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How is Acts of the Apostles - its form and features - to be understood in light of the work's ancient Mediterranean cultural context? In the present study, Eric C. Moore offers a fresh response to this much-debated question, arguing for the utility of ancient colonization as an analytic lens for reading Acts, a story about the origins and replication of early Christianity. He explores how in narrating his account, Luke draws on a common stock of "foundation" motifs employed by ancient sources, textual and material alike, to glorify community beginnings.

The teachers of early Christianity were one of its most intriguing groups and appear to have been the equivalent of the Jewish rabbis or pagan philosophers. By examining all the earliest sources mentioning the 'didaskaloi', Alessandro Falcetta sheds light on the first hundred years of their history, tackling questions such as why their fate was so different from that of the rabbis, and whether they were tradents of the Jesus material and therefore guarantors of the Gospels' historic reliability. By relating teachers to apostles, prophets and bishops, the author enriches our knowledge of the structure of early Christian communities and how they developed into hierarchical churches.

After a century of neglect, Johannine ethics has enjoyed a recent surge in interest inspired by new theoretical insights in analysing ethical data in John's Gospel. By closely re-reading the text on the basis of this fresh research, Jan G. van der Watt's aim in the present volume is to reveal ethical data within its structural interrelatedness. The result is a comprehensive overview of basic questions related to ethics, such as what the basis or source of ethics actually is, whether identity plays a role in ethical decision making, how values and ethical requirements are to be recognised, what is expected of an ethical agent, and what ethical behaviour looks like. As a coherent guide to getting deeds done ethically, this first volume on the grammar of the apostle's ethics focuses on his Gospel, while a second is set to concentrate on his letters.

This edited volume brings together important scholars of religion in the ancient world to honor the impact of Karen L. King's scholarship in this field. Her work shows that Christianity was diverse from its first moments - even before the word "Christian" was coined - and insists that scholars must engage both in deep historical work and in ethical reflection. These essays honor King's intellectual impact by further investigating the categories that scholars have used in their reconstructions of religion, by reflecting on the place of women and gender in the analysis of ancient texts, and by providing historiographical interventions that illuminate both the ancient world and the modern scholarship that has shaped our field.

Andrew J. Kelley argues that Mark undergirds his high view of Jesus by characterizing him as a miracle-worker who does not defer to a deity in order to perform miracles. Survey work in the first half of this monograph shows that this is distinct from the many miracle-workers depicted in sources contemporary to the Gospel of Mark. Further emphasizing this distinction is the fact that all other miracle-workers in Mark either defer to the Jewish God or to Jesus to perform miracles. The author shows that these two characteristics of Mark's depiction of miracle working in contrast to other depictions of miracle working in the time period make it likely that Mark is using Jesus' autonomous miracle working to undergird his high, perhaps divine, view of Jesus.

In the Gospel of John, one aspect of Jesus¿ divinity is his lordship. Paul C.J. Riley examines Jesus¿ lordship through the use of one Christological title, kyrios, a word which can be translated as Lord, master, owner or sir. Because kyrios is often used by characters in the narrative, Riley considers it from a narrative perspective. As a result, the first question he examines is how kyrios functions. In addition, due to textual variation for some occurrences of kyrios, the next question addressed is where kyrios is. From a firm narrative and textual foundation, the final question the author asks is what kyrios means. The answers to these three questions provide a comprehensive understanding of Jesus¿ divine lordship in the Gospel of John.

Steffi Fabricius approaches Pauline hamartiology from a cognitive semantic perspective and combines the conventional views on Paul's understanding of hamartia as an action, a personification, and as a power into a conceptual metaphorical network. By using the theories of conceptual metaphors and blending on biblical texts and their hermeneutical interpretation regarding fundamental-theological issues, a discussion is opened on why traditional methods are insufficient to cover hamartia extensively. The author not only reveals a revised concept of Pauline hamartia, but more importantly aims at a theological evaluation of cognitive semantics and its ontological foundation of embodied realism via relational ontology and the concept of metaphor as transfer, hoping to broaden the interdisciplinary discourse between systematic theology and cognitive linguistics.

