Greco-Roman and Jewish Tributaries to the New Testament: Festschrift in Honor of Gregory J. Riley ed. by Christopher S. Crawford

2021 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 361-363
Author(s):  
David Emanuel
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The New Testament

‘Public Theology’ in Luke-Acts: The Witness of the Gospel to Powers and Authorities

2016 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-252
Author(s):  
James R. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Public Theology ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Roman Military

This study surveys the numerous and diverse powers and authorities to which the gospel is addressed in Luke-Acts, including major Jewish institutions and officials, Herodian rulers, Roman military officers, Greco-Roman officials, diverse officials, and pagan cults and supernatural powers. Well over half the references to authorities in Luke-Acts occur nowhere else in the New Testament. The frequent and diverse references to powers defend Christianity in a preliminary and obvious way from charges of political sedition. In a broader and more important way, however, they redefine power itself according to the standard of the gospel.

New Testament

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Wheeler-Reed
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Sexual Intercourse ◽  
New Testament ◽  
The Other ◽  
1 Corinthians ◽  
Pastoral Epistles ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Thessalonians 1 ◽  
The New Testament

This chapter maintains that two ideologies concerning marriage and sex pervade the New Testament writings. One ideology codifies a narrative that argues against marriage, and perhaps, sexual intercourse, and the other retains the basic cultural values of the upper classes of the Greco-Roman world. These two ideologies are termed “profamily” and “antifamily.” The chapter proceeds in a chronological fashion starting with 1 Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians, and Mark. It concludes by examining Matthew, Luke, the Pastoral Epistles, and the Acts of Paul and Thecla.

scholarly journals The role of title and epigraph in the essay “The Vision of Mirza” by Joseph Addison

2021 ◽  
pp. 37-45
Author(s):  
Iurievna Makarova Liudmila
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Joseph Addison ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
Comprehensive Examination ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Russian Literary ◽  
The Subject

The object of this research is the essay “The Vision of Mirza” by Joseph Addison. The relevance of studying J. Addison's essay is substantiated by undue attention to his works in the Russian literary studies, as well as the need for tracing the dynamics in the genre of vision in the Age of Enlightenment. The subject of this research is the title and epigraph as parts of the work that determine its structure and artistic distinctness. Analysis is conducted on the images of the viewer, visionary hero, and his guide, chronotope of the essay and allusive links. The essay is based on the combination of systemic-structural, comparative-historical, and hermeneutic methods. The novelty consists in the fact that the comprehensive examination of the role of the title ensemble within the structure of the essay allows reconstructing the link of the essay with the traditions of the medieval genre of vision manifested in the traditional topic and consistent motifs, imagery system, space and time arrangement, and dialogical structure of the text. The author provides interpretation to the allusive links between J. Addison's essay and Greco-Roman mythology, epic poem “The Aeneid” by Virgil, and psalms from the New Testament, and “The Voyage of St. Brendan”. It is established that the dialogue set by the epigraph passes through the entire plotline of the essay and reveal the characters of its participants. The extensively presented Christian theme alongside the images from ancient mythology and Virgil’s texts are essential for the author to express the enlightening program.

A Taxonomy of Sin in the New Testament Worlds

2020 ◽  
pp. 17-36
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Siker
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Apostle Paul ◽  
Jerusalem Temple ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Moral Failure ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Jewish Scriptures

Understanding the contextual worlds within which the New Testament perceptions of sin arose is crucial. The immediate context for early Christianity was the Jewish world out of which Jesus also operated, which included Jewish understandings of sin especially as delineated in the Jewish Scriptures and as addressed within the sacrificial cult of the Jerusalem Temple. But in turning to the Apostle Paul and other later New Testament writers, it is equally important to understand the moral worlds envisioned in Greco-Roman religiosity and philosophy. In this realm, sin as moral failure was much less prominent than sin as ignorance or error in judgment. As Christianity moved into the second century and beyond we find understandings of sin that retain both Jewish and Greco-Roman sensibilities regarding human sin.

