The Origins of Pauline Theology: Paratexts and Priscillian of Avila'sCanons on the Letters of the Apostle Paul

Pauline theology is a well-established undertaking in modern New Testament studies, and yet it is almost entirely without precedent prior to the nineteenth century. This article explores the enterprise of Pauline theology by considering an important and overlooked exception to its otherwise exclusively modern provenance: Priscillian of Avila's fourth-centuryCanons on the Letters of the Apostle Paul. The key to Priscillian's dogmatic synthesis of Paul's thought was his innovative ‘versification’ of Paul's letters, which facilitated efficient citation and cross-referencing of epistolary data. This article uses Priscillian's literary creation to examine the intriguing correlation of technologies for ordering textual knowledge with the systematic abstraction of Pauline theology.

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What Jesus Did, Does and May Do in Future: Gospel Miracles, Human Augmentation, Transhumanism and the Future of New Testament Studies

Journal for the Study of the New Testament ◽

10.1177/0142064x21989979 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 0142064X2198997

Author(s):

William John Lyons

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

New Testament ◽

Human Body ◽

Ethical Implications ◽

The Future ◽

New Testament Studies ◽

Mental Abilities ◽

Biblical Texts ◽

The Impact ◽

Human Augmentation

The quest of New Testament studies for a well-resourced future would be substantially aided by its explicit abandonment of a narrow methodological focus in favour of building links with other disciplines and by its acknowledgment that exegetical insights may arise from examining the impact of biblical texts down the centuries. In the potential appropriation of Jesus by Christian transhumanists interested in human bodily enhancement, for example, the healings of his earthly ministry are ignored because they are understood to restore human bodies to a previous form (a position recognizable in much of New Testament scholarship) rather than augment them to a new one. Building on deaf nineteenth-century interpretations which see the mental abilities of the deaf man in Mk 7.32-37 as being enhanced beyond human norms by Jesus, this article examines the healings of three blind men (Mk 8.22-26, Mk 10.46-52 and Jn 9.1-41). While the Johannine blind man is explicitly said to be blind from birth (whatever New Testament translations have often been made to say!), this article proposes that Blind Bartimaeus in Mk 10 should also be viewed this way. While their becoming sighted restores them to a common human pattern, their lack of prior sighted-experience means that it is their ability to see instantly that strongly implies the presence of an augmentative element to their healings. A postscript notes the different attitudes to the permission required to transform the human body within these narratives and suggests transhumanists consider the ethical implications of each story carefully before they incorporate the earthly Jesus into their arguments.

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In Search of the Key to the Theology of Paul the Apostle

Collectanea Theologica ◽

10.21697/ct.2020.90.5.18 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 90 (5) ◽

pp. 443-462

Author(s):

Waldemar Rakocy

Keyword(s):

New Testament ◽

Old Testament ◽

Clear Definition ◽

Apostle Paul ◽

New Creation ◽

Decisive Influence ◽

The New Testament ◽

Pauline Theology ◽

Theological Thought ◽

The Relationship

The Author of the paper looks for a key to the theological thought of the Apostle Paul. The fact that it lacks a clear definition results in authors radically differing in their perception, for instance, regarding the relationship between the Old and the New Testament, and as a result, whether or not the Old Testament has a decisive influence on the Pauline thought, continuing along this line: whether the Apostle in his view always remained a Jew, or whether he distanced himself from Judaism. The fact that we do not have a category clearly defining the relationship between the Old and New Testament salvific reality results in an abundance of contradictory opinions. That is also transferred to other areas of the Pauline theology. The interpretation of Paul’s theology tends to be determined by preconceptions, built upon various ways of understanding the significance of the Old Testament, or various relationship to Judaism and its thought. The author of the paper indicates a concept, treated as marginal by scholars, of a new creation in Christ as the key to understanding the Pauline thought. It lays in the background of all themes treated by Paul and connects them into a single, coherent entity.

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Justification by Grace–to the Doers: an Analysis of the Place of Romans 2 in the Theology of Paul

New Testament Studies ◽

10.1017/s0028688500013515 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 32 (1) ◽

pp. 72-93

Author(s):

Klyne R. Snodgrass

Keyword(s):

New Testament ◽

Apostle Paul ◽

New Testament Studies ◽

In Christ ◽

The Law

Not surprisingly, the thought of the Apostle Paul is being given fresh consideration in our time.1Old problems, particularly the relation of Paul to Judaism and his view of the law, continue to vex New Testament studies. A subject which deserves more attention in this reconsideration of Paul is his belief that judgment is according to works. Those who take such statements seriously end up with a quite different picture of Paul from those who soft-pedal the issue. For example, Karl Donfried asserts that it is the obedient Christian who remains in Christ who will be saved on the last day, and that Paul expects a final judgment for Christians which can result in salvation or in wrath.2Even though such language sounds like ‘heresy’ to ears accustomed to the usual explanations of Paul, Donfried's argument must be given serious attention for it attempts to treat seriously statements in Paul that are too frequently neglected.