A well-known characteristic of the sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls are their assertions that membership in the Qumran movement included present and eschatological fellowship with the angels, but scholars disagree as to the precise meaning of these claims. To gain a better understanding of angelic fellowship at Qumran, Matthew L. Walsh utilizes the early Jewish concept that certain angels were closely associated with Israel. Moreover, these angels, which included guardians and priests, were envisioned within apocalyptic worldviews that assumed that realities on earth corresponded to those of the heavenly realm. A comparison of non-sectarian texts with sectarian compositions reveals that the Qumran movement's lofty assertions of communion with the guardians and priests of heavenly Israel would have made a significant contribution to their identity as the true Israel.

Focusing on the present text of the Fourth Gospel, Deolito V. Vistar, Jr. argues that the "signs" are not only the eight major miracles recounted in the Gospel, but also include non-miraculous deeds of Jesus (the temple "cleansing," the washing of the disciples' feet, and so forth) that equally reveal his true identity and role as the incarnate Word of God, the supreme revealer of the Father, the Savior of the world, and so forth. Based on this broad meaning and reference, the author further argues that the complex of the cross-and-resurrection is the supreme "sign." The earlier "signs" adumbrate and lead up to the "sign" par excellence, where Christ supremely reveals who he is and accomplishes the salvation of the world. The author builds up his case by mustering fresh arguments from the text, yielding insights and conclusions that contribute to the continuing broader interpretation of the Fourth Gospel.

This volume deals with aspects of the early Christian mission and its context. The articles, which were presented originally at a symposium which took place from 30 September to 1 October 2014, cover problem areas in New Testament exegesis (Gospels, Acts, Paul and Deutero-Pauline) as well as in church history (referring to traditions of mission in Africa and Asia), and together they provide an introduction into the possible interpretations and perspectives which emerge when reading selected literature attentively. Contributors:Hans-Joachim Eckstein, Desta Heliso, Beth Langstaff, Hermann Lichtenberger, Peter F. Penner, Rainer Riesner, Günter Stemberger, Gert Steyn, Loren T. Stuckenbruck, Li Tang, Michael Tilly, Korinna Zamfir

In this study, Max Whitaker investigates the intriguing accounts of Jesus' resurrection appearances through the lens of Greco-Roman narratives. In both canonical and apocryphal accounts of Jesus' post-resurrection appearances, Jesus appears in an unrecognisable form to other characters, including people who knew him well just before his death. The motif of a character appearing in an unrecognisable form to people he or she knows well is one which exists in folk literature, and in Greco-Roman and Jewish literature from a range of genres. The author investigates a range of stories in which characters appear in an unrecognisable or metamorphic form, and summarises patterns and themes. This throws new light on how Jesus' post-resurrection stories would have been understood by their original audiences.

The present volume contains the proceedings of an international conference meant to further the dialogue between New Testament scholars and epigraphists with an interest in NT matters. After the more general approach of a previous conference, it was decided to focus on a particular writing. The Letter to the Colossians, though a relatively short work, was chosen because it contains some very interesting material worthy of study from an epigraphical angle and also offers opportunities to open up towards a broader perspective on Pauline literature. The essays that make up this collection offer insights into the world of the intended addressees, show ways for contextualising epigraphical material, and demonstrate from case studies how this material, in combination with literary and archaeological evidence, can be made to use in interpreting specific concepts or motifs in the letter.

In this volume, Elif Hilal Karaman examines the lives of Ephesian women in their historical and social contexts, considering in particular their roles as mothers, wives, teachers, and individuals in the private and public spheres. She presents Greco-Roman and early Christian sources relevant to Ephesus and relating to women, including more than 300 Ephesian inscriptions, and analyses them comparatively. By doing this she illuminates the impact of early Christianity upon the roles of women. The evidence presented demonstrates the extent to which early Christian authors utilized Greco-Roman cultural elements to construct a social background for the nascent Christian communities for whom they wrote. Elif Hilal Karaman's work thus advocates for the interpretation of early Christian texts in conversation with local archaeological and literary evidence in order to develop more nuanced understandings of the social and historical contexts of these important works.

An epicenter in present-day Pauline scholarship is the issue of the Law. The interpretation of this contentious issue started before Paul's letters and found its way into them by his citing how others perceived of his theology, and in Paul rendering rumors and criticism, and also interacting with them. To this reception-oriented perspective belong also punitive actions taken against Paul by synagogues. As a reception of Paul, Acts is included, leaving a more complex picture than argued by advocates of Paul within Judaism. Thus Karl Olav Sandnes uncovers the first interpretation or reception of Paul's view on Torah. It is limited in its scope, but provides a critical and necessary view on common trends in Pauline scholarship. Paul's decentering of the Torah was considered endangering for morality, for Jews and Gentiles alike. Perceptions of Paul's theology must be accounted for in Pauline studies.

