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The Euthalian Prologue to the Letters of Paul is found in hundreds of late ancient and medieval editions of the Pauline corpus, presenting readers with a prefatory biography of the apostle that both aligns and departs from canonical traditions. Notably, the Prologue depicts Paul's violence against early Christian assemblies as a manifestation of Jewish μανία , triggered by prophetic foresight and healed by Christ on the road to Damascus. Previous studies primarily examine the Prologue's connection to canonical sources. This article explores its relationship with other late ancient expressions of Paul's life. It argues specifically that the Prologue's depiction of Paul has been shaped – either directly or indirectly – by the writings of John Chrysostom, based on otherwise unique shared thematic elements. Its findings contribute to our understanding of the Prologue's nebulous origins, its rhetorical objectives, and Chrysostom's already massive impact on the reception of Pauline literature and tradition in the late ancient and medieval periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prefixed verb superaedificare , which is a calque of ἐποικοδοµέω , governs prepositional phrases and plain cases in the Latin New Testament Epistles. The Vulgate and Old Latin manuscripts feature constructions of superaedificare in agreement with the Greek source text. However, alternative translations are attested when the biblical text is cited by early Christian writers. In citations where the biblical passage is included in the author's text, aedificare is frequently used instead of superaedificare. By contrast, when the biblical text is quoted for the first time and its source is acknowledged, superaedificare is employed and its construction matches that of the Greek text. These citation habits show that the construction of superaedificare is a syntactical calque of the Greek source text, which is attested when the citations are marked as such but is not used when the biblical text is embedded in the patristic text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ancient associations had very few extant regulations, but those that have survived indicate a variety of functions, such as outlining the structure of the association; delineating the rights, responsibilities, and privileges of members; and establishing norms of behaviour and consequences for non-compliance. Moreover, by-laws codified procedures for decision-making, dispute resolution, and the amendment of governing regulations. The by-laws of these ancient occupational and religious groups can be compared to modern academic societies and in so doing shed light on one another's practices. In particular, the concern with purpose, membership, finance, meetings, and especially behaviour cross the temporal and cultural divide in ways that allow the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies and other academic societies to think more carefully about how they are constituted and, more importantly, how they might respond to broader societal situations that are not directly in their purview. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Restoration and redemption of the soul are, in biblical terms, essentially life-bringing acts. Yet even the present reality is so frequently a spirit deeply in need of renewal and new life. Memories contribute greatly to this felt need: as the psychological building blocks of an individual's sense of self, their joy and their pain reverberate through the self, reaching deeply to shape identity and worldview. What is needed is not only the redemption of our souls but the redemption of our memories as well. Such an inner transformation would indeed prove both a restoration and a transformation, an experience now of the future kingdom in which God will reconcile all things to himself (Colossians 1:20). This article explores how the New Testament text provides a psychologically and neurologically coherent model to leverage memory formation and reconsolidation toward restoration and renewal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores how to theologically reflect on the practices of spiritual direction, discernment, and the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, considering these practices as potential sources for understanding God's work in the world. Topics include the role of the Holy Spirit in providing graces and gifts to Christians, the communal aspect of these gifts as described in the New Testament, and how discernment serves as a gift of the Spirit that fosters love.