The Paradox of the Easy Yoke: A Survey of χρηστός in Greek Literature and the Interpretational Implications for Matthew 11:30

2019 ◽  
Vol 131 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-19
Author(s):  
Clark Bates
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
First Century ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Word Study ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Roman Literature ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Common ◽  
Apostolic Fathers

Matthew 11:30 could easily be considered one of the most recognizable passages of the New Testament. Many find comfort and fortitude in the words of Jesus, and warm to the idea that his ‘yoke’; is ‘easy’ and ‘burden’, ‘light’. However recognized and familiar this passage may be, it has not gone unnoticed throughout scholarship as a persistent word study in need of incessant explanation. While copious amounts of ink have been spilt discussing the nature of the ‘yoke’ in Matthew 11:30, it is the position of this article that the author of Matthew, had no intention of creating such a mystery. Rather, that the emphasis is to be found in the nature of the yoke itself and the attributive use of χρηστός in Greco-Roman literature, including that of the Greek Old Testament, and the writings of the first-century Christians. This article seeks to demonstrate that the use of χρηστός in the Matthean Gospel does not mean ‘easy’ by English standards, nor was this what the audience of this Gospel would have taken it to mean, given the common use of the term. This is accomplished through an engagement of the text and message of Matthew, followed by an examination of the word’s use in Classical Greek compositions and the Apostolic Fathers, as well as its use in the LXX and the New Testament.

Rhetoric of the New Testament

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duane F. Watson
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Church History ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Western World ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
2 Corinthians ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The 19Th Century

Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. In the Western world, its practice is rooted in Greece and Rome where the ability to speak well was essential to political life and perpetuating the power of the upper class. Rhetoric provided the content of secondary and tertiary education as it prepared the sons of the wealthy to take their places in the judicial and political system. Rhetoric was carefully systematized and influenced both oral and written speech. Its use is evident in the New Testament at every turn, including the Gospel writers’ development of the sayings of Jesus into more elaborate pronouncement stories, Luke’s composition of the speeches in the Acts of the Apostles, Paul’s sophisticated use of argumentation in 2 Corinthians 10–13, and John’s multivalent and emotive use of imagery in Revelation. Rightly, rhetoric has been used intermittently throughout church history to interpret the New Testament. Its use is conspicuous in the writings of the early Church Fathers up to and including Augustine, only to be mentioned sporadically by a handful of scholars during the medieval period. Its use is revived in the Reformation, especially by Philip Melanchthon, and continued to be a vital part of interpretation until the end of the 19th century with a crescendo of works produced in Germany. It plays only a nominal role throughout most of the 20th century, until the mid-1970s when works by Hans Dieter Betz and George A. Kennedy, among others, revived the role of rhetoric in interpretation. In fact, rhetoric is currently one of the more prominent tools used in New Testament interpretation, both as a historical enterprise using Greco-Roman rhetoric and in broader studies using modern rhetoric to understand the functions of rhetoric.

The Gospel of Mark, Orality Studies and Performance Criticism

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 350-393
Author(s):  
Pieter J.J. Botha
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Gospel Of Mark ◽  
Critical Studies ◽  
Jesus Movement ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Performance Criticism ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Performance Events ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance

Abstract Orality/aurality is recognised by a growing number of scholars as a significant aspect of the context of New Testament texts. As part of the exploration of the oral features of New Testament texts some are turning to Greco-Roman storytelling and oratory, informed by performance studies. A selection of these explorations are discussed to introduce scholarship that attempts to identify various elements of performance events in the early church as a basis for re-thinking our ways of studying and our interpretations of the New Testament writings in their original context. The obstacles to such efforts are considerable, but some significant gains have been made. Focusing on research on the Gospel of Mark, this discussion shows how performance critical studies allow new insights into the origins of the Gospels, leading to interesting new and meaningful perspectives on the history of the early Jesus movement with specific attention to the role telling and presenting the Markan story played.

scholarly journals Exposing Textual Corruption: Community as a Stabilizing Aspect in the Circulation of the New Testament Writings during the Greco-Roman Era

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 266-298
Author(s):  
Timothy Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Critical Editions ◽  
Pliny The Younger ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Community Transmission

Because few manuscripts of the NT writings are preserved from the first three centuries of the Christian era, scholars have debated the extent that modern critical editions of the NT reflect the text in circulation during these early centuries. In order to answer this question, this article will set out the evidence for ancient publication through community transmission. It will consider examples from Cicero, Martial, Quintilian, Pliny the Younger and Galen. These authors reveal that they preferred social networks rather than commercial dealers to circulate their writings. These same communities that copied and distributed an author’s works inadvertently created an environment in which significant alterations and plagiarizing of these same writings became known. Matthew D.C. Larsen, who has recently approached the same problem addressed in this article by examining ancient publication conventions, is engaged with throughout. The conclusions drawn here press hard against Larsen’s assertions.

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