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This book uncovers an early collection of sayings, called N, that are ascribed to Jesus and are similar to those found in the Gospel of Thomas and in Q, a document believed to be a common source, with Mark, for Matthew and Luke. In the process, the book sheds light on the literary methods of Mark and Thomas. A literary comparison of the texts of the sayings of Jesus that appear in both Mark and Thomas shows that each adapted an earlier collection for his own purpose. Neither Mark nor Thomas consistently gives the original or earliest form of the shared sayings; hence, Horman states, each used and adapted an earlier source. Close verbal parallels between the versions in Mark and Thomas show that the source was written in Greek. Horman's conclusion is that this common source is N. This proposal is new, and has implications for life of Jesus research. Previous research on sayings attributed to Jesus has treated Thomas in one of two ways: either as an independent stream of Jesus sayings written without knowledge of the New Testament Gospels and or as a later piece of pseudo-Scripture that uses the New Testament as source. This book rejects both views.

This work explores the relationship between religion, social patterns, and the perception of the character of scripture in four modes of Ancient Judaism: (1) the Jerusalem community of the fifth to fourth centuries B.C.E. (ie, the Early Second Temple Period); (2) the Judaism of the Graeco-Roman Disapora down to the end of the fourth century of the Christian Era; (3) earliest rabbinic Judaism in the second century C.E> in the land of Israel; (4) Late Antique Talmudic Rabbinism, primarily inn Babylonia, down to the sixth century of the Christian Era. Lightstone attempts not only to describe these perceptions and relationships but also to account for them, to explore why scripture should be thus perceived. His imaginative approach to the challenging descriptive and theoretical tasks is influenced by literary and form-critical methods as well as by the methods and perspectives of social anthropology and sociology of the mind.</p> This unique attempts at revising the perception of the character of scripture should arouse the interest of scholars and students of Ancient Judaism. </p>

Did the evangelist Mark write two versions of his gospel? According to a letter ascribed to Clement of Alexandria, he created a second, more spiritual edition of his gospel. Clement's letter contains two excerpts from this gospel. Scott Brown demonstrates that the gospel excerpts sound like Mark and employ Mark's distinctive literary techniques.

While recent manuscript finds shed new light on gnostic thought, the writings of the heresiologists are still indispensable. In this volume, Valllee analyses the arguments of each of the three heresiologists in order to discern the central concerns of each.

Is it possible that early Christian anti-Judaism was directed toward people other than Jews? Michele Murray proposes that significant strands of early Christian anti-Judaism were directed against Gentile Christians. More specifically, it was directed toward Gentile Christian judaizers.

Addresses the complex and intriguing issue of how primary religious texts from the ancient Mediterranean world are illuminated by, and in turn illuminate, the ever-increasing amount of artifactual evidence available from the surrounding world.

The second volume in this two-volume work studying the initial developments of anti-Judaism within the church examines the evolution of the Christian faith in its social context as revealed by evidence such as early patristic and rabbinic writings and archaeological findings.

The role and function of law in religious communities in the Roman period - especially in Judaism - has been a key issue among scholars in recent years. This thought-provoking work is the first full-scale attempt to write a historical assessment of the scholarly debate concerning this question.

What makes the Book of Revelation so hard to understand? How does the Book of Revelation fit into Judaism and the beginning of Christianity? John Marshall proposes a radical reinterpretation of the Book of Revelation of John, viewing it as a document of the Jewish diaspora during the Judean War.

Brings a new perspective to the study of religion in antiquity. Along with the deliberate goal to understand religion as an urban phenomenon, the book studies religious groups as part of the dynamic process of social interaction, spanning a spectrum from coexistence, through competition and rivalry, to open conflict.