Scriptural Models of Dream Interpretation

2020 ◽  
pp. 24-49
Author(s):  
Bronwen Neil
Keyword(s):  
Young Men ◽  
Dream Interpretation ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Great Chance ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Hebrew Scriptures ◽  
Origen Of Alexandria ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Early Islamic

This chapter traces the models of prophetic dream interpretation that were available to late antique Jewish, Byzantine Christian, and early Islamic writers from their own scriptural traditions. It offers a survey of those foundational scriptural traditions regarding the spiritual value and meaning of dreams and visions. First, it examines the Hebrew scriptures on prophetic dreams and their hierarchy of revelation. The ambiguity inherent in enigmatic dreams gave the chance of a starring role to two young men blessed with the divine gift of dream interpretation, Joseph and Daniel. Women had only a very limited place within the Hebrew prophetic tradition. Prophetic women were given a great chance to star in the New Testament writings, and especially in early apostolic tradition of Montanism. The chapter discusses how this third-century prophetic movement dealt with the question of extra-biblical prophecy through visions. The problem of discerning true from false prophets will be found to be a live issue for early Christian commentators such as Origen of Alexandria. Finally, the chapter contrasts the Judaeo-Christian scriptural tradition with the Qur’anic verses in which Muhammad, the Seal of the Prophets, described his various revelations.

Tragical Mimesis and Biblical Interpretation II

2020 ◽  
pp. 67-101
Author(s):  
Paul M. Blowers
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Judas Iscariot ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Hebrew Scriptures ◽  
John The Baptist ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Divine Justice ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Sacrifice

This chapter, following on the last, expands to other case studies of dramatic interpretation and tragical mimesis in patristic exposition of tragic narratives in the Bible beyond Genesis, in Old and New Testaments alike. The horrific story of Jephthah’s fateful vow and the “sacrifice” of his daughter (Judges 11), perhaps the best single example of tragedy in the Hebrew Scriptures, vexed its patristic interpreters by its ostensive moral senselessness and resistance to theological redeemability. The flawed character of other tragic heroes such as Samson and King Saul added to the hermeneutical perplexity, while the story of Job was largely taken as a testament of pious endurance of tragic circumstances. The New Testament meanwhile presented, to its patristic interpreters, the proto-Christian “tragic heroics” of the Holy Innocents and John the Baptist, and the “tragic villainy” of Judas Iscariot and Ananias and Sapphira, each story prompting its own questions about freedom, determinism, and divine justice. Early Christian interpreters consistently put forward and even amplified the elements of tragedy in these stories in order to educate their own audiences in confronting irrevocable evil and suffering.

The Power of God in Some Early Christian Texts

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Edwards
Keyword(s):  
First Principles ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Clement Of Alexandria ◽  
Philosophical School ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Common ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
Power Of God

This chapter delineates a typology of the power of God in early Christian sources, including the New Testament, Justin Martyr, and other apologists of the second century, such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Athanasius. It argues that any investigation of the concept of dunamis in early Christian writings must begin with an acknowledgement of the Scriptures, maintaining that late antique Christianity should be considered as a distinct philosophical school, which had its own first principles, interpreted its own texts, and gave its own sense to terms that it used in common with other schools. Thus, a specifically Christian notion of divine power could have been born of reflection on the common ‘reservoir’ of Christian thought, any other influence being strictly secondary.

Late Antique Christian Law in the Eastern Roman Empire

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yifat Monnickendam
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Legal Traditions ◽  
Biblical Commentary ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Legal Sociology

To date, early Christian sources have drawn the scholarly attention of theologians, scholars of biblical commentary, and historians, but not of legal historians, presumably because such sources do not offer sufficiently substantial material for legal historical research. Nevertheless, a few studies have blended legal history and late antique Christianity, and an analysis of these studies shows they are based on a “centralist,” or “formalist–positivist,” conceptualization of law. In this paper I review the scholarship of legal traditions in the eastern Roman Empire— namely, Roman law and Greek legal traditions, the halakha in rabbinic literature, and the halakhic traditions in Qumranic literature and in the New Testament—and contextualize it within developments in legal theory and legal sociology and anthropology (that is, the rise of legal pluralism). This review shows that developments in legal theory, in legal sociology and anthropology, and in legal history of the late antique world are producing new paradigms and models in the study of late antique legal history. These new models, together with new methods in reading early Christian non-legal texts of the eastern Roman Empire, can be utilized in the study of early Christianity, thereby opening gateways to the study of its legal traditions and revealing independent legal traditions that have remained hidden to date.

