The discovery and publication of the Apocryphon of James from Nag Hammadi has significantly expanded the spectrum of early Christian literature about Jesus. In this informative monograph, which has been out of print until now, Ron Cameron provides a form-critical analysis which aims to clarify the ways in which the sayings of Jesus were used and transformed in early Christian communities. By recognizing the importance of this particular document, scholars will no longer be able to regard the synoptic gospels of the New Testament as unique or sufficient for understanding the trajectory of the Jesus tradition. The "synoptic problem" must now be seen as a gospels problem.

A fresh contribution to the growing body of New Testament scholarship on empire, both ancient and modern

Darden’s reading of Revelation examines John the Seer’s rhetorical strategy, in general, and imperial cult imagery in chapters 4 and 5, in particular, through the lens of an African American scripturalization supplemented by postcolonial theory. The scripturalization proposes that John the Seer’s signifyin(g) on empire demonstrated that he was well aware of the oppressive nature of Roman imperialism on the lives of provincial Asian Christians. Yet, ironically, John reinscribed imperial processes and practices. Darden argues that African American biblical scholarship must now attend adequately to these complex cultural negotiations lest it find itself inadvertently feeding the imperial beast.

Features:

• Relates the potential for African American cooption by the U.S. Empire to the cooption by the Roman Empire both thematized and performed in Revelation
• Book-length study on postcolonial African American biblical hermeneutics
• A reading supplemented by postcolonial theory that better addresses the hybridity of African American identity

Explore insights, methodologies, and advances in socio-rhetorical interpretation

Essays in this volume from Vernon K. Robbins merge social and rhetorical strategies of interpretation and set the stage for how socio-rhetorical interpretation has developed in the context of research into the rhetoric of religious antiquity. This book contains “By Land and By Sea: The We Passages and Ancient Sea Voyages” (1978), which initially received widespread praise and then became an object of significant criticism. The volume includes Robbins’s varied, detailed responses to both encouragement and critique of his approach.

Features:

• Introduction to the collection by David B. Gowler
• Twelve essays that programmatically study early Christian texts using resources from the social sciences
• Reflections on the future of socio-rhetorical criticism

Lost in antiquity, rediscovered in 1896, and only recently accessible for study, The Secret Revelation of John offers a firsthand look into the diversity of Christianity before the establishment of canon and creed. Karen L. King offers an illuminating reading of this ancient text--a narrative of the creation of the universe and humanity and a guide to justice and salvation, said to be Christ's revelation to his disciple John.

Freeing the Revelation from the category of "Gnosticism" to which such accounts were relegated, King shows how the Biblical text could be read by early Christians in radical and revisionary ways. By placing the Revelation in its social and intellectual milieu, she revises our understanding of early Christianity and, more generally, religious thought in the ancient Mediterranean world. Her work helps the modern reader through many intriguing--but confusing--ideas in the text: for example, that the creator god of Genesis, a self-described jealous and exclusive god, is not the true Deity but a kind of fallen angel; or, in an overt critique of patriarchy unique in ancient literature, the declaration that the subordination of woman to man was an ignorant act in direct violation of the "holy height."

In King's analysis, the Revelation becomes not strange but a comprehensible religious vision--and a window on the religious culture of the Roman Empire. A translation of the complete Secret Revelation of John is included.

The classic essays in this volume address the usefulness of Orlando Patterson’s work on slavery to New Testament studies. Contributors approach the question of slavery from two directions. Part One examines the evidence for slavery in antiquity and attitudes toward it. Part Two considers specific receptions of Paul and slavery by persons of African descent in North America. Contributions to this essential collection pushed scholars toward a more complex, critical view of the Greek and Roman slave systems, and their work continues to influence New Testament studies today.

Described by Origen as a writing that “even the masses of believers have read,” the Sentences of Sextus offers unique insights into popular Christian thought during the late second century C.E. Although it draws extensively on canonical texts for the composition of its sayings, it is especially fascinating for the manner in which it integrates these texts with material derived from two generically similar collections of Pythagorean maxims. This volume provides a critical edition including evidence from the Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Coptic versions; a new translation; and the first commentary for the Sentences, an important document for investigating the history of early Christian wisdom, asceticism, and ethics.

A sociorhetorical analysis of First Corinthians

Robert H. von Thaden Jr.'s sociorhetorical analysis examines Paul's construction of sexual Christian bodies in First Corinthians by utilizing new insights from conceptual integration (blending) theory about the embodied processes of meaning making. Paul's teaching about proper sexual behavior in this letter is best viewed as an example of early Christian wisdom discourse. This discourse draws upon apocalyptic and priestly cognitive frames to increase the rhetorical force of the argument. Reading Paul's argument through the lens of rhetorical invention, von Thaden demonstrates that Paul first attempts to show the Corinthians why sexual immorality is the worst of all bodily sins before shifting rhetorical focus to explain to them how they can best avoid this infraction against the body of Christ.

