bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The “Virgin Widow”: A Problematic Social Role for the Early Church?
Authors: Methuen Charlotte
Published: June 2011

In her discussion of the life of Macrina (ca. 327–79), the sister of Gregory of Nyssa, Susanna Elm comments upon Macrina's decision to treat the death of her fiancé as if it were the death of a husband. Inasmuch as this decision became a reason for her not to (re)marry, Macrina took on “a new social role: the virgin widow.” Elm's casual remark points to a remarkable failure among a number of commentators to take account of the ambiguities inherent in the title “widow” (Greek χήρα, Latinvidua). While acknowledging the existence of an order of widows, scholars have also widely assumed that the terms χήρα andviduacan be equated to the modern term “widow,” that is, a woman who has survived her husband. The discussion of Christian widows, and especially enrolled widows, has accordingly focused primarily upon the function and often the age of these women. If scholars mention the marital status of such women at all, their discussion is generally directed toward the question of second marriages. I shall argue, however, that it is in fact misleading to assume that a widow must have been married previously and that in the earliest centuries of the Christian church, there is evidence not only for the existence of “virgin widows” but also for the problems that these women posed for some church leaders.
“Everything That Really Matters”: Social Suffering, Subjectivity, and the Remaking of Human Experience in a Disordering World
Authors: Kleinman Arthur
Published: June 2011

When William James launched into the Gifford Lectures of 1901, he admitted to his Edinburgh audience a certain feeling of trepidation. Those lectures, which he would later publish asThe Varieties of Religious Experience, evoked in James a sense of consternation because, as he remarked on the occasion, he was neither a theologian, nor a historian of religion, nor an anthropologist. “Psychology is the only branch of learning in which I am particularly versed,” James pleaded.
Vincent Ferrer'sBeati Petri Apostoli:Canonical and Apocryphal Sources in Popular Vernacular Preaching
Authors: Ferreiro Alberto
Published: June 2011

Vincent Ferrer was born in Valencia on January 23, 1350 and died at Vannes (Brittany) on April 5, 1419. He grew up in a devout family, and by 1367 had joined the Order of Preachers in Valencia. As a member of the Dominican Order, Vincent Ferrer underwent extensive academic and pastoral training from 1370 to 1378 in preparation for a life of scholarly teaching and preaching. He was a teacher of logic at Lleida (1370–71), philosophy at Barcelona (1375), and he completed his formal training at Toulouse (1376–78). These academic activities reflect only one aspect of his intellectual background.
Communicative Theory and Theology: A Reconsideration
Authors: Afrasiabi K. L.
Published: June 2011

Judging by the proliferation of a new body of theological works that have encouraged a deliberate rethinking of the intellectual premises of Christian theology, scholarly discussion appears to have come to the juncture of an exciting though unpredictable stage in theology. Perhaps this is nowhere clearer than in the realm of the ongoing dialogue on the theological relevance of communication theory associated with the German philosopher, Jürgen Habermas. Contrary to what has become an article of faith in recent theological forays into social theory, I contend: (a) that Habermasian theory has little to contribute to theological thought and is more valuable as an indirect aid in critiquing various deficient theological discourses; (b) that the current Habermas-sympathetic attempts at a communicative theology are, by and large, open to criticism for the same shortcomings and problems found in Habermas's own works; and (c) that the need to address these problems necessarily points us toward an alternative postcommunication theology.
The Eyes Infected by Evil: Basil of Caesarea's Homily, On Envy
Authors: Limberis Vasiliki
Published: June 2011

