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What, in Matthew’s view, should a human being become and how does one attain that ideal? In The Sermon on the Mount and Spiritual Exercises: The Making of the Matthean Self, George Branch-Trevathan presents a new account of Matthew’s ethics and argues that the evangelist presents the Sermon on the Mount as functioning like many other ancient sayings collections, that is, as facilitating transformative work on oneself, or “spiritual exercises,” that enable one to realize the evangelist’s ideals. The conclusion suggests some implications for our understanding of ethical formation in antiquity and the study of ethics more generally. This will be an essential volume for scholars studying the Gospel of Matthew, early Christian ethics, the relationships between early Christian and ancient philosophical writings, or ethical formation in antiquity.
This volume celebrates the scholarship of Professor Johan C. Thom by tackling various important topics relevant for the study of the New Testament, such as the intellectual environment of early Christianity, especially Greek, Latin, and early Jewish texts, New Testament apocrypha and other early Christian writings, as well as Greek grammar. The authors offer fresh insights on philosophical texts and traditions, the cultural repertoire of early Christian literature, critical editions, linguistics and interpretation, and comparative analyses of ancient writings.
Redefines the role assigned education in the history of monasticism, by re-situating monasticism in the history of education.
Sense and Sadness is a study of music modality in relation to human emotion and the aesthetics of perception. It is also a musical story of survival through difficulty and pain. Focusing on chant at St George's Syrian Orthodox Church of Aleppo, author Tala Jarjour puts forward the concept of the emotional economy of aesthetics, which enables a new understanding of modal musicality in general and of Syriac musicality in particular. Jarjour combines insights from musicology and ethnomusicology, sound and religious studies, anthropology, history, East Christian and Middle Eastern studies, and the study of emotion, to seamlessly weave together multiple strands of a narrative which then becomes t...
The first three hundred years of the common era witnessed critical developments that would become foundational for Christianity itself, as well as for the societies and later history that emerged thereafter. The concept of 'ancient Christianity,' however, along with the content that the category represents, has raised much debate. This is, in part, because within this category lie multiple forms of devotion to Jesus Christ, multiple phenomena, and multiple permutations in the formative period of Christian history. Within those multiples lie numerous contests, as varieties of Christian identity laid claim to authority and authenticity in different ways. The Cambridge History of Ancient Christianity addresses these contested areas with both nuance and clarity by reviewing, synthesizing, and critically engaging recent scholarly developments. The 27 thematic chapters, specially commissioned for this volume from an international team of scholars, also offer constructive ways forward for future research.
Creating Jesus is a book for general readers on the Gospel of Mark as the earliest surviving witness of the life of Yeshua of Nazareth. Dennis Kennedy applies his expertise in literary and performance studies to examining Mark as a literary and historical document and describes in straightforward style how it differs from the other Gospels, what it meant in its time, and how it has been used in history. He investigates the oral Jesus tradition before Mark, the radical act of writing about a crucified preacher from the hinterland, the expansion of the Messiah cult in the Roman Empire, and the character of the faith that the earliest Gospel proposes. Interspersed with incidents from Kennedy’s own education, Creating Jesus seeks to reveal why Mark was written, the great influence it has had, and how it might question the nature of Christianity in the present.
In this study, Michael J. Morris examines aspects of synoptic gospel demonology; specifically, human responses to demonic evil. It is clear that early Christian demonology can be more fully understood against the background of early Jewish traditions. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, for instance, there are two fundamental ways by which protection against demons is sought. The first anti-demonic method is "exorcism," and the second is characterized by its preventative nature and is typically referred to as "apotropaism." Although many contributions have been made on the topic of exorcism in the gospels, less attention has been paid to the presence of apotropaic features in the gospel texts. Therefore, Michael J. Morris offers a timely examination of apotropaic tradition in early Judaism and its significance for demonological material in the synoptic gospels.
David E. Fredrickson asks a key question for interpreters of the New Testament in the twenty-first century: Do established ways of reading the New Testament need to be challenged and new ones explored? His answer is "yes," but he takes care not to dismiss readers' experiences in the previous two millennia. He values the readings of the past even as he contests the insights of scholars, preachers, monks, nuns, skeptics, the devout, the disinterested, the keenly interested, and all the rest who have tried to make sense of the earliest Christian writings. Fredrickson does not want to give an impression of "I know better than them." But he goes on to say that "strange as it sounds, not-knowing i...
When taken together the diverse writings found at Qumran and in the New Testament demonstrate participation in a common wisdom worldview.
In De-Introducing the New Testament, the authors argue for a renewed commitment to the defamiliarizing power of New Testament studies and a reclaiming of the discipline as one that exemplifies the best practices of the humanities. A new approach that asks us to ‘defamiliarize’ what we think we know about the New Testament, articulating themes and questions about its study that encourage further reflection and engagement Looks behind the traditional ways in which the NT is “introduced” to critically engage the conceptual framework of the field as a whole Provides a critical intervention into several methodological impasses in contemporary NT scholarship Offers an appraisal of the relationship between economics and culture in the production of NT scholarship Written in a style that is clear and concise, ideal for student readership