Features:

• A programmatic application of conceptual integration theory using a sociorhetorical mode of interpretation
• A vivid account of key aspects of conceptual integration theory and how they function in sociorhetorical interpretation
• A detailed application of these strategies to interpret 1 Corinthians 1-4; 6:12-7:7

A crucial text for any university course on the interaction of archaeology and the Bible

The world of early Christians was not a world lived in texts; it was a world saturated with material reality and concerns: what, where and when to eat or drink; how to present oneself in the space of bodily life and that of death; how to move from one place to another; what impacted status or the adjudication of legal charges. All these and more controlled so much of life in the ancient world. The Christians were not immune from the impact of these realities. Sometimes they absorbed their surrounds; sometimes they quite explicitly rejected the material practices bearing in on them; frequently they modified the practice and the rationale to create a significant Christian alternative. The collection of essays in this volume come from a range of international scholars who, for all their different interests and critical commitments, are yet united in treasuring research into the Greek and Roman worlds in which Christians sought to make their way. They offer these essays in honor of one who has made a lifetime's work in mining ancient material culture to extract nuggets of insight into early Christian dining practices: Dennis E. Smith.

Features

• Rich examples of method in the utilization of ancient material culture for biblical interpretation.
• Thirteen essays with a response from Dennis E. Smith
• Maps, diagrams, and plates

A new reading that troubles and transgresses the normal with regard to biblical studies and our understandings of gender and sexuality

Despite its lack of both historical and exegetical clarity, 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 has often been fundamental to understandings of gender and sexuality in many Christian traditions. In particular, a hierarchical model of gender and a heterosexual model of sexuality tend to dominate and are presented as “natural” and “God-ordained.” With the materialist lesbian theory of Monique Wittig providing the theoretical basis for discussion, this book intersects various biblical, theological, and queer lines of inquiry across 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 in order to reveal and challenge these models of gender and sexuality that lie behind both the text itself and its various interpretations.

Features

• Reveals the complex relationship between effeminacy, masculinity and sexual relations in the first century Greco-Roman environment of the New Testament
• Explores the ideologies of sexuality that underlie much of the debate within evangelical circles
• Examines Karl Barth’s theology on the binary pairing of “man and woman” as asymmetrically related to each other and to God through the notion of the imago dei, revealing and challenging the ways in which this reflects androcentric and patriarchal ideologies

Essays that engage the scholarship of Shaye J. D. Cohen

The essays in Strength to Strength honor Shaye J. D. Cohen across a range of ancient to modern topics. The essays seek to create an ongoing conversation on issues of identity, cultural interchange, and Jewish literature and history in antiquity, all areas of particular interest for Cohen. Contributors include: Moshe J. Bernstein, Daniel Boyarin, Jonathan Cohen, Yaakov Elman, Ari Finkelstein, Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert, Steven D. Fraade, Isaiah M. Gafni, Gregg E. Gardner, William K. Gilders, Martin Goodman, Leonard Gordon, Edward L. Greenstein, Erich S. Gruen, Judith Hauptman, Jan Willem van Henten, Catherine Hezser, Tal Ilan, Richard Kalmin, Yishai Kiel, Ross S. Kraemer, Hayim Lapin, Lee I. Levine, Timothy H. Lim, Duncan E. MacRae, Ivan Marcus, Mahnaz Moazami, Rachel Neis, Saul M. Olyan, Jonathan J. Price, Jeffrey L. Rubenstein, Michael L. Satlow, Lawrence H. Schiffman, Daniel R. Schwartz, Joshua Schwartz, Karen Stern, Stanley Stowers, and Burton L. Visotzky.

Features:

• A full bibliography of Cohen’s published works
• An essay on the contributions of Cohen

An interdisciplinary discussion engaging classics, archaeology, religious studies, and the social sciences

The Struggle over Class brings together scholars from the fields of New Testament and early Christianity to examine Christian texts in light of the category of class. Historically rigorous and theoretically sophisticated, this collection presents a range of approaches to, and applications of, class in the study of the epistles, the gospels, Acts, apocalyptic texts, and patristic literature. Contributors Alicia J. Batten, Alan H. Cadwallader, Cavan W. Concannon, Zeba Crook, James Crossley, Lorenzo DiTommaso, Philip F. Esler, Michael Flexsenhar III, Steven J. Friesen, Caroline Johnson Hodge, G. Anthony Keddie, Jaclyn Maxwell, Christina Petterson, Jennifer Quigley, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Daniëlle Slootjes, and Emma Wasserman challenge both scholars and students to articulate their own positions in the ongoing scholarly struggle over class as an analytical category.