Basil wrote the homily On Envy around 364, after he was ordained a presbyter by Eusebius of Caesarea. He probably intended it as a Lenten sermon for his congregation in Caesarea, which was largely composed of catechumens. The homily has received very little attention from scholars, although, along with nine other homilies, it has been classified as one of the moral treatises, rather than as an exegetic or panegyric work. Most recent scholarship has deemed it an authentic homily of Basil's. One can readily see why On Envy has been overlooked by historical theologians: the treatise is didactically straightforward, theologically and philosophically unsophisticated, and in no way combats Arian opponents. There are, how-ever, other reasons to find On Envy of interest. The treatise documents Basil's attempt to confront a mode of behavior that implicitly questions the church's authority. Simply stated, On Envy is Basil's direct effort to wrest control over the evil eye for the church. What is significant about the homily is that it demonstrates how Basil continued to work within the indigenous code of Mediterranean social behavior that was dominated by honor, shame, revenge, and envy. Thus what Basil offered his congregation as a solution to the grave problem of envy is really a recasting of the pursuit of virtue, so common to Christian Neoplatonists, into the Mediterranean social code. Virtue is rewarded by the most valued possession: honor.
On the Holy Road: The Beat Movement as Spiritual Protest
Authors: Prothero Stephen
Published: June 2011

For the beat generation of the 1940s and 1950s, dissertation time is here. Magazine and newspaper critics have gotten in their jabs. Now scholars are starting to analyze the literature and legacy of the beat writers. In the last few years biographers have lined up to interpret the lives of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs, and publishers have rushed into print a host of beat journals, letters, memoirs, and anthologies. The most recentDictionary of Literary Biographydevotes two large volumes to sixty-seven beat writers, including Neal Cassady, Herbert Huncke, Gary Snyder, Gregory Corso, John Clellon Holmes, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Philip Lamantia, Peter Orlovsky, Michael McClure, and Philip Whalen.
Patristic Arguments against the Eternity of the World
Authors: Wolfson Harry A.
Published: June 2011

According to Aristotle himself, all the philosophers before him are agreed that the world was generated, which implies that he was the first to introduce the conception of an ungenerated world; but, according to John Philoponus, Aristotle was only the first among the natural philosophers who discovered a new method to establish the principle that the world had no beginning. Among the Church Fathers, Lactantius sometimes attributes the belief in the eternity of the world explicitly to Aristotle, but sometimes he refers it vaguely to “those who say that the world always existed.” Vague references to a belief in the eternity of the world, or to such a belief described as held by some people or by some philosophers, are to be found also in the works of such Fathers as Justin Martyr, Theophilus, Origen, Arnobius, Basil, Augustine, and Diodorus Tarsus. Two pre-Socratic philosophers are mentioned by some Fathers as exponents of the belief in the eternity of the world: Xenophanes by Hippolytus, Eusebius, and Theodoret of Cyrrhus; Pythagoras by Tertullian. Various arguments are used by the Fathers in their refutation of this view. These arguments, selected and grouped into six types, are the subject of discussion of the present paper.
Jewish-Christian Disputation in the Setting of Humanism and Reformation in the German Empire
Authors: Ben-Sasson Haim Hillel
Published: June 2011

The very conception of change in the social and cultural climate of the Christian society as providing a meaningful setting for an exchange of ideas between Jews and Christians in Germany during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries needs clarification. Some scholars characterize Jewish life and thought in that time and place as dominated by almost total social isolation and strict spiritual traditionalism. According to their view, this seclusion was as much self-willed as imposed by Christian society. It is admitted that there was defence against danger and refutation of libel on behalf of the Jews. The Shtadlan Josel von Rosheim, the great Jewish diplomat of those days, represents this Jewish response to external challenge. It is, of course, well established that Johannes Reuchlin acquired his Hebrew from Jewish teachers, but this is seen mainly as a feature of awakening European Hebraism. Very little has been done to ascertain what relation obtained between the cultures of the pupil and his teachers. Even his defence of the Talmud — beneficial to the Jews in its results — is seen as unrelated to their trend of thought.
The Synoptic Gospels and the Noncanonical Acts of the Apostles
Authors: Bovon François
Published: June 2011

At the end of the second century, four gospels became canonical. Today they are present everywhere in the world at the beginning of the New Testament and at the heart of the Christian Bible, side by side and in the same order, endowed with the same authority. The text of these four gospels has been fixed for a long time, notwithstanding the existence of thousands of textual variants which have troubled European scholars since the eighteenth century. Today no one dreams of publishing interpolated versions of these gospels or of doctoring our holy books. Biblical scholarship devoted to the study of these gospels now occupies a firm place in the programs of numerous theological faculties and departments of religious studies.
Aspects of Anti-Manichaean Polemics in Late Antiquity and Under Early Islam
Authors: Stroumsa Sarah , Stroumsa Gedaliahu G.
Published: June 2011