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Atonement

Biblical Studies ◽

10.1093/obo/9780195393361-0128 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

Stephen Finlan

Keyword(s):

New Testament ◽

Old Testament ◽

Lord's Supper ◽

1 Corinthians ◽

Apostle Paul ◽

English Translations ◽

The New Testament ◽

Paul's Letters ◽

The Temple ◽

First John

Theological usage of the term “atonement” refers to a cluster of ideas in the Old Testament that center on the cleansing of impurity (which needs to be done to prevent God from leaving the Temple), and to New Testament notions that “Christ died for our sins” (1 Corinthians 15:3) and that “we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10). In English translations of the Old Testament, “make atonement” usually translates kipper, the verb for the cultic removal of impurity from the Temple or sanctuary, accomplished through the dashing or sprinkling of the blood of the “purification offering” or “sin offering” on particular Temple furnishings. Kipper occurs most often, but not exclusively, in sacrificial texts. Kipper is also performed over the scapegoat in one passage (Leviticus 16:10). Thus, scholarly discussions of atonement in the Old Testament focus on the sacrificial and scapegoat rituals but also attend to the procedure for making a redemption payment, for which the word kopher (cognate with kipper) is used. The most important day in the ancient Jewish liturgical calendar was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when the supreme sacrificial rituals of the year were performed, and the only day of the year on which the scapegoat rite was performed. Atonement in the New Testament is expressed through metaphors of sacrifice, scapegoat, and redemption to picture the meaning of the death of Christ. The Apostle Paul is the main fountainhead of these soteriological metaphors, but they occur in the other epistles and in Revelation. Atonement imagery is much less common in the Gospels, possibly appearing in the Lord’s Supper and the ransom saying (Mark 10:45). Most (but not all) scholars would agree that atonement in the Old Testament concerns cleansing the Temple (the Deity’s home), not soteriology. In the New Testament, however, atonement is central to the soteriological metaphors in Paul’s letters, the deutero-Pauline letters, Hebrews, First Peter, First John, and Revelation.

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A New Fragment of Athanasius's Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter: Heresy, Apocrypha, and the Canon

Harvard Theological Review ◽

10.1017/s0017816009990307 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 103 (1) ◽

pp. 47-66 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

David Brakke

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Social Context ◽

New Testament ◽

Fourth Century ◽

Late Nineteenth Century ◽

Canon Formation ◽

The Social ◽

History Of ◽

Late Nineteenth

Athanasius of Alexandria's thirty-ninth Festal Letter remains one of the most significant documents in the history of the Christian Bible. Athanasius wrote the letter, which contains the first extant list of precisely the twenty-seven books of the current New Testament canon, in 367 c.e., during the final decade of his life. Like many of his annual Easter letters, the thirty-ninth was fairly long, but only a small portion of the text survives in Greek.1 The Greek excerpt contains Athanasius's lists of the books of the Old and New Testaments, which he calls “canonized,” and a list of a few additional books, like the Shepherd of Hermas, which he says are not canonized, but are useful in the instruction of catechumens. Most studies of the formation of the Christian canon, including very recent ones, examine only this Greek fragment and so discuss only the contents of the lists. But already in the late-nineteenth-century fragments of the much more extensive Coptic translation had been published, and a few scholars, such as Carl Schmidt and Theodor Zahn, used them to write penetrating studies of the letter.2 In 1955 Lefort published all the then-known Coptic fragments in his book of Coptic Athanasiana, and then in 1984 Coquin published another long fragment.3 These served as the basis for my 1995 translation and my 1994 article in this journal on the social context of canon formation in fourth-century Egypt.4

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Alan J. Bale, Genre and Narrative Coherence in the Acts of the Apostles (Library of New Testament Studies 514), London u.a. (Bloomsbury T&T Clark) 2015, XVIII u. 241 S., geb. £ 76,50; ISBN 978-0-567-65593-6.

Biblische Zeitschrift ◽

10.30965/25890468-06102012 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 61 (2) ◽

pp. 266-268

Author(s):

Knut Backhaus

Keyword(s):

New Testament ◽

Acts Of The Apostles ◽

Narrative Coherence ◽

New Testament Studies

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The Date of the Muratorian Fragment

10.33929/gcrrpress.jfl20201203 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-172

Author(s):

John F. Lingelbach

Keyword(s):

New Testament ◽

Explanatory Power ◽

Fourth Century ◽

Church History ◽

Second Century ◽

Current Work ◽

Third Century ◽

Historical Theology ◽

First Time ◽

Objective Methodology

Three hundred years after its discovery, scholars find themselves unable to determine the more likely of the two hypotheses regarding the date of the Muratorian Fragment, which consists of a catalog of New Testament texts. Is the Fragment a late second- to early third-century composition or a fourth-century composition? This present work seeks to break the impasse. The study found that, by making an inference to the best explanation, a second-century date for the Fragment is preferred. This methodology consists of weighing the two hypotheses against five criteria: plausibility, explanatory scope, explanatory power, credibility, and simplicity. What makes this current work unique in its contribution to church history and historical theology is that it marks the first time the rigorous application of an objective methodology, known as “inference to the best explanation” (or IBE), has been formally applied to the problem of the Fragment’s date.

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