In this study, Justin Buol analyzes the writings connected with the deaths of Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna, and Pothinus of Lyons in light of earlier accounts of the noble deaths of military, political, and religious leaders from Greco-Roman literature and the Bible, which record benefits accruing to a group on account of its leader's death. The author argues that the accounts of these three bishops' martyrdoms draw upon those prior models in order to portray the bishops as dying to unite, protect, and strengthen the Church, oppose false teaching and apostasy, and solidify the teaching role of the episcopal office. Finally, by providing a foundation for Irenaeus to argue for apostolic succession, these second-century bishop martyrs also help form a lasting contribution to the growth of episcopal power.

This volume contains seventeen essays written by Eckhard J. Schnabel, written over the past 25 years. The essays focus on the realities of the work of Jesus, Paul, John, and the early church, exploring aspects of the history, missionary expansion, and theology of the early church including lexical, ethical, and ecclesiological questions. Specific subjects discussed include Jesus' silence at his trial, the introduction of foreign deities to Athens, the understanding of Rom 12:1, Paul's ethics, the meaning of baptizein , the realities of persecution, Christian identity and mission in Revelation, and singing and instrumental music in the early church.

JongHyun Kwon's research aims to discover whether the historical Jesus understood his death as a means of forgiveness by comparing Paul and Matthew's treatment of these themes. The strong tie between Jesus' death and forgiveness of sin in nascent Christianity is attenuated in Jesus research. Hence, the author's central question: Is this a true understanding of the historical Jesus, or a post-Easter theology? JongHyun Kwon's investigation is conducted through a comparison of the Pauline epistles and the Gospel of Matthew. The result is then compared against Jewish writings contemporary to Jesus.Through this methodology, JongHyun Kwon finds that Paul and Matthew correspond to one another on the issue of the strong affinity between Jesus' death and forgiveness. He then concludes that the historical Jesus may have understood his death as a means of forgiveness, as they describe.

The articles in this volume discuss polemically charged re-evaluations of the religious traditions and scriptures of the Western world, employed throughout the centuries in various religious contexts. These studies consider new religious outlooks not as glosses on inherited traditions, but as acts of power exercised in the struggle for identity: contestation, appropriation, interpretation and polemics against the religious "other", involving, sometimes covertly, critiques of inherited tradition. The volume outlines a typology of the variety of attested strategies, highlighting cases of borderline extremes involving subversions of mainstream forms of belief as well as elucidating more moderate avenues of interaction. Most of the studies were presented at a 2016 conference in Jerusalem honouring Guy G. Stroumsa, a renowned scholar of early Christianity and Late Antiquity, recipient of many scholarly awards, including the Leopold Lucas Prize 2018. Contributors:Nicole Belayche, Moshe Blidstein, Philippe Borgeaud, Hubert Cancik, Hildegard Cancik-Lindemaier, Gilles Dorival, Giovanni Filoramo, Aryeh Kofsky, Sergey Minov, Maren R. Niehoff, Lorenzo Perrone, Serge Ruzer, John Scheid, Zur Shalev, Mark Silk, Adam Silverstein, Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra, Yuri Stoyanov, Guy Stroumsa, Michel Tardieu, Sharon Weisser

Jonathon Lookadoo explores Ignatius's pairing of high priestly and temple metaphors in order to understand more clearly how Ignatius viewed Jesus and the church. The metaphors of high priest and temple are closely related in three of Ignatius's letters. This study allows readers to appreciate better how Ignatius portrayed Jesus's identity and work. The author also sheds light on how some of Ignatius's audiences were to demonstrate unity. By exploring each metaphor with a view to its rhetorical function in a particular letter as well as to similar imagery in early Jewish and early Christian literature, Jonathon Lookadoo freshly illuminates Ignatius's letters in a way that is of interest not only to Ignatian scholars, but to all who study early Christian letters, rhetoric, and theology in the first two centuries CE.