Mani established his religion on very broad syncretistic grounds, in the hope that it could conquer the wholeoikumene, East and West, by integrating the religious traditions of all peoples—except those of the Jews. Although Manichaeism as an organized religion survived for more than a thousand years, and its geographical realm extended from North Africa to Southeast China, this ambition never came close to being realized, and the Manichaeans remained, more often than not, small and persecuted communities. Yet, in a somewhat paradoxical way, Mani did achieve his ecumenical goal. For more than half a millennium, from its birth in the third century throughout late antiquity and beyond, his religion was despised and rejected with the utmost violence by rulers and thinkers belonging to all shades of the spiritual and religious spectrum. In this sense, Manichaeism, an insane system, a “mania,” appeared as the outsider par excellence.
The Little Lower Layer: Anxiety and the Courage to be in Moby-Dick
Authors: Matteson John T.
Published: June 2011

In his foundational work on the problems of anxiety and self-affirmation, The Courage to Be, Paul Tillich refers to the twentieth century as an age of anxiety. He describes the century as an era in which humankind has become deeply and disturbingly aware of the threats of meaninglessness and spiritual nonbeing. This anxiety, Tillich asserts, has become a central theme for modern artists and writers, whose works have frequently depicted humankind and society as teetering on the brink of an ontological and spiritual abyss. As Tillich was aware, however, the concept of anxiety did not magically appear in literature in the year 1900. Although Tillich considers the anxiety of meaninglessness to be paramount in the present day, he gives extensive treatment to other anxieties (for example, the anxieties of guilt and death) that deeply concerned writers in earlier times. Tillich mentions T. S. Eliot, Camus, and Sartre, but he also hails Flaubert and Dostoyevsky as explorers of the “deserts and jungles of the human soul.” Another nineteenth-century novelist, who should not have passed without notice, escaped Tillich's attention: Herman Melville.
Judges 1:1–36: The Deuteronomistic Reintroduction of the Book of Judges
Authors: Mullen E. Theodore
Published: June 2011

In its present position within the literary structure of the Book of Judges, Judg 1:1–2:5 stands as an introduction to those events purported to have transpired following the death of Joshua (1:1a). When it is read within the context of the deuteronomistic history as a whole, however, it is apparent that such cannot be the case, since most of the narrated events in Judg 1:3–36 have already been reported in Joshua 14–19. Thus, the present introduction to the Book of Judges appears to be a secondary and somewhat awkward redactional gloss to the deuteronomic account of the era of the Judges in the period after the initial entry into the land recounted in Joshua 2–12. The separation of Judg 1:1–2:5 is based on the investigations of the literary compilation of the predeuteronomic stories of the “deliverers” and the recognition that Judg 2:6–3:6 serves as the original deuteronomic introduction to this period of Israel's history. But despite the assertions of its secondary literary nature and its numerous parallels with Joshua 14–19, Judg 1:1–36 is generally seen as a collection of miscellaneous fragments of varying dates and varying reliability which presents a partial description of the initial occupation of the land. Judg 1:1–36 stands in distinct contrast to the pan-Israelite view presented in Joshua 2–12 and is thus of historical importance for a reconstruction of the period of the settlement. In general, modern scholarship has separated the introductory section of the Book of Judges from the body of the work it serves to inaugurate in its canonical form and has insisted that this introduction has no immediate or contextual connections with the stories that follow it.
The Pilgrim's Progress in the Context of Bunyan's Dialogue with the Radicals
Authors: Haskin Dayton
Published: June 2011

My text from The Author's Apology suggests two reasons for the extraordinary popularity that The Pilgrim's Progress enjoyed for more than two centuries. First, despite its adherence to a rather harsh doctrine of double predestination, which divides the world into the saved and the damned, it is essentially a work of reconciliation, demonstrating the fundamental compatibility of ancient paradigms (“Gospelstrains”) and modern experience (“Novelty”). Second, it invites, even necessitates, the active engagement of its readers, who will enlist their knowledge of the Bible to recognize the “sound and honest Gospel-strains” beneath or behind or within what seems a novel. But that Bunyan felt somewhat ambivalent about this achievement is indicated here, I think, by his choice of the word “seems” to characterize the surface of his book. This ambivalence derives from the author's position midway between the hermeneutical procedures of his chief precursor, Martin Luther, and those of the radical Protestants with whom he had come in contact from the time that he experienced his conversion.
Constructive and Critical Functions of Christian Eschatology
Authors: Pannenberg Wolfhart
Published: June 2011