The Trouble with Dreams

2020 ◽  
pp. 102-133
Author(s):  
Bronwen Neil
Keyword(s):  
Dream Interpretation ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Babylonian Talmud ◽  
Strong Belief ◽  
The Third ◽  
Desert Fathers ◽  
East And West ◽  
Early Islamic

This chapter is concerned with eastern monastic teachings on the meaning and significance of revelatory dreams, and the contemporaneous Talmudic tradition from Persia. The monastic sayings of the Byzantine East were focused on ascetics and were used predominantly as a guide for other ascetics. Eastern Christian monastics—men as well as women—and their lay followers, regularly received visions. In the first part of the chapter, the eastern monastic tradition of Byzantium is illustrated by various ascetic treatises from Evagrius, the Sayings of the Desert Fathers (and Mothers), and monastic writings from east and west Syria. The second part surveys late antique Jewish approaches to divination in dreams and the activity of the soul, examining the intersection of dream interpretation and rabbinic life in the Babylonian Talmud. A strong belief in the democratic nature of dream interpretation is evident here, especially in The Book of Blessings (Berakoth), according to which prophetic dreams were available to everyone, and professional interpreters were not needed to understand them. The third part contrasts these with early Islamic hadith on dreams and their interpretation.

Hagiography

2019 ◽  
pp. 302-314
Author(s):  
Bronwen Neil
Keyword(s):  
Late Antique ◽  
Apostle Paul ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Complex Series ◽  
Hebrew Scriptures ◽  
John The Baptist ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Maximus The Confessor ◽  
Selection Of

The selection of various biblical tropes adopted in early Christian hagiography depended greatly upon its subjects, whether bishops, monks, nuns, martyrs, or confessors. In reading the lives of these model Christians, early Christian hagiography reflected the mind and values of its society. What mattered most to Late Antique hagiographers was how the personal sanctity of their subjects reflected their continuity with biblical times, in a correspondence of type and antitype. From Moses to Elijah to Christ or John the Baptist, from Antony to Augustine to Maximus the Confessor, hagiographical narratives—deeply rooted in Scripture—made both their subjects and their devotees part of a seamless continuum of holiness. To this end, hagiographers interwove themes and topoi from a range of texts calculated to edify, from the lives of Hellenistic philosophers to the Hebrew Scriptures; from classical narratives of exile and loss to the letters of the Apostle Paul, celebrating suffering and persecution for the sake of the Gospel; from the canonical Gospels to the apocrypha. This multi-layering produced a rich vibration beneath the surface of the text, giving off a complex series of signals to which every early Christian was alert.

scholarly journals Figurative Images in the Early Christian Funeral Paintings of Chersonese

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 38-54
Author(s):  
Irina Anatol’evna Zavadskaya ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Garden Of Eden ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Artistic Tradition

The paintings of the 11 early Christian burial vaults of Chersonese uncovering the image of the Garden of Eden fully correspond to the traditions of the Late Antique art. There figurative images are very rare, and not all of them have been interpreted properly. Single man’s figures preserved in the painting of three vaults (of the years 1853/1905, 1909 and in the vault on N. I. Tur’s land) are of particular interest for the determination of the time and ways of penetration of this artistic tradition into early Christian Chersonese. A comparative analysis of funeral paintings from different regions of the Eastern Roman Empire makes it possible to determine the function of the mentioned images of men in the painting of these tombs and to explain their origin in early Christian burials. According to the fragments that survived, all three figures of young men are very similar in dress and posture. Probably, they all held a burning candle in the hands, the image of which survived only in the vault of the year 1909. These images are comparable to the figures of servants from a number of tombs discovered in the Balkans, Asia Minor, North Africa, and Levant. The young men from Chersonese are most close to the images of male servants from the tombs in Bulgaria and Serbia. From the analogies given in this paper there are reasons to interpret the figures of young men in the three vaults of Chersonese as images of servants. Figures of servants were widespread in ancient art and also in Christian burials to the end of the fourth century. Most likely, these figures appeared in the paintings of Chersonese under the influence of the Eastern Balkan artistic tradition.

