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"In this book, Tyson Putthoff explores the relationship between gods and humans, and between divine nature and human nature, in the Ancient Near East. In this world gods lived among humans. The two groups shared the world with one another, each playing a special role in maintaining order in the cosmos. Humans also shared aspects of a godlike nature. Even in their natural condition, humans enjoyed a taste of the divine state. Indeed, gods not only lived among humans, but also they lived inside them, taking up residence in the physical body. As such, human nature was actually a composite of humanity and divinity. Putthoff offers new insights into the ancients' understanding of humanity's relationship with the gods, providing a comparative study of this phenomenon from the third millennium BCE to the first century CE. His book will be of interest to scholars and students of history, philosophy, theology and anthropology of the Ancient Near East and the biblical world"--
In Ontological Aspects of Early Jewish Anthropology, Tyson L. Putthoff explores early Jewish beliefs about how the human self reacts ontologically in God’s presence. Combining contemporary theory with sound exegesis, Putthoff demonstrates that early Jews widely considered the self to be intrinsically malleable, such that it mimics the ontological state of the space it inhabits. In divine space, they believed, the self therefore shares in the ontological state of God himself. The book is critical for students and scholars alike. In putting forth a new framework for conceptualising early Jewish anthropology, it challenges scholars to rethink not only what early Jews believed about the self but how we approach the subject in the first place.
Gods have always lived among humans. But long ago, they also lived inside us, sharing their nature with mere mortals.
A robust theological argument against the assumption that God is male. God values women. While many Christians would readily affirm this truth, the widely held assumption that the Bible depicts a male God persists—as it has for centuries. This misperception of Christianity not only perniciously implies that men deserve an elevated place over women but also compromises the glory of God by making God appear to be part of creation, subject to it and its categories, rather than in transcendence of it. Through a deep reading of the incarnation narratives of the New Testament and other relevant scriptural texts, Amy Peeler shows how the Bible depicts a God beyond gender and a savior who, while e...
Taking 2 Cor 3:6 as its starting point, the new and updated essays here assembled investigate the key passages in Romans, 1-2 Corinthians, Galatians, and Philippians in which the covenant content and eschatological context of Paul's theology interpret one another. Developed over thirty years, Scott Hafemann's close reading of Paul's arguments, with an eye toward their OT/Jewish milieu, also advances the larger thesis that the various Israel/church, works/faith, and justification/judgment polarities in Paul's thinking do not represent a material contrast between a "law-way" and a "gospel-way" of relating to God. Rather, they epitomize an eschatological contrast between the character of God's people within the two eras of salvation history in which, by virtue of the Messiah and the Spirit, the Torah of the "old covenant" is now being kept in the "new."
Kowalski addresses the Pauline understanding of S/spirit in Romans 8, as compared to the Stoic idea of pneuma. The author first analyzes the Stoic views on pneuma perceived in a variety of life-giving, cognitive-ethical, unifying, reproductive and inspiring functions. The aforementioned features are taken as a starting point for the comparison with Paul to which, however, the third element is added, the Jewish texts of the Second Temple period. These include the Old Testament but also The Book of Enoch, The Book of Jubilees, Qumran, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, The Psalms of Solomon, Philo of Alexandria, Flavius Josephus, LAB, Joseph and Aseneth, 4 Book of Ezra and 2 Book of Baru...
New research that transforms how to understand food and eating in literature Meredith J. C. Warren identifies and defines a new genre in ancient texts that she terms hierophagy, a specific type of transformational eating where otherworldly things are consumed. Multiple ancient Mediterranean, Jewish, and Christian texts represent the ramifications of consuming otherworldly food, ramifications that were understood across religious boundaries. Reading ancient texts through the lens of hierophagy helps scholars and students interpret difficult passages in Joseph and Aseneth, 4 Ezra, Revelation 10, and the Persephone myths, among others. Features: Exploration of how ancient literature relies on bending, challenging, inverting, and parodying cultural norms in order to make meaning out of genres Analysis of hierophagy as social action that articulates how patterns of communication across texts and cultures emerge and diverge A new understanding of previously confounding scenes of literary eating
We live in an era in which relations are considered to be of the utmost importance in almost every field of science and society. For theology, however, this is nothing new. Having a personal relationship with God is a common Christian expression, and while this notion of relationship with God usually lacks a clear definition and its explication is often deeply flawed, this book argues nevertheless for the centrality of a theology of relationship. By reintroducing Emil Brunner as a relational theologian, based on his seminal work Truth as Encounter, it is boldly proposed that relationship must be the prime leitmotif for the whole of theology. Furthermore, the relationship analogy is investigated in light of contemporary relationship science: is it accurate to speak of a relationship with God? Berra argues that God-human interaction is indeed categorically a relationship and existentially intended to be intimate. Consequently, this relationship needs to be the theological leitmotif leading to a theology of relationship.
This study explores the relationship between the individual person (the self), the divine, and other people in the writings of the apostle Paul and the Roman Stoic Epictetus. It does so by examining self-involving actions expressed with reflexive pronouns (myself, yourself, etc.) in various kinds of sentences: for example, “Examine yourself” and “You do not belong to yourself.” After situating the topic within the fields of linguistics and ancient Greek, the study then examines the reflexive constructions in Epictetus’s Discourses, showing that reflexive texts express fundamental aspects of his ethic of rational self-interest in imitation of the indwelling rational deity. Next, the...
Michael Lakey explores the theological significance of the rituals of Baptism and the Lord's Supper in Pauline theology, with the argument culminating in an analysis of the significance of ritual dining in 1 Corinthians 10:14-22 and the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34. By contrast with 'social world' forms of comparison between rituals in the Pauline communities and other communities in antiquity, this study focuses primarily upon the theologically integrating function these rituals perform in relation to Paul's theology and ethics. Lakey builds upon Clifford Geertz's systemic understanding of religion by showing how, for Paul, Baptism and the Lord's Supper facilitate specific connections between his metaphysics on the one hand, and the form or pattern of life he enjoins upon his churches on the other. This volume considers precisely what - given his theological and ethical premises - Paul's underlying beliefs regarding these ritual events may have been, allowing for a preliminary discussion of specific lines of post-interpretation in the early patristic period.