“Scholars who work with Latin materials that have been or might have been translated from Greek originals are often frustrated by the lack of reference tools that can aid in determining accurately translational equivalences between the two languages. Greek-Latin or Latin-Greek lexica are inadequate, for they tend to give ‘ideal’ translational equivalences rather than ones actually attested in some text. The problem is acute, for example, in the study of the Vulgate New Testament, for which no reference tool has existed by which one could determine quickly the entire range of Greek translational equivalents for a given Latin word. The present work is intended to go some distance toward fulfilling this need.” — from the introduction

This newest volume in the CUA Press Verbum Domini series by the late Professor Romano Penna, represents a synthesis of Penna's thought, which often engaged with the question of Christian originality. The relationship between Law and liberty is a theme that effectively runs like a red thread through the “grand narrative” of the Bible. Law and liberty represent two values that mutually call forth one another and require thorough and nuanced reflection on multiple levels. The book offers a biblical-theological journey that enables the reader to grasp the central aspects of the Law-liberty dialectic and to focus on the uniqueness of the Christian message. Through engagement with the Greek and Jewish cultural backgrounds, Romano Penna demonstrates the richness of the Law understood as a gift from God and embraced as a commitment to responsible living—a commitment that presupposes the gift of a new kind of liberty and demands existential involvement. In the message of Jesus of Nazareth and in its Pauline reinterpretation, one perceives how the dialectic between Law and liberty reveals the “filial” condition of the Christian. It is precisely the ability to understand and synthesize the Law-liberty pairing that defines Christian conduct and its testimonial power. The originality of Christianity can be well summarized by the expression “free because children”. This phrase encapsulates an unprecedented vision and an extraordinary fecundity, much needed by humanity in our time.

Did the author of Titus consider Cretans to be liars, brutes, and gluttons, or was he confronting bigotry head-on? Isaiah Allen revisits long-held, conventional interpretations of Titus 1:12 that maintain that the author, using Paul’s name, considered Cretans to be crude, vicious, and worthy of rebuke. Based on insights from the cognitive linguistics approach of relevance theory, Allen contends that the way Titus’s original first-century audience would have engaged the text is quite different from how many modern interpreters read it. Additionally, Allen proposes that the letter’s context corresponds more closely to the situation of the early church during the lifetime of Paul than many conventional interpretations suggest. Allen concludes that Paul was not participating in bigotry but instead exposed and rebuked it in his letter to Titus. Allen examines linguistic evidence that reveals an ancient biblical antibigotry message that presages modern sensibilities about ethnic prejudice and racism.

Universality belongs to the very being of the Catholic Church. This claim of the Gospel is rooted in the ministry of Jesus, witnessed to by the canonical Gospels and the other books of the New Testament, all of which present the universal openness of salvation as a fulfillment of the Scriptures of Israel. In this book, after addressing the universality of salvation in the writings of the Old Covenant, we examine the differentiated and concordant witness of the synoptic Gospels, John and Paul, as well as the Letter to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse. In this way, we intend to show how this apostolic witness responds to the will of the Lord Jesus, while highlighting its harmony with Torah, Prophets and Writings. Light for the Nations, by reviewing the main biblical passages on the universal dimension of salvation, aims to show how the fact that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has a claim to universality does not diminish, but rather enhances, the importance of the people of the first Covenant: Israel is called to be an active mediator of salvation. The canonical perspective is based on a differentiated exegetical study of each testimony. The scope is broad, since this theme of biblical theology is also relevant for Christology and soteriology, for anthropology and for ecclesiology. The main contribution lies in showing how the various biblical testimonies, in their diversity (which is fully taken into account), offer at the same time a concurring testimony on this fundamental question of Christian theology, forming a true symphony within its polyphony.

A new sociorhetorical study of Acts

In Lydia as a Rhetorical Construct in Acts, Gruca-Macaulay explores the sociorhetorical function of the story of Lydia, a named Lydian woman ancient interpreters would have associated with cultural stereotypes of Lydians. As a rhetorical figure, Lydia both influenced and was influenced by the ideology of the surrounding text in Acts 16, as well as the approach Luke–Acts as a whole takes to people who are somehow like Lydia.

 

Features:

• Displays the rhetorical-cultural portrayal of women in Luke-Acts from the perspective of a first-century Mediterranean audience as compared with the history of scholarship, specifically through a sociorhetorical interpretation of the role of Lydia in Acts
• Investigates the rhetorical function of Mediterranean social-cultural topoi in qualitative argumentation, with a focus on Greco-Roman physiognomy generally, and Lydian ethnography especially
• Introduces the rhetorical use of conceptual blending, particularly its application for gaining insight into the function of military discourse in developing the rhetorical force of the Lydia episode in Acts