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An essential introduction for scholars and students of New Testament Greek

With the publication of the widely used 28th edition of Nestle-Aland’s Novum Testamentum Graece and the 5th edition of the United Bible Society Greek New Testament, a computer-assisted method known as the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM) was used for the first time to determine the most valuable witnesses and establish the initial text. This book offers the first full-length, student-friendly introduction to this important new method. After setting out the method’s history, separate chapters clarify its key concepts, including genealogical coherence, textual flow diagrams, and the global stemma. Examples from across the New Testament are used to show how the method works in practice. The result is an essential introduction that will be of interest to students, translators, commentators, and anyone else who studies the Greek New Testament.

Features

• A clear explanation of how and why the text of the Greek New Testament is changing
• Step-by-step guidance on how to use the CBGM in textual criticism
• Diagrams, illustrations, and glossary of key terms

A collection of essays by experts from around the world

Like the other New Testament Gospels, the Gospel of John repeatedly appeals to Scripture (Old Testament). Preferring allusions and “echoes” alongside more explicit quotations, however, the Gospel of John weaves Scripture as an authoritative source concerning its story of Jesus. Yet, this is the same Gospel that is often regarded as antagonistic toward “the Jews,” especially the Jewish religious leaders, depicted within it.

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• Introduces and updates readers on the question of John’s employment of Scripture
• Showcases useful approaches to more general studies on the New Testament’s use of Scripture, sociological and rhetorical analyses, and memory theory
• Explores the possible implications surrounding Scripture usage for the Gospel audiences both ancient and contemporary

Investigate how Deuteronomy incorporates vulnerable, displaced people

Deuteronomy addresses social contexts of widespread displacement, an issue affecting 65 million people today. In this book Mark R. Glanville investigates how Deuteronomy fosters the integration of the stranger as kindred into the community of Yahweh. According to Deuteronomy, displaced people are to be enfolded within the household, within the clan, and within the nation. Glanville argues that Deuteronomy demonstrates the immense creativity that communities may invest in enfolding displaced and vulnerable people. Inclusivism is nourished through social law, the law of judicial procedure, communal feasting, and covenant renewal. Deuteronomy’s call to include the stranger as kindred presents contemporary nation-states with an opportunity and a responsibility to reimagine themselves and their disposition toward displaced strangers today.

Features:

• Exploration of the relationship of ancient Israel’s social history to biblical texts
• An integrative methodology that brings together literary-historical, legal, sociological, comparative, literary, and theological approaches
• A thorough study of Israelite identity and ethnicity

Rhetoric, Power, and Possibilities

Thirty years after the publication of Antoinette Clark Wire’s groundbreaking The Corinthian Women Prophets, an interdisciplinary, international, and intergenerational group of scholars reflects upon Wire’s impact on New Testament scholarship. Essays pursue further historical and theoretical possibilities, often in search of marginalized people, including the women of Corinth, using feminist, rhetorical, materialist, decolonizing, queer, and posthumanist approaches to interpret Paul’s letters and the history of ancient Mediterranean assemblies. Contributions from Cavan Concannon, Arminta Fox, Joseph A. Marchal, Shelly Matthews, Anna Miller, Jorunn Økland, and Antoinette Clark Wire reconsider how both the methods and results of Wire’s work reveal the possibilities of other people beside Paul who are worth our attention and effort. The essays in this collection introduce students and scholars to the possibilities of interdisciplinary and intersectional approaches for engaging the broader Pauline corpus.

In this first in-depth study of Proverbs 30, the Words of Agur, Alexander T. Kirk examines a puzzling text attributed to an unknown figure that has long fascinated scholars. While this material has been read as everything from a devout confession to a cry of despair, few interpreters have found any real coherence in the chapter. In this detailed philological study engaging both genre and tone, Kirk demonstrates that the chapter is best read as a coherent collection that mocks pride and greed while it commends humility and contentment. Kirk draws out many subtle literary features that augment Agur’s message, including humor and animal imagery. Ultimately, Proverbs 30 deepens the presentation of wisdom in the book of Proverbs by orienting it toward a proper relationship with God.

The first study to focus exclusively on the use in the Hebrew Bible of soundplay to allude to and interpret earlier literary traditions

This book focuses on the way the biblical writers used allusive soundplay to construct theological discourse, that is, in service of their efforts to describe the nature of God and God's relationship to humanity. By showing that a variety of biblical books contain examples of allusive soundplay employed for this purpose, Kline demonstrates that this literary device played an important role in the growth of the biblical text as a whole and in the development of ancient Israelite and early Jewish theological traditions.

• Demonstrates that allusive soundplay was a productive compositional technique in ancient Israel
• Identifies examples of innerbiblical allusion that have not been identified before
• A robust methodology for identifying soundplay in innerbiblical allusions

Explore how empire is a crucial foreground for reading and interpreting the New Testament

In the last three decades, significant attention has been given to the way in which New Testament texts engage and respond to the imperial world in which they were written. The purpose of the present volume is to introduce students and non-specialists to the growing subfield of New Testament studies known as empire studies. Contributors seek to make readers aware of the significant work that has already been produced, while also pointing them to new ways in which this field is moving forward. The contributors are Bruce W. Longenecker, Richard A. Horsley, Warren Carter, Adam Winn, Eric D. Barreto, Beth M. Sheppard, Neil Elliot, James R. Harrison, Harry O. Maier, Deborah Krause, Jason A.Whitlark, Matthew R. Hauge, Kelly D. Liebengood, and Davina C. Lopez.

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An alternative understanding of apocalyptic eschatology in the Gospel of Matthew

Matthew’s eschatological imageries of judgment are often identified as apocalyptic and referred to as Matthew’s apocalyptic discourses. In this volume Elekosi F. Lafitaga reexamines Matthew’s vision of the sheep and goats in the judgment of the nations, which are often interpreted as metaphors for the saved and the condemned. Lafitaga views these images in the wider context of the rhetoric of apocalyptic communication stretching back to Matthew 3. This broader context reveals that the vision of Matthew 25 serves to exhort Israel in the here and now according to the torah, with salvation for Israel involving an indispensable responsibility to love and serve humanity. Central to Lafitaga’s analysis is the highly probable scenario that the material in Matthew is dependent on the Book of Dreams (1 Enoch 83–90).

Explore how the vivid and creative Armenian spiritual tradition shaped biblical stories to serve new needs

Michael E. Stone’s latest book includes texts from Armenian manuscripts that are relevant to the development and growth of biblical themes and subjects. Most of these texts have not been published previously. Stone has collected a fascinating corpus of texts about biblical heroes, such as Joseph and Jonah, Nathan the Prophet, and Asaph the Psalmist. In addition, he has included documents illustrating particular points of the biblical story. This work reflects not just on how the Bible was interpreted in medieval times, but also how its stories and details were shaped by and served the needs of the vivid and creative Armenian spiritual tradition.

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