Within Lukan scholarship, studies on the theme of Passover have mostly been confined to the pericope of the Last Supper (Luke 22:1-20). Few have ventured outside it and explored the presence, let alone the significance, of the theme in other passages throughout Luke-Acts. Thus, the aim of this study by Dany Christopher is to show where, how, and why Luke appropriates the theme of Passover in his writings. The author proposes that besides the passion narrative, allusions to Passover can be found in three other sets of passages: the infancy narrative, the Parousia discourses in Luke 12 and Luke 17, and the rescue stories of Peter (Acts 12) and Paul (Acts 27). He shows that the theme of Passover plays a major role in how Luke structures his narratives and conveys the message of God's salvation.

In this work, Christina Harker deconstructs the prevailing treatment of the New Testament as anti-imperial by contextualizing both New Testament scholarship and the Galatian experience within imperialist discourses that survived the dissolution of conventional empires in the twentieth century. She critiques simplistic treatments of empire as post-imperial (that is, replicating patterns of imperialist ideology, albeit unwittingly). To solve the problem, a new interpretation of Galatians is proposed that reworks and complicates the portrait of the Galatians themselves, rather than Paul, within what then emerges as a diverse social world peopled by complex individuals with heterogeneous social and cultural identities. The author is thus able to show how New Testament scholars who rehabilitate the Bible and Paul as anti-empire perpetuate the same imperialist modes of interpretation they seek to repudiate.

The authors of this volume discuss the relevance and influence of various Old and New Testament documents, and early Christian and Jewish texts in terms of their impact in shaping the moral character, identity, and behaviour of the specific communities in which they were produced as well as their ethical application throughout the centuries. Against a narrow understanding of ethics, the term "application" is not used to analyse the texts of the Bible as step-by-step manuals for moral conduct. Rather, the contributors engage with biblical texts within the framework of a complex hermeneutical process of application of the relevance of these texts in contemporary ethical discourse. Contributors: Paul N. Anderson, Robert L. Brawley, Cilliers Breytenbach, Ulrich Busse, R. Alan Culpepper, Jan Willem van Henten, Rainer Hirsch-Luipold, Stephan Joubert, Craig R. Koester, Bart J. Koet, Michael Labahn, Tobias Nicklas, Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, Udo Schnelle, Michael Theobald, D. Francois Tolmie, Joseph Verheyden, Ben Witherington, III, Ellen van Wolde, Michael Wolter, Mirjam Zimmermann, Ruben Zimmermann

The essays by Heikki Räisänen (1941-2015) collected in this volume deal with a broad array of topics, ranging from early Christian identities to bibliodrama and other modern-day approaches to the scriptures. The exegetical studies in the first part explore issues related to early Christian eschatology, virginal conception, and Paul's complex argumentation about the Jews and their salvation in Romans 9-11. The essays on ancient and modern interpretations of the Bible in the second part pay special attention to ethical issues, address the "dark sides" of its reception, and discuss the biblical interpretations of Marcion and Joseph Smith. The third section comprises studies on the Bible and Qur'an, while the concluding chapter provides a comprehensive description of the Bible as scripture from a comparative perspective.

Peter and Paul have fascinated Christians since the first century. Though often pitted against one another in scholarship and popular imagination, they respected one another. In seventeen essays the contributors probe enduring issues in ways that provide fresh insights. They strive to advance New Testament scholarship by addressing Peter and Paul's historical interaction, their intertextual exegesis, and Paul's view of Pastoral Theology. Their focus on intertextuality reflects Peter's and Paul's saturation in scripture and their focus on Jewish and Gentile relationships seeks to foster unity in church and culture. Contributors:Michael Allen, Christopher A. Beetham, John Dennis, Wesley Hill, Paul R. House, Panagiotis Kantartzis, Alexander N. Kirk, Sean McDonough, Douglas C. Mohrmann, Elizabeth E. Shively, Peter Stuhlmacher, Joel White, William N. Wilder, H. H. Drake Williams III, Joel Willitts, Todd A. Wilson, Jeff Wisdom

In his letter to the Galatians, Paul writes that his Gentile audience should not illegitimately appropriate Jewish customs, especially circumcision. As a way to understand why Paul deems circumcision in this context to be so egregious, being a matter of apostasy rather than simply an adiaphoron, John Anthony Dunne argues that the themes of suffering and persecution point to the coercive nature of the conflict in Galatia. What is at stake for Paul is allegiance to the crucified Christ. Due to the realities inaugurated by the Christ-event and the implications of participating in the Messiah's death and resurrection, suffering for the sake of the cross is to be endured instead of succumbing to the compulsion to be circumcised. Suffering persecution, rather than receiving circumcision, demarcates the true people of God who are set apart in Christ for future blessing and vindication.