Commentaries

2019 ◽  
pp. 169-186
Author(s):  
Josef Lössl
Keyword(s):  
Late Antique ◽  
Augustine Of Hippo ◽  
Christian Philosophy ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Biblical Commentary ◽  
Origen Of Alexandria ◽  
History Of ◽  
Commentary Tradition

This chapter offers an introduction to the origins, main characteristics, and some main representatives of the early Christian biblical commentary. It outlines the emergence of the biblical and Late Antique philosophical commentary from the context of the late Hellenistic and early post-Hellenistic study of grammar and rhetoric (e.g. in Homeric scholarship), and discusses the role of Origen of Alexandria as the main theorist and practitioner of the early Christian biblical commentary, including Origen’s treatment of commentary topics (topoi) and his conceptualization of his commentarial activity as a form of Christian philosophy, or science. It then continues with an overview of the history of the early Christian biblical commentary after Origen, touching upon the history of the Antiochene school of exegesis and upon the Latin commentary tradition culminating in Jerome of Stridon and Augustine of Hippo.

The Promises to David and their Entrance into Christianity—Nailing down a Likely Hypothesis

1973 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis C. Duling
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Hebrew Scriptures ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
History Of

The fundamental outlook in what follows is that there is a fairly consistent, compact, yet expanding and developing promise tradition which is founded on the promises to David (and his descendants) in the Hebrew Scriptures; that this tradition in certain ways has been rejuvenated and strengthened in the early Christian period; and that it enters Christianity in connection with the application of these promises to Jesus' resurrection apart from the title Son of David itself, a title whose acceptance and adaptation in early Christianity appears on both historical and redaction critical grounds to be relatively late. The hypothesis is not totally new. My intention will be to put some older information into what will hopefully be an illuminating perspective, to draw out some implications from the perspective itself, and to nail down the hypothesis of the use of Old Testament texts in connection with the resurrection of Jesus a little tighter. I have not undertaken here to trace out a history of tradition in the New Testament such as can now be found in C. Burger's excellent study,Jesus als Davidssohn, though the direction of the paper will support the legitimacy of his starting point in early Christian formulae.

Revelation in the Visual Arts

2021 ◽  
pp. 621-640
Author(s):  
Ralf van Bühren
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Baroque Art ◽  
Christian Understanding ◽  
The Individual

This chapter deals with visual artworks as media of divine revelation. Readers gain insight into how Christianity as a religion of revelation has used images since the third century to transmit knowledge of God and his action in history. Early Christian pictures rate among the oldest communication media of revelation. Placed intentionally above the altar, the apse mosaics of late antique churches served anagogical purposes leading beyond the pictorial work to transcendent realities. The perception of images in the Middle Ages could represent the beginning of anagogical ascent towards the divine, engaging the viewer’s imagination. In Renaissance and baroque art occurred a rhetorical shift. Gazes and pointing gestures of the figures draw the viewer’s attention to the stage-like performance of the divine in a perspectival or visionary space. The issue frequently became controversial in contemporary history because the concord between artistic self-expression and the Judaeo-Christian understanding of revelation was no longer a given. At present, the individual responses to divine revelation continue.

scholarly journals 'Religion' in Late Antique Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism: Developing a Term in Counterpoint

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kianoosh Rezania
Keyword(s):  
Third Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Persian Empire ◽  
Generic Concept ◽  
Generic Term ◽  
Linguistic Evidence ◽  
Universal Quantifiers ◽  
Middle Persian ◽  
Early Islamic

This article evaluates the development of a generic term for ‘religion’ in late antique Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism. It examines linguistic indications of the use of dēn/δēn as a generic term in the Manichaean Middle Iranian corpora, i.e. Middle Persian, Parthian, and Sogdian, as well as in the corpus of Zoroastrian Middle Persian. The paper considers declination in the plural, the attribution of universal quantifiers or demonstrative adjectives, comparison, and selection, as they occur in the above corpora, to be indicators of generic concepts. Acknowledging that third-century Manichaeism shaped the term for ‘religion’ in the Persian Empire, the paper scrutinizes the reflections of this formative process in Sasanian and also early Islamic Zoroastrianism. The resulting analysis of the linguistic evidence indicates that the newly coined Manichaean concept of ‘religion’ did not find considerable echoes in late antique Zoroastrianism. Furthermore, an investigation of the term daēnā- in the Avestan sources provides earlier evidence for the formation of the term ‘religion’ in pre-Sasanian Zoroastrianism. Finally, the paper highlights the significance of religious contact for the formation of a generic concept of religion.

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