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This study examines educational motifs in 1 Corinthians 1-4 in order to answer a question fundamental to the interpretation of 1 Corinthians: Do the opening chapters of 1 Corinthians contain a Pauline apology or a Pauline censure? The author argues that Paul characterizes the Corinthian community as an ancient school, a characterization Paul exploits both to defend himself as a good teacher and to censure the Corinthians as poor students.
In Sirach and Its Contexts an international cohort of experts on the book of Sirach locate this second-century BCE Jewish wisdom text in its various contexts: literary, historical, philosophical, textual, cultural, and political. First compiled by a Jewish sage around 185 BCE, this instruction enjoyed a vibrant ongoing reception history through the middle ages up to the present, resulting in a multiform textual tradition as it has been written, rewritten, transmitted, and studied. Sirach was not composed as a book in the modern sense but rather as an ongoing stream of tradition. Heretofore studied largely in confessional settings as part of the Deuterocanonical literature, this volume brings together essays that take a broadly humanistic approach, in order to understand what an ancient wisdom text can teach us about the pursuit of wisdom and human flourishing.
One “apocalyptic” reading of Paul’s letter to the Galatians has been attempted before and is now widely accepted, but that reading is not based on a thorough engagement with Jewish apocalyptic traditions of the Second Temple period. In this book, James M. Scott argues that there is an essential continuity between Galatians and Paul’s Jewish past, and that Paul uses the apocalyptic Epistle of Enoch (1 Enoch 92–105) as a literary model for his own letter. Scott first contextualizes the Epistle of Enoch using the entire Enochic corpus and explores the extensive similarities (and some significant differences) between the Enochic tradition and early Stoicism. Then he turns to deal specifically with Paul’s letter to the Galatians, showing that, despite their obvious differences, the two apocalyptic letters have some remarkable features in common as well. This approach to the interpretation of Galatians fundamentally stands to change the way biblical scholars understand Paul’s letter and the gospel that he preached. Paul is “within Judaism,” if the net for what is included in “Judaism” is wide enough to encompass the Enochic tradition.
This volume considers a major shift among Jewish sages during the Second Temple period, as certain authors moved from an earthly focus to a belief in individual immortality. Egyptian instructions and the book of Proverbs are examined for necessary background. The colorful responses of Qoheleth and Ben Sira to an emergent belief in the afterlife are also discussed. 4QInstruction, the largest Wisdom text from the Dead Sea Scrolls corpus, demonstrates this shift to an eschatological understanding. This book considers the diverse reasons for the changes that one finds in 4QInstruction, especially the issue of social context. It will prove useful to those interested in Wisdom literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls, apocalypticism, and the development of beliefs in the afterlife.
The discoveries of Coptic books containing “Gnostic” scriptures in Upper Egypt in 1945 and of the Dead Sea Scrolls near Khirbet Qumran in 1946 are commonly reckoned as the most important archaeological finds of the twentieth century for the study of early Christianity and ancient Judaism. Yet, impeded by academic insularity and delays in publication, scholars never conducted a full-scale, comparative investigation of these two sensational corpora—until now. Featuring articles by an all-star, international lineup of scholars, this book offers the first sustained, interdisciplinary study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Codices.
Based on a conference held Apr. 4-5, 2008 at Amherst College.
This work provides a new, integrated approach to analysing the meaning and use of complex nouns in the Hebrew Bible, focussed on anthropological uses of the word, רוח.
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