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The Early Christian World
Early Christian World presents an exhaustive, erudite and lavishly illustrated treatment of how the small movement which formed around Jesus in Galilee became the pre-eminent religion of the ancient world. The work begins by firmly situating early Christianity within its Mediterranean social, political and religious contexts, before charting the history of the first Christian centuries. The creation and perpetuation of Christian communities through various means, including mission and monasticism, is explored, as is the everyday experience of early Christians, through discussion of gender and sexuality, religious practice, communication and social structures. The intellectual (particularly t...
Sex, Wives, and Warriors
Suggesting new ways to read Old Testament narrative and giving reasons why we should, Esler, with the aid of Mediterranean anthropology, sets out an approach that helps us to interpret a selection of narratives with a cultural understanding close to that of an ancient Israelite. Interpreted in this way, these narratives allow us to refresh the memory that links us with pivotal stories in Jewish and Christian identities and how they foster our capacity for intercultural understanding.
Galatians
Paul's letter to the Galatians, sometimes known as the Magna Carta of Christian liberty, is central to the understanding of the relation of Paul and the Law and is packed with crucial historical, social and theological material. Philip F. Esler provides a detailed and accessible interpretation of the text, which draws on contemporary and modern literary models. He outlines the problems often associated with reading Galatians, the context of the text, the rhetoric of the text and the intercultural and social implications of Galatians. Galatians includes comprehensive indices of ancient sources and modern sources, detailed references and an appendix discussing Paul's attitude to the Law in Romans 5.20-21. Galatians presents a succinct and emminently readable analysis of a dense and important New Testament text.
Ethiopian Christianity
In Ethiopian Christianity Philip Esler presents a rich and comprehensive history of Christianity's flourishing. But Esler is ever careful to situate this growth in the context of Ethiopia's politics and culture. In so doing, he highlights the remarkable uniqueness of Christianity in Ethiopia. Ethiopian Christianity begins with ancient accounts of Christianity's introduction to Ethiopia by St. Frumentius and King Ezana in the early 300s CE. Esler traces how the church and the monarchy closely coexisted, a reality that persisted until the death of Haile Selassie in 1974. This relationship allowed the emperor to consider himself the protector of Orthodox Christianity. The emperor's position, co...
Dirt, Greed and Sex
Conducting a thorough examination of sexual ethics in the New Testament, this work argues that the New Testament writers did not construct a new sexual ethic from the ground up, but took over existing cultural patterns and refocused them, pushing some elements from the centre to the periphery. This suggests a pattern of ethics for contemporary life. Discussing biblical notions of purity and property, which dominate ethical ideas in the New Testament, the author characterizes sex as one of the rich blessings of creation, "to be received with delight and thanksgiving". Countryman's generous and eirenic views on sexual matters, based as they are on solid biblical research, are a welcome intervention in an area which unfortunately, in Christian circles, tends still to be dominated by conservatism and misinformation, rather than by liberal principle.
God's Court and Courtiers in the Book of the Watchers
First Enoch is an ancient Judean work that inaugurated the genre of apocalypse. Chapters 1–36 tell the story of the descent of angels called “Watchers” from heaven to earth to marry human women before the time of the flood, the chaos that ensued, and God’s response. They also relate the journeying of the righteous scribe Enoch through the cosmos, guided by angels. Heaven, including the place and those who dwell there (God, the angels, and Enoch), plays a central role in the narrative. But how should heaven be understood? Existing scholarship, which presupposes “Judaism” as the appropriate framework, views the Enochic heaven as reflecting the temple in Jerusalem, with God’s hous...
The Blessing of Enoch
In recent decades the ancient apocalyptic work 1 Enoch has been intensively explored for its historical meaning and its contribution to Israelite and Christ-movement thought and identity. Yet its theological meaning, what it can contribute to understanding of the divine-human interface today, has been neglected by scholarship. This is surprising given that 1 Enoch is Scripture for the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox churches and has been a major influence on Christian theology, experience, and art in Ethiopia since the fifth and sixth centuries CE. This book inaugurates a project in Western scholarship to bring 1 Enoch into theological discussion. It contains a number of essays delivered at ...
Babatha's Orchard
This work considers the story behind papyri discovered in 1960 in the Cave of Letters by the Dead Sea. The archive contains various contracts and deeds entered into by a Jewish woman named Babatha, daughter of a land owner named Shim'on, at the end of the first century.
Identity and Ethics in the Book of Ruth
This study demonstrates the importance of including narrative ethics in a construction of Old Testament ethics, as a correction for the current state of marginalisation of narrative in this discipline. To this end, the concept of identity is used as a lens through which to understand and derive ethics. Since self-conception in ancient Israel is generally held to be predominantly collectivist in orientation, social identity theory is used to understand ancient Israelite identity. Although collectivist sensitivities are important, a social identity approach also incorporates an understanding of individuality. This approach highlights the social emphases of a biblical text, and consequently ass...
Picturing the New Testament
How do visual images from the ancient world shed light on New Testament texts? In a methodologically multifaceted manner, the contributions in this volume examine early Christian images with regard to their ancient context. Various New Testament texts (the synoptic gospels, the Johannine and Pauline corpora) are linked to ancient visual images. Various approaches in iconography are summarized and applied to the interpretation of texts, taking account of the strengths and limitations of these images, as well as possible future applications. These essays incorporate current viewpoints from archaeology and the history of art. The topics range from studies of the depictions of Christ and the disciples to the images of humans and the world. This volume provides an innovative basis for the discussion of the iconographic method and the New Testament.