GA 424 is an important Byzantine manuscript of Acts and the Catholic Epistles, the Pauline Epistles, and Revelation featuring surrounding commentary and various apparatus bound together with numerous non-biblical texts. This article identifies GA 250 as a direct copy (Abschrift) of 424's biblical text in both content and layout. While most of the other material was also copied, it was changed, reformatted, and edited in ways that point to a conscious effort at producing a revised edition. Beyond the evidence to support understanding GA 250 as a copy of GA 424, the ability to use GA 250 to reconstruct lost original text in GA 424 is explored, their dates are reconsidered, and desiderata are offered for further investigating the evolution between the manuscripts and their location within their family of manuscripts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introducing students to the similarities and connections among the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, and Qur'an is a means to introduce students to a shared source of humanity, beauty, wisdom, and solace. This article outlines a literature class that uses comparatist strategies to introduce these three foundational religious texts as literary works. Figural and thematic strategies reveal the development of stories, characters, ideas, and values. Cultural studies strategies demonstrate the profound effects that the texts have had on our notions about our relationships and responsibilities to ourselves, our families, and our world. Students report a better understanding of their own spiritualties, a greater acceptance of their own identities, and an increased appreciation of the diversity of their communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the life, theological career, exegetical development, and posthumous biographies of Johannes Oecolampadius as illustrative examples of the fact that the Swiss Reformation, with all its religious movements, was far from a uniform concept in terms of its origins, purposes, and methodologies. The article explains through Oecolampadius's example an approach to reform that was 'in progress', traversing the nexuses of disparate methods and exegetical priorities. Oecolampadius's experience occupied a position at the intersection between the authority of Patristics and the principle of sola scriptura, exemplifying a balance between the past and the present of Christian tradition. The path that led Oecolampadius to become a Protestant Reformer is characterised by a gradual transition, not abrupt, not radical. His example demonstrates the methodological and ideological diversity of the Reformation, which can be observed through the prism of a single life and its intellectual periods. His conversion offers insight into how these varied approaches shaped personal engagements with Scripture, and challenges the notion of an immediate or singular evangelical 'calling' or 'conviction'. This article examines a specific phase within the broader and varied trajectory of the Swiss Reformation by analysing the transformation of Oecolampadius from a biblical scholar to a preacher, and eventually to a Reformer. This case study illustrates how disparate methodologies, whether rooted in humanism or Patristics, contributed to gradual and personal evolution, ultimately giving rise to distinctive individual stances on reform. This article presents a synthesis of three distinct perspectives on the question. The first part approaches the question through the lens of church history and intellectual history; the second one utilises the history of exegesis and New Testament scholarship; and the third draws upon the perspectives of Protestant historiography, from the standpoint of social history and the history of biographies in Early Modern times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on Wittgenstein's theory of ordinary language use and Lamin Sanneh's insights into the effects of biblical translations in vernacular languages, this essay examines how the translation process in Niu Tireni (New Zealand/Aotearoa) in the 1830s contextualized or indigenized Christian concepts of the sacred/holy (tapu), the price (utu) paid by Christ for the sin of the world, and God's forgiveness (muru) due to that sacrifice (utu). Through translation, therefore, Christian scripture was changed, or acquired new cultural referents. On the Māori side of the translation process, the result of reapplying fundamental Māori concepts to Christian narratives and theological categories was to re-map the Māori mental universe—so that it, also, was not the same as it was before the translation came into being. Through translating the scriptures into the indigenous tongue, they had become a Māori (native/indigenous) possession. In so doing, however, the original cultural framework had flexed towards—if not become drastically reformed by—a biblical understanding of sacred and redemptive time and the actions of a Supreme Creator/Te Atua acting within human history but neither identical with that history nor with creation itself. Nevertheless, we are also presented with a picture of intersecting but not always corresponding meanings as the result of cross-cultural translation—with creative misunderstandings or an epistemic "middle ground" (following Richard White) of multiple meanings being one of the inevitable results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Great Commission is an important concept of missiological training and life wire of Christianity. This article is a critical review and reflection over the understanding and importance of this concept from the Old Testament background through the New Testament and its application to missiological training in the modern era. The article shows that the Great Commission is the singular theme that ran throughout the Scripture from the call of Abraham to the ascension of Jesus Christ and the mandate the Church is called to fulfil until the second coming of Christ. Missiological training, which is a mean to prepare labourers for missionary task of the Church, cannot be effective without a strong focus on the Great Commission mandate. Being the core of missionary task of the Church, the Great Commission should become the focus of all missiological training and