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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.

Ein Recht ist dann unveräußerlich, wenn man es nicht freiwillig aufgeben oder transferieren kann. Elias Moser liefert eine Begriffsanalyse dieses grundlegenden Konzeptes. Es handelt sich bei solchen Rechten nicht nur um Grundrechte. Auch Einschränkungen der Einwilligung und der Vertragsfreiheit machen den Verzicht oder Transfer bestimmter Rechte unmöglich. Es stellt sich zudem die Frage, ob es so etwas wie unveräußerliche Rechte überhaupt geben kann oder ob das Konzept einen Widerspruch enthält. Schließlich untersucht der Autor, weshalb eine Person nicht frei über bestimmte Rechte verfügen darf und sucht nach den moralischen Gründen für die Rechtfertigung dieser Freiheitsbeschränkung. Ideen wie bspw. die Menschenwürde, ein gerechtfertigter Paternalismus, oder Schutz vor Zwang und Ausbeutung werden anhand von Beispielen aus Debatten der angewandten Ethik diskutiert.

In recent centuries critical scholarship on the Hebrew Bible has brought to light a large gap between biblical portrayals of the historical reality of ancient Israel (story) on the one hand, and historical-critical reconstructions of the actual past (history) on the other. The problems the so-called "minimalists" and "maximalists" struggled to solve still remain unsettled, and students as well as scholars of the Hebrew Bible cannot ignore or even remain indifferent to the gap and overlap between story and history. Could and should Hebrew Bible scholarship in the future move beyond the milieu of the debate between minimalists and maximalists? This volume, consisting of nine articles by authors with different institutional and religious backgrounds, articulates that there are ways to overcome the increasing gap between story and history.

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.

Why do things change at certain times and not at others? The contributions collected in this volume approach this question from the perspective of threat. Defined as the self-alerting which goes on within societies and social groups, threats open up windows of opportunity for change - though not always the ones hoped for by those who raised the alarm in the first place. But once threatened, social orders previously taken for granted become visible, debateable and therefore changeable. Looking at the relationship between threat and social change with thematic, spatial and temporal foci, the contributions of this five-section volume treat topics ranging from systems of belief in Ancient Europe to droughts in twentieth century Australia, from medieval urban riots to organized crime and peaceful protest nowadays. With contributions by:Anna Ananieva, Matthias Becker, Phil Booth, Renate Dürr, Fernando Esposito, Ewald Frie, Klaus Gestwa, Rolf Haaser, Andreas Hasenclever, Rebecca Jones, Thomas Kohl, Beatrice von Lüpke, Mischa Meier, Klaus Ridder, Jan Sändig, Dennis Schmidt, Sebastian Schmidt-Hofner, Hannah Skoda, Holger Stritzel

This volume explores the inherent pluralism of the Reformation and its manifold legacies from an ecumenical and interdisciplinary point of view. The essays shed new light on several key questions such as: How do we interpret and assess the Reformation as a historical and theological event, as a historiographic category, and as a cultural myth? And what are the long-term global consequences of the Reformation period as manifest in the rise of competing confessional cultures and distinct Christian world religions, producing different types of modernities? Contributors:John Betz, Euan Cameron, Emidio Campi, Simon Ditchfield, Scott Dixon, Johannes Eurich, Patrick Griffin, Ryan P. Hoselton, Matthias Konradt, Greta Grace Kroeker, Hartmut Lehmann, Volker Leppin, David Lincicum, Ute Lotz-Heumann, Friederike Nüssel, Manfred Oeming, John O'Malley, Paul Silas Peterson, Jan Stievermann, Christoph Strohm, Douglas A. Sweeney, Randall C. Zachman

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.