The last two decades witnessed a boom of eschatology in theological discussions. It emerged mainly from the impact of Jürgen Moltmann's theology of hope. But a recovery of the eschatological concern in systematic theology has been due for some time, since Johannes Weiss' successful thesis of 1892 that Jesus' proclamation of the kingdom of God was not primarily a program for moral or social action, but had its roots in Jewish apocalypticism and envisaged a cosmic catastrophe that would occur when God in the imminent future would replace this present world by the new creation of his own kingdom without any human ado. Three decades later, in 1922, Karl Barth wrote in the second edition of his commentary on Romans: “A Christianity that does not thoroughly and without remainder consist of eschatology, would be thoroughly and totally devoid of Christ.” Strong words. And yet it proved difficult to reappropriate to modern theology the new exegetical insight concerning the basic importance of eschatology within the framework of Jesus' message and teaching. There was too deep a chasm separating the evolutionary outlook of the modern mind from the otherworldliness of apocalyptic expectations that focused on the imminent and catastrophic end of the present world. Thus it was no accident that Barth and Bultmann recovered the apocalyptic urgency of Jesus' message at the price of stripping it of its temporal prospect of a final future of this world. In 1964, Jürgen Moltmann aptly criticized such a detemporalization of eschatology for removing its very core. But the restoration of the apocalyptic outlook towards future fulfillment in Moltmann's own work turned out to focus more on certain political consequences, which he and his followers derived from the eschatological hope, than on the transcendent content of the biblical hope itself. Concerning the basis of eschatological faith in Moltmann's work, John Hick could pass the somewhat harsh verdict: “that basis is in practice relegated to the periphery of his thought and reduced to a mere uncritical use of biblical mythology” to the effect that “all the problems facing Christian eschatology in the twentieth century are systematically ignored.”
The Growth of Denominational Bureaucracies: A Neglected Aspect of American Church History
Authors: Wright Conrad
Published: June 2011

I invite your attention this morning to a problem in Church History that has thus far been most inadequately addressed by scholars. It is the development of ecclesiastical bureaucracies by Protestant denominations in this country. These bureaucracies are major realities of institutional religion in our day, which our M.Div. students will be dealing with all through their professional careers. Yet as a field for historical investigation, this is an almost entirely neglected subject. Our students may argue at length over theological issues like the doctrine of God; or will study with surprising enthusiasm the christological controversies of the ancient church; or will debate the role of the church in current social issues. In courses in Applied Theology they will talk at length about the local church as community, and the role of the minister as he or she interacts with lay members in the pews. But extraparochial structures are seldom looked at with any care. Their behavior may be criticized when ministerial settlement does not proceed rapidly enough, but the rationale for their existence is not examined. To state it in theological terms, theological analysis has paid little attention to a doctrine of the church that seems to have anything much to say about these institutions, how they came into being and why they have taken the shape and form that they have.
Crossing the Boundary and Becoming a Jew
Authors: Cohen Shaye J. D.
Published: June 2011

Who was a Jew in antiquity? How was “Jewishness” defined? How did a non-Jew become a Jew, and how did a Jew become a non-Jew? In their minds and actions the Jews erected a boundary between themselves and the rest of humanity, the gentiles, but the boundary was always crossable and not always clearly marked. A gentile might associate with Jews and observe Jewish practices, or might “convert” to Judaism and become a proselyte. A Jew might avoid contact with Jews and cease to observe Jewish practices, or might deny Judaism outright and become an “apostate.” Or the boundary could be blurred through the marriage of a Jew with a gentile.
Achilles or Christ? Porphyry and Didymus in Debate over Allegorical Interpretation
Authors: Sellew Philip
Published: June 2011