dominant theme in the curriculum for the training of missionaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Christian universalism, or the theory of universal salvation, is increasingly popular among religious thinkers. A small group of scholars has put forward the contentious claim that Kierkegaard was a universalist, despite that he refers in places to the idea of eternal damnation as essential to Christianity. This paper examines the evidence both for and against the view that Kierkegaard was a universalist and concludes that despite Kierkegaard's occasional references to the importance of the idea of eternal damnation to Christianity, there is reason to believe that Kierkegaard may have been a universalist, both in terms of the substance of his thought, including two unequivocal statements in his journals that he believed everyone would eventually be saved and in terms of his rhetorical style which prioritizes the effect his writings would have on the reader over the literal truth of the views they present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paul refers to peace twice in Phil. 4:7 and 4:9. This paper argues that the peace of God is a prefiguration of the eschatological peace to come in God's world. It is be proposed that as Philippians is dealing with a social order (i.e., that of life in Christ) that is distinct from the dominant social order of the Roman empire or that of the colony of Philippi, political implications are at the very least a corollary of what Paul is writing to the Christ devotees in this city. The main points that will be argued are that peace is best understood as a key dimension for God's upcoming new world that is already present "in Christ". The Philippian community is called upon to stand firm in Christ (Phil. 4:1), which is, due to devotional and ethical practices, to result in the experience of God's peace or the God of peace. This must be understood as both a present and a future reality. Accordingly, the Philippian community can be seen as prefiguring God's future world by inhabiting this world now already in their communal life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of a recent surge of interest in time across a range of disciplines, a case has been made that New Testament studies has experienced a "temporal turn." This claim raises an important question about how one understands the relation of recent developments to earlier, long-held debates about time among New Testament scholars. This question is answered here by revisiting the "salvation history" debate between Oscar Cullmann and Rudolf Bultmann, with the help of Paul Ricoeur's analysis in Time and Narrative and in the context of recent trends in work on "temporalities." This article argues that, although in many respects recent work on time offers fresh language to describe the kinds of time at stake for New Testament scholarship, it is also true that attending to the earlier debates shows how parts of the temporal turn are in fact a re turn to questions long considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although biblical scholars are increasingly turning their attention to the question of God's body, few clarify how precisely this "body" complicates the long-held claim that God is immaterial. The present article addresses this oversight by attending to the ways in which biblical accounts of God's body intersect with wider tradents of thought on materiality and immateriality, including, above all, the recent cross-disciplinary "turn" known as new materialism. The article begins by discussing what biblical scholars mean when they say "God's body" and how biblical theophanies in particular complicate the belief that God is immaterial. It then discusses new materialism and how key emphases in this scholarly shift similarly complicate the belief in God's immateriality. Third and finally, the article returns to biblical theophanies by reading these accounts through a new materialist lens, focusing in particular on God's manifestations in material, nonhuman forms. In the end, I suggest not only that biblical theophanies problematize traditional ways of conceiving God within the history of biblical interpretation but also that new materialism can better enable us to see how these accounts portray the relationship between God and embodied materialities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Greek words spoken by Jesus on the cross to the good villain, contained in Luke 23:43, can be translated in two different ways, depending on which verb form the adverb of time σήμερον ("today") is referred to. In the vast majority of translations into modern languages, these words have been rendered in what can be described as a traditional manner: "I say to you, 'Truly today you will be with me in paradise.'" They can also be translated in another way, which has a serious bearing on the theological overtone of Jesus' words: "I say to you today: 'Truly you will be with me in paradise'" (alternative translation). The first part of the article analyzes the use of the adverbσήμερον in the Septuagint, the New Testament, and Luke's text. The second part of the article attempts to resolve the problem based on theological premises. Although both ways of analysis do not offer a conclusive solution, the alternative one better corresponds to the teaching of the Church concerning salvation, which will be finally accomplished at the end of times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of access to the American health care system seems destined to reappear in the 2024 presidential election. The political and economic debates regarding single-payer systems providing (near) universal health care are well documented. Supporters of the status quo, knowingly or unknowingly, rest their argument on the basic assumptions of utilitarianism. In response patrons investigating inequalities in access to the American health care system can turn to biblical, philosophical, and theological reflections on justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay reviews two recent publications in historical Greek linguistics. While many in university and seminary education learn to read Greek texts, little attention is given to pronunciation and even less to how the language may have