In recent years, three particular debates have risen to the fore of Pauline Studies: the question of the centre of Pauline theology, how to interpret the mula, and the relationship between divine and human agency. In the present study, Jeanette Hagen Pifer contends that several of the apparent conundrums in recent Pauline scholarship turn out to derive from an inadequate understanding of what Paul means by faith. By first exploring the question of what Paul means by faith outside of the classic justification passages in Romans and Galatians, she reveals faith as an active and productive mode of human existence. Yet this existence is not a form of human self-achievement. On the contrary, faith is precisely the denial of self-effort and a dependence upon the prior gracious work of Christ. In this way, faith is self-negating and self-involving participation in the Christ-event.

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.

How did the drastic experiences of the turbulent twentieth century affect the works of a legal historian? What kind of an impact did they have on the ideas of justice and rule of law prominent in legal historiography? Ville Erkkilä analyses the way in which the concepts of 'Rechtsgewissen' and 'Rechtsbewusstsein' evolved over time in the works of the prestigious legal historian Franz Wieacker. With the help of previously unavailable sources such as private correspondence, the author reveals how Franz Wieacker's personal experiences intertwined in his legal historiography with the tradition of legal science as well as the social and political destinies of twentieth century Germany.

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.

Exile is a central concern in the Hebrew Bible. The fifteen essays in this volume, presented at an international conference in Copenhagen in May 2017, investigate and discuss images of exile in the prophetic books. Some deal with a specific passage or biblical book, while others approach the issue by comparing different books or by looking more closely at a particular metaphor or theme. A recurrent question is what role language and metaphors play in the prophets' attempts to express, structure, and cope with experiences of exile. Contributors:Sonja Ammann, Ulrich Berges, Göran Eidevall, Martien A. Halvorson-Taylor, Søren Holst, Else K. Holt, Jesper Høgenhaven, Paul M. Joyce, Hyun Chul Paul Kim, Anja Klein, Francis Landy, Frederik Poulsen, Cian Power, Dalit Rom-Shiloni, Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer

In the last two decades, increasing numbers of texts have been suggested as coming from or edited during the Persian period, but these discussions do not always reflect extensively on the assumptions used in making these claims or the implications on a broader scale. Earlier generations of scholars found it sufficient to categorize material in the biblical books simply as "late" or "postexilic" without adequately trying to determine when, by whom, and why the material was incorporated into the text at a fixed point in the Persian period. By grappling with these questions, the essays in this volume evince a greater degree of precision vis-à-vis dating and historical context. The authors introduce the designations early Persian, middle Persian, and late Persian in their textual analysis, and collectively they take significant steps toward developing criteria for locating a biblical text within the Persian period. Contributors:Reinhard Achenbach, Richard J. Bautch, Joseph Blenkinsopp, David M. Carr, Georg Fischer SJ, Raik Heckl, Yigal Levin, Jill Middlemas, Dalit Rom-Shiloni, Konrad Schmid, Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer

In recent decades, the debate on monotheism and religious pluralism has been strongly influenced by the idea that monotheism originating in the Old Testament is the root of intolerance and violence. In this study, Daniela Scialabba investigates inclusive tendencies in Old Testament monotheism, in particular theological principles motivating and supporting the possibility of a positive relationship between non-Israelites and the God of Israel. Thus, she examines three texts thoroughly: the Book of Jonah, Psalm 33 (MT and LXX), and the novel "Joseph and Aseneth". Despite their difference concerning genre, date of origin and provenance, these texts have important ideas in common: the relationship between the God of Israel and non-Israelites as well as the concept of God as a universal creator who has pity with all his creatures.

In this work, Paul Michael Kurtz examines the historiography of ancient Israel in the German Empire through the prism of religion, as a structuring framework not only for writings on the past but also for the writers of that past themselves. The author investigates what biblical scholars, theologians, orientalists, philologists, and ancient historians considered "religion" and "history" to be, how they understood these conceptual categories, and why they studied them in the manner they did. Focusing on Julius Wellhausen and Hermann Gunkel, his inquiry scrutinizes to what extent, in an age of allegedly neutral historical science, the very enterprise of reconstructing the ancient past was shaped by liberal Protestant structures shared by dominant historians from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

In this work, Karel van der Toorn explores the social setting, the intellectual milieu, and the historical context of the beliefs and practices reflected in the Hebrew Bible. While fully recognizing the unique character of early Israelite religion, the author challenges the notion of its incomparability. Beliefs are anchored in culture. Rituals have societal significance. God has a history. By shifting the focus to the context, the essays gathered here yield a deeper understanding of Israelite religion and the origins of the Bible.