Porphyry of Tyre, the disciple of Plotinus who composed his massive workAgainst the Christiansunder Diocletian, has attracted much attention in recent years as perhaps the most formidable intellectual opponent of the early church. Modern scholars continue to be impressed by Porphyry's knowledge, resourcefulness, and the evident respect shown him by such figures as Jerome and Augustine. Because his literary remains are both fragmentary and disputed, moreover, any new information about Porphyry's views is of considerable importance. Just such a discovery provides the occasion for this essay. Among the papyrus codices found in an ammunition dump near Toura, Egypt, during World War II, were several previously unknown works of Origen and Didymus the Blind.
The Memory of Jesus' Death and the Worship of the Risen Lord
Authors: Koester Helmut
Published: June 2011

On the Ides of March of the year 44 BCE, the dictator of Rome, Julius Caesar, was assassinated. Nobody knew whether this would reconstitute the Roman Republic of old or would only usher in a new period of civil war like the one that had devastated not only Rome and Italy but also the provinces for many decades before Caesar's ascendancy to sole power.
Bodies and Bo(a)rders: Emerging Fictions of Identity in Late Antiquity
Authors: Levinson Joshua
Published: June 2011

Looking at nation as text, as culture, questions the totalization of national culture and opens up the widely disseminated forms through which subjects construct “the field of meanings associated with national life.” It offers a perspective that enables us to enter discourses beyond those fixed, static, “official” ones.
Mark and His Readers: The Son of God among Greeks and Romans
Authors: Collins Adela Yarbro
Published: June 2011

In his influential work,Kyrios Christos, Wilhelm Bousset confessed that he had vacillated and was still vacillating on the question of whether the creation of the title υἱòς θɛo⋯ (“Son of God”) as an epithet for Jesus ought to be attributed to the earliest community of his followers in Palestine. He tentatively took the position that the oldest community of followers of Jesus described him as the παῖς θɛo⋯ (“Servant of God”) in a messianic interpretation of the servant-poems of Second Isaiah. This epithet, he thought, was in considerable tension with the notion of Jesus as the Son of God, making it unlikely that both epithets originated in the same context. He argued that the statement of the divine voice in the scenes of baptism and transfiguration, “You are my Son,” is a tradition that circulated in the earliest community but that this address is a far cry from the title “Son of God.” He was thus inclined to conclude that this title originated “on Greek ground, in the Greek language.” He argued that the confession of Jesus as the Son of God by the Gentile centurion in Mark 15:39 cannot be understood as a recognition of Jesus as the Jewish messiah. Rather, “Son of God” was the formula chosen by the evangelist to express the identity of Jesus Christ for the faith of the Gentile Christian community.
A Note on the Variant Form of the Shema in the Writings of Justin Martyr
Authors: Shedinger Robert F.
Published: June 2011

In three places in the extant works of Justin Martyr, Justin quotes the Shema (Deut 6:4–5) in a variant form found in no known Jewish witness to this common Jewish liturgical prayer. In place of the familiar tripartite formula “with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength,” Justin preserves the bipartite formula “with all your heart and with all your strength” (⋯ξ ὃλης τ⋯ς καρíας σου καì ⋯ξ ὃλης τ⋯ς ἰσχύος σου). William L. Petersen, in several publications, has suggested that Justin may preserve “the oldest recoverable version of the Shema, a version which deviates from that found in either the present Hebrew Bible (MT or LXX) or the New Testament.” Since Justin's variant form of the Shema occurs in three places in his own works as well as a few other early Christian sources, the bipartite formula cannot simply be a mistake but must preserve an authentic alternate tradition. But is it the “earliest recoverable version” as Petersen suggests? This assertion is problematic on two counts.
The Prosodic Structure of Amos 1–2
Authors: Christensen Duane L.
Published: June 2011

In his suggestion of a “concatenous literary pattern” in Amos 1–2, S. Paul has drawn attention once again to the prosodic structure of the oracles against foreign nations preserved in Amos. His argument is most provocative but is seriously weakened by that troublesome verse, Amos I:II. As Paul has implicitly noted, the key to a proper reconstruction and interpretation of Amos 1–2 lies in a more accurate understanding of its prosodic structure.
The Messiah of Ephraim and the Premature Exodus of the Tribe of Ephraim
Authors: Heinemann Joseph
Published: June 2011