Patricia A. Duncan examines the fourth-century Christian novel traditionally known as the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies (but here referred to as the Klementia) in order to show how the lengthy and complex narrative coheres as a rhetorical whole and works to initiate the reader into a revised, esoteric vision of the origins of Christianity. The novel is well known for its distinctive doctrine of "false pericopes" in the scriptures of the Jews, but equally important is the way it capitalizes on its narrative genre to correct false pericopes in the Gospels of the New Testament. Key to the novel's project is a construction of the apostle Peter as the chief tradent and the fully authorized interpreter of the words and deeds of the True Prophet Jesus. This Peter offers up of a law-abiding, monotheistic "Christianity" that is fully continuous with the religion of the followers of Moses.

The present volume contains the proceedings of an international colloquium held in February 2015 at the Arts Faculty of the KU Leuven that brought together specialists in (late) ancient philosophy and early Christian studies. Contributors were asked to reflect on the reception of two foundational texts dealing with the origin of the world - the third book of Plato's Timaeus and the Genesis account of the creation. The organizers had a double aim: They wished to offer a forum for furthering the dialogue between colleagues working in these respective fields and to do this by studying in a comparative perspective both a crucial topic shared by these traditions and the literary genres through which this topic was developed and transmitted. Contributors:Paul M. Blowers, Mauro Bonazzi, David C. DeMarco, Volker Henning Drecoll, David L. Dusenbury, Lorenzo Ferroni, Benjamin Gleede, Sarah Klitenic Wear, Clement Kuehn, Gerard P. Luttikhuizen, Claudio Moreschini, Samuel Pomeroy, Gerd Van Riel, Gregory E. Sterling, Dimitrios Zaganas

Pious Jews of the Second Temple period sought to conform their lives to Torah, the law God had given Israel. Their different sects disagreed, however, on how to interpret particular laws and even on the question of who had the authority to interpret them. Jesus and his earliest followers, while focusing primarily on what they believed God was doing in their own day, were repeatedly confronted with issues raised by its relation to God's prior revelation in Torah. This volume contains studies by Stephen Westerholm devoted to the meaning and place of Torah in Early Judaism as well as to New Testament understandings, particularly those of the gospels and Pauline literature. Attention is also given to the "New Perspective on Paul," to recent discussions of justification and Paul's relation to Judaism, and to aspects of the transmission of Jesus tradition among his earliest followers.

This volume contains thirty-one essays by Richard Bauckham, a well-known New Testament scholar, most of which have been previously published in journals or in multi-authored volumes. Many aspects of early Christianity in the New Testament and early patristic periods are covered. Major topics include Gospel audiences and Gospel traditions, Christian apocryphal literature, and early Christian people. The collection reflects the author's conviction that the historical study of early Christianity should not isolate the New Testament literature from other early Christian literature, but must take full account of such sources as the apostolic fathers and Christian apocryphal literature.

The contributions in this volume critically engage with Mogens Müller's work on ancient Judaism, the Septuagint, the New Testament gospels, and the reception history of the Bible, covering a variety of topics within the field of biblical rewriting and reception. Rewriting and reception are parts of a continuous process that began within biblical literature itself and have continued in the history of interpretative communities where the Bible has been received and cherished in innumerable ways until today. The present volume aims to further the scholarly debate on important topics within biblical studies. It demonstrates that the notion of reception can be addressed from very different angles and from diverse hermeneutical and methodological viewpoints, all of which offer fresh insights into ancient texts and their afterlife. Contributors:Gitte Buch-Hansen, Troels Engberg-Pedersen, Tilde Bak Halvgaard, Ingrid Hjelm, Thomas Hoffmann, Jesper Høgenhaven, Martin Karrer, Siegfried Kreuzer, Michael Labahn, Martin Meiser, Halvor Moxnes, Jesper Tang Nielsen, Heike Omerzu, Christina Petterson, Frederik Poulsen, John Strange, Thomas Thompson, Francis Watson