been pronounced historically. The volumes reviewed in this essay reconstruct changes in the pronunciation of Greek in Judeo‐Palestine by examining discrepancies in spelling and transliteration. The books also have implications for sociological studies in addition to pedagogical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the meaning and use of divine vengeance in New Testament texts against the background of Greco-Roman, Old Testament and Early Jewish speech on vengeance. The New Testament authors consider divine vengeance to be an act of divine eschatological justice in which God or Jesus stands up for divine honor and the (covenantal) people. Divine vengeance is an answer to unfaithfulness and persistent unworthiness. The New Testament authors use the concept of divine vengeance to warn against unworthy behavior as a follower of Jesus the Messiah or as pastoral guidance in times of oppression and worries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How did Tertullian regard the apostles? This article investigates the references to them scattered through his writings both as individuals and as a collective. It reveals that individually the apostles were remote figures who appear in the pages of the New Testament simply as interlocutors of Jesus. Even Peter, significant as he was, was someone whose role was personal to himself and not a pattern for future leadership. Yet collectively the apostles performed an important function in Tertullian’s ecclesiology; they were the first receivers and transmitters of the regula fidei, and their fidelity to that responsibility distinguished authentic Christian communities from heretical associations. The regula fidei was important to Tertullian. As a synthesis of the essentials of faith as preached and lived by Jesus, it provided the measure against which passages of Scripture and Christian belief and practice were to be interpreted. The regula relied upon the accurate and complete transmission of the message of Jesus via the apostles to the church and its leaders. The apostolicity of the church is at the heart of why Tradition is central to Christian theology [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Septuagint defies easy definition. Biblical scholars routinely use the term to designate the Greek Old Testament, though they recognize that such language is similar to talking about "the English Bible" or "the German Bible": there is no such thing, or rather there are many such things. In this article, I urge closer attention to the way ancient people described the translation, particularly its scope. While modern scholars often seem (tacitly or not) to assume that the Septuagint began as the Greek Torah and then expanded its borders to welcome new Jewish scriptural books as they continued to be translated into Greek, ancient authors did not depict the Septuagint in this way. All ancient Jewish sources that mention the translation restricted the Septuagint to the Pentateuch, whereas most patristic sources attributed a Greek version of the entire Hebrew Bible to the Seventy translators. The most significant moment in the "growth of the Septuagint" was when it suddenly swelled from five books to perhaps a couple dozen or more. These ancient ideas on the extent of the Septuagint have implications for our notions of the Septuagint canon and for the use of this Greek version in the New Testament. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly, faculties of Theology have received so-called "digital natives" as students. These are the ones born in a context in which there is full availability of information through the Internet. Traditional teaching methodologies have not proven to be as effective for their learning in the context of higher theological education. In this way, active methodologies are presented as a solution to this problem. However, its application raises a question: what are the challenges and advantages of using active methodologies in theological higher education and how is it possible to apply them in this context? Seeking to answer this question, a bibliographic research was presented in this article, using the deductive method, carried out predominantly in journal articles. It was concluded that it is possible to apply active methodologies in the theological educational context at a higher level, although there are some challenges to consider, such as the fact that they require an adaptation by the teacher and that they come from humanist philosophies. In addition, an outline was briefly presented of how the methodology of projects could be applied in teaching the exegesis of the New Testament text through the historical-grammatical method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jesus used different teaching methods during his ministry to convey his message. In addition to using several parables, Jesus also used his actions to teach. We call this form of teaching "parabolic actions", which is a kind of dramatized parable. These parabolic actions, in addition to being a teaching method of Jesus, also become a minor literary genre in the Gospels. In Mark 12.13-17, we find the account of the question asked to Jesus about paying tribute to Caesar and the corresponding answer. Can this pericope be considered a type of parabolic action and, in this case, what would be its meaning? This article, through the exegesis of the text of Mark 12.13-17, highlights the strength of Jesus' action as a dramatized parable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jesus left an indelible impression on Peter's scriptural hermeneutic, and this influence can be seen in three ways. First, Peter's hermeneutical statement in 1 Peter 1:10-12 (cf. Acts 2-3) evokes Jesus's statements in Luke 24:25-27, 44-49. Second, Peter often uses OT passages quoted by Jesus earlier (e.g., Psalms 110, 69, and 118; flood/Noah narrative), but he does not merely repeat Jesus; he uses surrounding verses and develops the applications in new ways. Third, intertwined with the first two ways, Peter came to adopt Jesus's scriptural "suffering and subsequent glory" theme as paradigmatic for his own self-understanding (2 Pet 1:14), for his reading of the OT (1 Pet 1:10-12), and for his understanding of believers' experience in the world (e.g., 