Day War of 1967, focusing in particular on the dramatic shift towards widespread support for Israel. This will also include an analysis of the recent and controversial case of Nadia Abu el-Hajs tenure at Barnard. The following chapter will show how this interest in Israel has had a profound impact on historical Jesus and Christian origins studies, particularly the strange emphasis on Jewishness and misplaced allegations of antisemitism since the 1970s. It will also be seen that despite the shift in support of Israel this is rarely done for love of Jews, Judaism, Israel or Israelis because there remains a notable cultural, political and religious superiority in Anglo-American scholarship. While owing much also to an Orientalist tradition, this too is strongly echoed in scholarship of Christian origins where, for all the emphasis on the Jewishness of Jesus and the first Christians, it is extremely common to find Jesus or the first Christians being better than Judaism or overriding key symbols of Judaism as constructed by scholarship, done, ironically, by frequent ignoring of relevant Jewish texts. The end results of contemporary scholarship are not dramatically different from the results of the anti-Jewish and antisemitic scholarship of much of the twentieth century.

Class Struggle in the New Testament engages the political and economic realities of the first century to unmask the mediation of class through several New Testament texts and traditions. Essays span a range of subfields, presenting class struggle as the motor force of history by responding to recent debates, historical data, and new evidence on the political-economic world of Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels. Chapters address collective struggles in the Gospels; the Roman military and class; the usefulness of categories like peasant, retainer, and middling groups for understanding the world of Jesus; the class basis behind the origin of archangels; the Gospels as products of elite culture; the implication of capitalist ideology upon biblical interpretation; and the New Testament's use of slavery metaphors, populist features, and gifting practices. This book will become a definitive reference point for future discussion.

For centuries, the priest John Ball was one of the most infamous or famous figures in the history of English rebels, best known for his saying 'When Adam delved and Eve Span, Who was then the gentleman'. But over the past hundred years his memory has faded dramatically. Along with Wat Tyler, Ball was one of the leaders of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, a historically remarkable event in that leading figures of the realm were beheaded by the rebels. For a few days in June 1381, the rebels dominated London but soon met their demise, with Ball executed. Ball provided the theological justification for the uprising which he saw in apocalyptic terms. After the revolt, he was soon vilified and received an overwhelmingly hostile press for 400 years as an archetypal enemy of the state and a religious zealot. His reputation was rescued from the end of the eighteenth century onward and for over one hundred years he rivalled Robin Hood and Wat Tyler as a great English folk (and even abolitionist) hero. But his 640-year reception involves much more, of course, and is tied up with the story of what England is or could be. Overall, the book explains how we get from an apocalyptic priest who promoted a theocracy favouring the lower orders and the decapitation of the leading church and secular authorities to someone who promoted democracy and vague notions about love and tolerance. The book also explains why he has gone out of fashion and whether he can make another comeback.

As biblical studies becomes increasingly fragmented, this collection of essays brings together a number of leading scholars in order to show how historical reconstruction, philology, metacriticism, and reception history can be part of a collective vision for the future of the field. This collection of essays focuses more specifically on critical questions surrounding the construction of ancient Israel(s), 'minimalism', the ongoing significance of lexicography, the development of early Judaism, orientalism, and the use of the Bible in contemporary political discourses. Contributors include John van Seters, Niels Peter Lemche, Ingrid Hjelm, and Philip R. Davies.

This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched. Harnessing Chaos: The Bible in English Political Discourse Since 1968 (2014) looked at the shifts in political understandings of the Bible in the aftermath of the social and economic changes of the 1960s. The book examined the decline of the Radical bible (i.e. the Bible roughly equated with socialism) in parliamentary politics and the victory of (a modified form of) Thatcher's re-reading of the Liberal Bible tradition, which equated the Bible with rule of law, democracy and tolerance. This showed how Thatcher's Bible was developed by politicians and the significance of Tony Blair's socially liberal qualifications, as well as the Radical Bible's survival outside Parliament and against the backdrop of emerging Thatcherism. The new, revised edition of Harnessing Chaos includes an additional chapter/postscript on some of the remarkable and unexpected uses of the Bible that happened since 2014. These include David Cameron giving a number of key speeches which intensified Thatcher's Bible, particularly in his justification of his most controversial policy decisions surrounding foodbanks, austerity and ISIS, Ed Miliband engaging with Russell Brand's Radical Bible, and the unpredicted emergence of Jeremy Corbyn, which has seen him and his close allies explicitly use the Radical Bible, in direct disagreement with Thatcher, in his first major speeches. These developments have been, in varying degrees, unpredictable but also vital to understanding the fate of the Bible in contemporary English politics.

Looking beyond theological narratives and offering a sociological, economic, and historical examination of the spread of earliest Christianity, James Crossley presents a thoroughly secular and causal explanation for why the once law-observant movement within Judaism became the beginnings of a new religion. First analyzing the historiography of the New Testament and stressing the problematic omission of a social scientific account, Crossley applies a socioeconomic lens to the rise of the Jesus movement and the centrality of sinners to his mission. Using macrosociological approaches, he explains how Jesus' Jewish teachings sparked the shift toward a gentile religion and an international monotheistic trend. Finally, using approaches from conversion studies, he provides a sociohistorical explanation for the rise of the Pauline mission.

This book argues that Mark s gospel was not written as late as c. 65-75 CE, but dates from sometime between the late 30s and early 40s CE. It challenges the use of the external evidence (such as Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria) often used for dating Mark, relying instead on internal evidence from the gospel itself. James Crossley also questions the view that Mark 13 reflects the Jewish war, arguing that there are other plausible historical settings. Crossley argues that Mark s gospel takes for granted that Jesus fully observed biblical law and that Mark could only make such an assumption at a time when Christianity was largely law observant: and this could not have been later than the mid-40s, from which point on certain Jewish and gentile Christians were no longer observing some biblical laws (e.g. food, Sabbath).

For centuries, the priest John Ball was one of the most infamous or famous figures in the history of English rebels, best known for his saying 'When Adam delved and Eve Span, Who was then the gentleman'. But over the past hundred years his memory has faded dramatically. Along with Wat Tyler, Ball was one of the leaders of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, a historically remarkable event in that leading figures of the realm were beheaded by the rebels. For a few days in June 1381, the rebels dominated London but soon met their demise, with Ball executed. Ball provided the theological justification for the uprising which he saw in apocalyptic terms. After the revolt, he was soon vilified and received an overwhelmingly hostile press for 400 years as an archetypal enemy of the state and a religious zealot. His reputation was rescued from the end of the eighteenth century onward and for over one hundred years he rivalled Robin Hood and Wat Tyler as a great English folk (and even abolitionist) hero. But his 640-year reception involves much more, of course, and is tied up with the story of what England is or could be. Overall, the book explains how we get from an apocalyptic priest who promoted a theocracy favouring the lower orders and the decapitation of the leading church and secular authorities to someone who promoted democracy and vague notions about love and tolerance. The book also explains why he has gone out of fashion and whether he can make another comeback.