A considerable number of detailed studies have been devoted to the Messiah of Ephraim (or of Joseph). Among the problems which were raised by scholars are the following: What need was there for the creation of another messianic figure? Why was this second Messiah ascribed to the Joseph tribes in particular? Why and when did the strange motif of the forerunner of the Davidic Messiah, who was doomed to fall in battle, come into being? Does this figure have any connection with the “suffering servant” of Isaiah or, perhaps, with the Christian Messiah, destined to suffer and die?
Sex and Salvation in Tertullian
Authors: Church F. Forrester
Published: June 2011

Though often remembered for something he never said, Tertullian did contribute a few bold lines to his own caricature. Take for instance the famous, “Quid ergo Athenis et Hierosolymis?” It has come to symbolize Tertullian's wholesale rejection of philosophy. In fact, his indebtedness to the matter and methods of his classical heritage is profound. Today, by the same token, his ability to coin a striking phrase is earning for Tertullian yet another reputation he does not deserve. In the first book of De cultu feminarum, a withering attack on female fashions, Tertullian invokes the curse of Eve by means of a cruel and impressive metaphor: “Tu es diaboli ianua,” he writes; “You are the devil's gateway.” At once provocative of timely indignation and attractive as a foil, this single utterance is alone responsible for perhaps as much popular notoriety as Tertullian has ever been afforded. The following is offered in the hope that a more extensive examination of his attitude toward women may serve both to correct such misconceptions as have been drawn from the famous “gateway passage,” and also to clarify some of the ambiguities inherent in the Frauenfragen for early Christians.
Jones Very, The Transcendentalists, and the Unitarian Tradition
Authors: Robinson David
Published: June 2011

Although he considered himself set apart from the world, a man through whom the Spirit revealed a higher truth, Jones Very has consistently provided his critics with an irresistible challenge to classify him historically in a tradition that would explain his unique poetry and personality. Histories and descriptions of American Transcendentalism usually list him hesitatingly as a peripheral member of the movement, but Very seems to worry recent historians in much the same way he worried Emerson and the other members of “Hedge's Club,” who were both attracted and repelled by his spiritual intensity. His association with Emerson was undoubtedly a fortunate historical accident for him—Emerson both encouraged him in his poetry, valiantly tried to give him editorial assistance, and used his influence to find a publisher for the only collection of poems Very was to publish in his lifetime. Yet this close personal association has helped to perpetuate the historical assumption of Very's ties with Transcendentalism. This assumption, both when it has been affirmed or vigorously rejected, has obscured the kind of objective reading that is necessary to our understanding of Very's poetry and his place in American letters.
Solomon, Exorcism, and the Son of David
Authors: Duling Dennis C.
Published: June 2011

A comprehensive view of the Son of David in the New Testament requires facing the following problem: on the one hand, Davidic quotations, metaphors, and the descent theme are derived from the Old Testament royal tradition as it is channeled through Jewish texts; on the other, thetitleSon of David is found only in the synoptic gospels and is associated primarily with a figure who is so addressed by people in need of exorcism or healing. The usual solution to this problem in works on Christology is to say that a) miracle working is not associated with the Jewish royal Messiah in general or the Son of David in particular in contemporaneous Jewish literature, and b) it is early Christian tradition and/or redaction which has transformed the traditional royal conception and linked it with miracle working.
Christian Heresy and Jewish Polemic in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
Authors: Berger David
Published: June 2011

The suggestion that there was meaningful contact between Christian heretics and Jews during the middle ages is entirely plausible, quite significant, and generally unproved. That the existence of heresy had some impact upon the status of medieval Jews is, of course, beyond question. Inquisitorial proceedings aimed at heretics affected not only crypto-Jews (whether real or alleged) but members of the established Jewish community as well. Jews were accused of harboring heretics, encouraging them, and even of leading orthodox Christians into heresy. On several important occasions, procedures usually directed against heretical works were turned against the Talmud, the works of Maimonides, and certain sections of the Jewish liturgy. By the end of the middle ages, Jews were very well aware of the Church's lack of affection for heretics.
The Hypostasis of the Archons (Conclusion)
Authors: Layton Bentley
Published: June 2011

Several months after the Coptic text had gone to press I had for the first time the opportunity to examine the papyrus under ultraviolet light. From this final collation resulted a few refinements in the text.
Understanding Albright: A Revolutionary Etude
Authors: Miles John A.
Published: June 2011

“It is impossible for men to judge the inner motives of any superior acquaintance.”