1 Pet 2:18-25; 3:8-5:11). In the end, while Peter shares much with Jewish contemporaries, his Master's shadow always looms large over his hermeneutic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The Day of the Lord" is a common term used in both the Bible and the Quran. This research aims to address some basic questions about this term: Why are only some specific days called "God's days"? When does the Day of the Lord happen? Moreover, what are the distinctive characteristics that set it apart from other days? What are the similarities and differences between the concept and example of the Day of the Lord in the Bible and the Quran? In general, the Day of the Lord in the Bible and the Quran refers to four important events. The first is the day of judgment and reckoning that occurs in the Day of Resurrection. This is the most common use of the term in all three scriptures. The second is the day when God bestows abundant blessings and mercies upon a community. This use occurs in the Old Testament and the Quran. The third is the day when God takes revenge on the wicked. This use is found in the Old and New Testament. The fourth is the day of Christ's return, which is only mentioned in the New Testament. Among these four cases, only the first occurs in the hereafter, while the other three transpire in this world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing attention has been directed towards affects and emotions in the New Testament texts within recent scholarship over the course of the past two decades. Although biblical exegesis of the 20th century suspected psychological interpretations of New Testament texts of being highly subjective and hence frail, recent research has developed a number of approaches that allow for addressing the subject in a methodologically controlled way. The aim of the present article is to review important monographs from the field of New Testament emotion research with special attention to their particular focuses and research methods. Despite some degree of overlap between these perspectives, six major areas of scholarly work can be identified: (1) "text psychology" that explains New Testament findings against the backdrop of modern psychological theories; (2) historical psychology that explores ancient notions of the affects; (3) narratology that observes recurring a narrative pattern in ancient descriptions of the affects; (4) rhetorical criticism that traces the rhetorical presentation of affects as well as the capability of rhetorical language to evoke affects in the addressees; (5) philosophy of the body that examines the bodily aspects of psychological dynamics; and finally (6) social history that identifies social functions of collective affects, e.g., in the formation and stabilization of social groups. After introducing each of these approaches briefly, the affect of desire (gr. ἐπιθυμία) will serve as a test case to demonstrate the possibilities and usefulness that the different perspectives offer. This way, it becomes clear that affects are by no means a by-product of theological teaching in the New Testament, but in fact indicators of true relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is truth? We have entered another period fraught with Gospel confusion—beyond postmodernism to what can be called "post-Christianity". This is not unusual—so we should not be overwhelmed. This happens periodically, as early as Gal 1:9: "If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned". It is all a question of the Gospel, or put another way, evangelism (the communication or announcing "the good news of God"). Evangelism is proclaiming and living a distinct message of Jesus Christ. Jesus is Himself the embodiment of the "good news". The Gospel has been challenged, eroded and corrupted over the centuries—yet rediscovered by those who practice exegesis of the Biblical record of the New Testament. This article moves on to look at how secular philosophy—rather than Christian philosophy—and other "forms of the truth" have influenced the current situation we find ourselves in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many of modern China's most famous writers invoked the figure of Jesus Christ and the New Testament story of his death in their creative works. Among those captivated by the archetypal martyr story of Western culture was the renowned leftist poet Ai Qing (1910–1996), though this aspect of his work has gone largely unacknowledged and unrecognized. What value did the figure of Jesus Christ and the story of his death have for writers like Ai Qing, who were by and large not religious believers and looked unfavorably on institutional Christianity? Through a case study analysis of Ai Qing's employment of crucifixion symbolism and imagery in his early poetry and theoretical writing, this article argues that Ai Qing used the figure of Jesus and the story of his martyrdom to ruminate on the state of the Chinese nation and to express his own aspirations and anxieties about his role as an intellectual in a time of national tumult. In this way, the article uncovers religious and transcultural influences on modern Chinese martyr discourses and the important role they played in shaping modern Chinese writers' perception of their world and themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No abstract available.

This article delves into the parallel natures of both the divine law and animal rights within the religious contexts of the Old and New Testaments. Employing a comparative approach, the paper inspects the developing perspectives on the treatment of animals in biblical scriptures, shedding light on the ethical and legal dimensions embedded in religious teachings. The study investigates key subtopics such as sacrificial rituals and moral imperatives, providing a nuanced understanding of the historical development of attitudes towards animals. Additionally, the analysis of this article encompasses ethical considerations, legal implications, and societal attitudes towards animals, drawing connections between ancient laws and contemporary discourse. Moreover, this article will look at the contemporary needs of society and how religious discourse and juristic principles can be applied to ensure the safety and rights of animals.