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Covering the period from 200 BCE to 600 CE, this book describes important aspects of identity formation processes within early Judaism and Christianity, and shows how negotiations involving issues of ethnicity, stereotyping, purity, commensality, and institution building contributed to the forming of group identities. Over time, some of these Jewish group identities evolved into non-Jewish Christian identities, others into a rabbinic Jewish identity, while yet others remained somewhere in between. The contributors to this volume trace these developments in archaeological remains as well as in texts from the Qumran movement, the New Testament and the reception of Paul’s writings, rabbinic literature, and apocryphal and pseudepigraphical writings, such as the Book of Dreams and the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies. The long timespan covered in the volume together with the combined expertise of scholars from various fields make this book a unique contribution to research on group identity, Jewish and Christian identity formation, the Partings-of-the-ways between Judaism and Christianity, and interactions between Jews and Christians.

In this study I situate socio-historically the adoption of the term ekklēsia as a permanent collective identity by early Christ-followers, particularly Pauline ones. I contribute to at least four areas of ekklēsia research. First, my examination of almost 1900 inscriptional occurrences of the word ekklēsia indicates a lack of evidence for a non-civic association self-identifying collectively as an ekklēsia. Second, I develop the preliminary observation by Runesson, Binder, and Olsson (2008) that ekklēsia can refer either to a gathering of Jews or to the self-designation of a Jewish community, i.e., that ekklēsia is one among several terms that can be translated into English as “synagogue.” This problematizes, from an institutional perspective, suggestions common in scholarship that Paul was “parting ways” with Judaism(s), ‘Jewishness,’ or Jewish organizational forms. Third, given both that non-Jewish Christ-followers could not be designated using the ethno-religious term “Israel” and that ekklēsia is a Jewish synagogue term, Paul’s designation of his multi-ethnic communities as ekklēsiai allowed gentiles qua gentiles to share with Torah observant Jews qua Jews in God’s salvation history with Israel. Ekklēsia, thus, does not indicate an inherently supersessionist identity for communities designated by this term. Fourth, Paul’s adoption of a political identity (civic ekklēsia) for his communities need not imply his promotion of counter-imperial civic ideology. Greek literary (e.g., Plutarch) and inscriptional evidence suggests that if an Imperial period non-civic group (e.g., voluntary association) self-designated as an ekklēsia, it could have been perceived as a positive, rather than as an anti-Roman, participant in society., Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis examines the nature and theological function of God’s revelation of knowledge in five texts discovered at Qumran: Instruction, the Treatise on the Two Spirits, the Hodayot, the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, and the Songs of the Sage. Chapter 1 is a historical survey of the different ways scholars have understood and classified God’s revelation of knowledge in the Scrolls. Scholars have often interpreted these texts in isolation from one another, and they have disagreed about whether the concept of divine revelation expressed in them is derived from the sapiential, prophetic, or apocalyptic traditions. I propose that all five of these texts should be interpreted together and that they all drew upon a single distinct revelatory tradition. In chapters 2–6, I examine each of the texts mentioned above by asking three questions: What did God reveal? How did he reveal it? What is the theological function of God’s revelation? In asking the last question, I am particularly interested in the role that God’s revelation of knowledge plays in the anthropological and soteriological worldview of the authors. Over the course of chapters 2–6, I argue that all five of these texts represent essentially the same revelatory tradition. In this tradition, God has revealed the mysteries of his cosmic design and the statutes of his covenant with creation to certain righteous people. God’s act of revelation takes place either through a visionary experience or an indwelling spirit that imparts knowledge. This knowledge of God’s cosmic design has the power to rectify the corrupt human condition which, in turn, allows those who have knowledge to enter into paradise where they can commune with the angels. Through God’s revelation of knowledge, the righteous can obtain the glorious state that Adam once possessed in the Garden of Eden. In chapter 7, I conclude the thesis by summarizing the principle features of the revelat, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This study will critically evaluate the dominant framework through which the Johannine aposynagōgos passages (John 9:22, 12:42, 16:2) are read. This dominant framework, which understands these passages as allegorically encoding the history of a putative Johannine community some forty to fifty years after Jesus’ lifetime, will be judged exegetically and historically implausible. An alternative reading of the passages will be developed, grounded in a philosophy of history derived from the critical realist epistemology developed by Bernard Lonergan and introduced into New Testament studies by Ben F. Meyer. It will be argued that these passages are historically plausible and that the Gospel author intended factuality and was plausibly knowledgeable on the matter. Consequently, it will be argued that a positive judgment of historicity can be assigned to these passages., Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This study examines the experience of visitors to the shrine of Sainte Anne de Beaupré in Québec, Canada. Drawing on ethnographic data, narratives and historical research, this project describes the ways in which Saint Anne is meaningful to people. I focus on the themes of pilgrimage and tourism, devotional expressions, visionary experiences and religious healing. While the earliest visitors to the shrine were primarily motivated by stories of the miraculous, contemporary visitors have many different motivations, blurring the scholarly boundaries constructed between pilgrimage and tourism. Devotional expressions at Sainte Anne de Beaupré, understood as “media of engagement” or “relationships of presence,” encompass a wide range of practices, meanings and functions. Power is invested and diffused through Saint Anne by forming “cogent connections” to her through the media of devotional expressions. This study also considers visionary experiences that are associated with Saint Anne, especially visions that are related to pilgrimage and religious healing at Sainte Anne de Beaupré. Rather than focusing on the “epiphany” of the visionary experience itself, I suggest that agency is key to understanding visions, particularly as they relate to issues of empowerment. Finally, I situate pilgrimage, devotional expressions and visionary encounters in the context of religious healing. The term healing encompasses a broad range of meanings, and I demonstrate that journeys to Sainte Anne de Beaupré involve a quest for therapy, self-transformation, identity and/or personal empowerment., Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The goal of this study is to add to our knowledge of Paul's notion of apostleship, and to perhaps say something new about early views of the apostle-concept in general. I begin to present my original research in Chapter Two, where I attempt to offer a better description of Paul's definition of apostleship than the ones that came before it. Previous descriptions unanimously mention and give equal weight to a vision of Christ, and a charge to carry out certain activities as the two main components to apostleship. However, Paul's words on the matter suggest that he and his contemporary Christ-believers regarded the activities-component to be of greatest significance to the identity of the apostle. For this reason, I state that we must take a serious look at Paul's words on his apostolic activities if we seek to understand his notion of his apostleship. Yet, very little work has been done in the past to organize our first-hand data on Paul's actions. In the interest of launching this initiative, I compile an inventory of all actions that Paul claimed to perform in the past, present, and future. I call these passages "statements of action." Such an inventory has never been published, and I view it as this study's major contribution to NT scholarship. In Chapter Three, I place all statements of action into one or two of four categories. The categories are: (1) authenticating his authority; (2) converting; (3) establishing congregations; and (4) maintaining congregations. I argue that the four categories represent Paul's four apostolic objectives, and that Paul thought it necessary to fulfill them in order to prepare his "converts" for imminent eschatological events., Master of Arts (MA)