Luke's two-volume work contains the only narrative depictions of Jesus' ascent into heaven in the New Testament. While select studies have focused on particular aspects of these accounts, however, the importance of the ascension to Luke-Acts calls for renewed attention to the narratological and theological significance of these accounts.
The ending of Mark's Gospel is one of the great unsolved mysteries. Comments about the different attested endings date back to Eusebius in the fourth century. This volume argues that Eusebius proposes a double solution to the problem that can be read as recognizing the authority of both the Longer and the Abrupt conclusions to Mark's Gospel.
Paul B. Fowler argues that rhetorical questions in Romans 3?11 structure the argument, not as responses to criticism but as Paul's careful guiding of the reader, and that these chapters, like the paraenesis in Romans 12?15, address specific circumstances in Rome - tensions between Jew and Gentile .
A. Andrew Das reviews six proposals for "grand thematic narratives" behind the logic of Galatian. Das weighs each of these proposals exegetically and finds them wanting, examples of what Samuel Sandmel famously labelled "parallelomania." Das reflects on the risks of seeking comprehensive stories behind Paul's letters and offers a path forward.
The first two chapters of 1 Corinthians have played a significant role in the history of Christian theology. Interpreting the central event in Christianity, the crucifixion of Jesus, Paul reflects on the wisdom and foolishness of God in the "word of the cross."
Sarah Harding examines Paul's anthropology from the perspective of eschatology, concluding that his view of humans depends on his belief that the cosmos evolves through distinct aeons in progress towards its telos. Harding describes a temporal distinction
James opposes the exploitation of the Roman Empire and a peculiar Pauline form of hybridity that compromises with it; refutes Roman cultural practices that threaten the identity of the letter's recipients; and condemns those who would transgress the boundaries between purity and impurity, God and "world."
Christians around the world recite the "Lord's Prayer" daily, but what exactly are they praying for - and what relationship does it have with Jesus' own context? The author reviews scholarship that derives the so-called Lord's Prayer from Jewish synagogal prayers and refutes it.
Recent interest in the person and work of James of Jerusalem and in the community he led has sometimes put the apostle Paul in a negative light. The author seeks to understand them both as Jews, without prejudice, operating under the banner of Jesus crucified and risen, and engaged in different but complementary missions.
Challenges the contemporary notion of "early Christian literature," showing that a number of texts usually so described - including Hebrews, Acts, the Gospel of John, 1 Peter, the letters of Ignatius, the Gospel of Truth, and the Secret Revelation of John - are "not particularly interested" in a distinctive Christian identity or self-definition.
Rhetorical Cosmology and Political Theology in the Book of Revelation
Argues that cosmology is a central focus in John's Apocalypse, but not in the sense that John envisions a stable cosmos. Rather, John employs cosmological themes for persuasive purposes that include a critique of Roman imperial cultic discourse.
In this provocative study, Joseph A. Marchal argues that biblical interpretation, but most especially Pauline studies, must engage the full range of critical challenges brought by feminist studies, postcolonial studies, and Roman imperial studies.
Yung Suk Kim takes up the language of "body" that infuses 1 Corinthians about social realities in the early church. Kim argues against the view that in speaking of the church as Christ's body Paul seeks to emphasize unity and the social boundary.
Brigitte Kahl brings to this insightful reading of Galatians a deep knowledge of the classical world and especially of Roman imperial ideology. The first wave of scholarship on the Roman imperial context of Paul's letters raised important questions that only thorough treatments of individual letters can answer.
In 1949, Paul Marshall Allen embarked, along with Rudolf Frieling, on an intense, in-depth study of the Gospel of John. Their work involved meditative contemplation, verse-by-verse, and working closely with the original Greek Gospel. This book comprises the notes that Paul wrote down from that study. Intended to be read meditatively, this book ......
The New Creation and Its Ethical and Social Reconfiguration
Felipe Legarreta gives careful attention to patterns of exegesis in Second-Temple Judaism and identifies, for the first time, a number of motifs by which Jews drew ethical implications from the story of Adam and his expulsion from Eden.
Although several scholars have written about how Luke portrays Jesus and the apostles as prophets, no one has yet provided a comprehensive theory as to why Luke's protagonists resemble the prophets. McWhirter shows that Luke uses these biblical prophets as precedents, seeking to legitimate the apostles' teachings in the face of events
The Meaning and Function of Divine Judgment in Paul's Most Important Let
Kevin W. McFadden shows that Paul wrote the letter to remind Roman Christians of his gospel because of his vocation as apostle to the Gentiles. The letter simultaneously demonstrates the guilt of the world and calls Paul's audience to live out the implications of the gospel.
