Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament

The authors of this volume examine the perception, depiction, and evaluation of the antagonist in ancient Jewish and early Christian literature. Most of the contributions were presented at an international symposium on the topic of "Gegenspieler" in Tübingen in October 2015.

Peter Balla stellt die Texte des Neuen Testaments, in denen das Verhalten von Kindern zu ihren Eltern im Mittelpunkt steht, in ihren zeitgenössischen Kontext. Er vergleicht sie mit nicht-biblischen Texten, die zum Teil auch zitiert werden. Er untersucht, inwieweit sich die ersten christlichen Gemeinden von ihren jüdischen und heidnischen Zeitgenossen absetzten, und er geht den unterschiedlichen Stellungnahmen innerhalb des Neuen Testaments nach, die sich mit dem Verhältnis zwischen Eltern und Kindern befassen. Der Autor zeigt, daß die Unterschiede gering sind. So behielt das fünfte Gebot seine Geltung auch für Jesus, seine ersten Jünger und für die frühchristlichen Gemeinden.

Alexandria was one of the main hubs of the Hellenistic world and a cultural and religious "kaleidoscope." Merchants and migrants, scientists and scholars, philosophers, and religious innovators from all over the world and from all social backgrounds came to this ancient metropolis and exchanged their goods, views, and dreams. Accordingly, Alexandria became a place where Hellenistic, Egyptian, Jewish, and early Christian identities all emerged, coexisted, influenced, and rivaled each other. In order to meet the diversity of Alexandria's urban life and to do justice to the variety of literary and non-literary documents that bear witness to this, the volume examines the processes of identity formation from a range of different academic perspectives. Thus, the present volume gathers together twenty-six contributions from the realm of archaeology, ancient history, classical philology, religious studies, philosophy, the Old Testament, narratology, Jewish studies, papyrology, and the New Testament.

This volume aims to broaden our understanding of the related genres of parables, fables, and similes in the Graeco-Roman world. These genres, which make use of narrative analogy, appear in early Christian and ancient Jewish literatures and in various Graeco-Roman sources. However, despite the fact that these texts were part of the wider cultural context of Graeco-Roman antiquity, they have not yet been thoroughly studied in relation to each other. The present volume brings together contributions on a range of Graeco-Roman, Jewish, and Christian sources, so as to contribute to the study of parables, fables, and similes across disciplinary boundaries. The contributions highlight the fluid boundaries between these different genres, but also demonstrate how their adoption and adaption in different literary works give expression to the distinct identities of the composers.

This volume presents essays by Adela Yarbro Collins on the Gospel of Mark originally published between 1993 and 2021. The earlier ones were written while preparing to write the Hermeneia commentary on Mark, published in 2007. The later ones reflect the author's continuing interest in the interpretation of this Gospel. Major foci of the collection are the genre of Mark and of the passion narrative, and the meaning of the death of Jesus. She approaches the portrayal of Jesus in Mark by analyzing a particularly striking miracle-story, the walking on the water; the title Son of God; Jesus's action in the temple; the messianic secret; and particular aspects of Jesus's Jewishness. Another important topic is the significance of the empty tomb, that is, how the author of Mark envisioned the resurrected life of Jesus. Clues to this are found in the cultural contexts in which the Gospel was written.

Doubt is a symbol of modernity, but it is still sidelined in biblical studies. In this study, Benjamin Schliesser presents for the first time a synopsis of the early Christian discussion of doubt in the context of the ancient religious and intellectual history. It reveals a surprisingly multifaceted discourse, which will also stimulate present-day theological reflection.

The centrality and significance of love for much of ancient Judaism and Christianity are clear. But if there is a broad, even if not universal, agreement on the importance of love, the singularity of the term "love" covers over a multitude of differences in how love is conceived and mapped onto the conceptual landscape of antiquity. In this volume, Crabbe and Lincicum assemble a set of essays that analyze the concept of love from the minor prophets to Methodius of Olympus, with a central focus on the texts that came to make up the New Testament.

This compendium examines how the Spirit is depicted and functions in biblical texts and their historical and religious contexts, while also tracing the Spirit's discursive history from antiquity to today.

With this book, Julien M. Ogereau explores the apostle Paul's first Epistle to the Thessalonians through the perspective of Graeco-Roman epigraphy. Although scholars have frequently highlighted the significance of inscriptions for interpreting the New Testament, this commentary is the first to study systematically a New Testament text within the epigraphical context in which the author and recipients were linguistically and culturally embedded. Inscriptions indeed played a vital role in ancient society, both representing and shaping language use, including that of New Testament authors.
This commentary features the epigraphic material that is considered to be the most enlightening on a particular lexeme, passage, or topic, and that is chronologically and geographically the closest to the location of the author and audience (e.g., inscriptions from Macedonia and Achaea dating from the first century AD). It examines the use of each lexeme in inscriptions and presents their relevance for the interpretation of a passage of the letter, in dialogue with current exegetical discussions.
Each section on a particular passage begins with the Greek text and a translation that integrates the semantic insights derived from inscriptions. It then examines and discusses in detail the relevant epigraphic evidence for each important lexeme, or for the passage as a whole. Finally, each section concludes with a short summary that explores the potential meaning of the passage in light of the epigraphic material collected, both from the perspective of the author and from that of the audience.