This collection of essays by Isaiah M. Gafni reflects over forty years of research on central issues of Jewish history in one of its formative eras. Questions relating to representations of the past, beginning with Josephus but primarily in rabbinic and post-rabbinic literature, represent an axial theme in this volume. Throughout the collection the author addresses the tension between realities on the ground and the historiography that shaped the image of that reality for all subsequent generations. Two specific clusters of studies analyze the emergence and development of the Babylonian rabbinic community, as well as the complex relationship between the Judaean centre and the Jewish diaspora in Late Antiquity. A final selection of essays examines the impact of modern ideologies and revised methods of research on the image of Jewish life and rabbinic leadership in late antique Judaism.

The phenomena we call magic and mysticism had a profound effect on the shaping of Judaism in late antiquity. In this volume, Michael D. Swartz offers a wide-ranging study of the purposes, world-views, ritual dynamics, literary forms, and social settings of ancient Jewish magic and mysticism and their function in religion and history. Based on the author's studies over the past few decades, he proposes innovative methods for the study of these two phenomena. The author focuses especially on the rituals of early Jewish magic and mysticism, their social contexts, and the textual dimension of this complex literature. He also offers introductions to these phenomena. Michael D. Swartz argues that the authors of these texts employed intricate technologies, literary and artistic forms, and physical practices to negotiate between the values and world-views of their cultures and the texture of everyday life.

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.

Biblical books, which were transmitted on separate scrolls in antiquity, are not necessarily identical with books in the modern sense of a coherent and self-contained compositional unit. The books of the Primary History especially constitute a larger master narrative. This raises the question of how the distribution of the text to different scrolls relates to its compositional history. Were the respective books conceived as physically separate parts of a multivolume composition (whether Pentateuch, Hexateuch, Deuteronomistic History or Enneateuch) from the outset, or are we dealing with a more complex development of originally independent compositional units that were only connected or separated by later redaction? The present volume addresses these issues with respect to the transitions between the books of Genesis/Exodus and Joshua/Judges, which have obviously developed in dependency upon each other.

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.

Contributions from members of the German Association for Comparative Law will be among the papers presented at this summer's twentieth International Congress of Comparative Law, to be held for the first time in Asia at Fukuoka, Japan, in July. In a strong range of topics, one focus during the six-day congress will be on questions of multiculturalism and language that concern both comparative law methodology and other legal fields such as family law. Further dealt with will be matters particularly relevant to consumer protection, ranging from choice of court agreements to price control in contracts, duty of information, the regulation of crowd-funding, as well as leisure and travel contracts. Another focus will be on digitalisation's far-reaching economic, societal and legal implications, with questions of data protection in the realm of comparative law accentuated by contributions on the right to be forgotten or current national legal orders. Overall, the volume will reflect the present state of discussions within German jurisprudence. With contributions by:Christina Breunig, Moritz Brinkmann, Johanna Croon-Gestefeld, Anatol Dutta, Katharina Erler, Matthias Fervers, Stefan Grundmann, Beate Gsell, Dirk Hanschel, Wolfgang Hau, Leonhard Hübner, Luca Kaller, Jürgen Kühling, Sebastian Mock, Joachim Münch, David Rüther, Anne Sanders, Bianca Scraback, Stefanie Schmahl, Martin Schmidt-Kessel, Boris Schinkels, Andreas Spickhoff, Klaus Tonner; Jan Thiessen, Tobias H. Tröger, Lars Viellechner, Marc-Philippe Weller, Matthias Weller, Bettina Weisser