William Foxwell Albright

In a still valid survey of one hundred years of biblical research, Herbert F. Hahn offers the following status quaestionis:

Interpretation of the Bible in the present day has reached a point of crisis. A seeming return to the age-old emphasis on the doctrinal content of Scripture and its essential unity throughout the sacred books—a return to traditionalism which nevertheless denies that it is a step backward—has dominated recent discussion of biblical interpretation.… The crisis grows out of a loss of confidence in the historical approach on the part of many who formerly favored it.
Pneumatikos vs. Psychikos: Distinctions of Spiritual Status among the Corinthians
Authors: Horsley Richard A.
Published: June 2011

In 1 Corinthians the apostle Paul is attempting to straighten out some people in his newly founded community who, by virtue of their possession of wisdom, were claiming a special spiritual status. Apparently they designated themselves aspneumatikoiin contrast with thepsychikoi, or those of lesser religious achievement. By a careful reading of Paul's arguments in 1 Corinthians we can discern some of their key religious terminology and principles. On the basis of pertinent parallels to these terms and principles, especially in Hellenistic philosophical sources and Hellenistic Jewish texts, it is then possible to draw certain conclusions regarding the religious viewpoint of these Corinthians.
“The Demiurge and his Archons”—A Gnostic View of the Bishop and Presbyters?
Authors: Pagels Elaine H.
Published: June 2011

Much scholarly research has been devoted to the question: What issues divide gnostic Christians from the “ecclesiastical” Christians who are their contemporaries? Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons (c. 160 A.D.), whose writings constitute a major source for the investigation of gnosticism, defines the issues in terms of differences in doctrine. Irenaeus admits that the question is a difficult one, since the gnostic doctrines he intends to “expose and refute” are so similar to orthodox teaching that, he says, most Christians cannot differentiate between the two. Irenaeus insists, nevertheless, that the differences are crucial, since gnostic doctrines are false, spurious forms of genuine Christian teaching. Therefore he writes five volumes—The Exposure and Overthrow of Falsely-So-Called Gnosis—to help his fellow churchmen make this discrimination.
Mental Activity and the Perception of Beauty in Jonathan Edwards
Authors: Lee Sang Hyun
Published: June 2011

Recent scholarship on Jonathan Edwards has been quite attentive to his view that the true apprehension of reality is achieved through an integrated act of aesthetic perception in which the whole personality of the knower is engaged. It has also been suggested that Edwards viewed the mind as making an active contribution to perception itself. What has been lacking however, is a systematic explication of what Edwards believed to be the psychological mechanism of the mind's active role in experience. No doubt this lack is due, at least in part, to the fact that Edwards nowhere sets out whole a theory of mental activity. We believe, however, that operating in his system of thought is a very forward-looking conception of the creative process involved in aesthetic perception and in experience in general. We also believe that it is possible to piece together at least the principal aspects of that conception on the basis of Edwards's own discussions found at various places in his works. An understanding of that theory would not only help us in gaining a greater appreciation of Edwards's place in the history of modern aesthetics and epistemology; it may also throw some further light upon a number of interpretative issues emerging out of recent discussions of Edwards's thought. For example: Is it accurate to describe Edwards's “sense of the heart” as a “sixth sense”? Is Edwards a “mystic”? In exactly what sense did Edwards go beyond Locke? This essay aims to make a contribution toward the reconstruction of Edwards's theory of mental activity and its role in experience with a special emphasis upon its role in the perception of beauty. Our focus is on psychology, although some of the broader philosophical and theological underpinnings and ramifications will be discussed also.
Toward a Hermeneutic of the Idea of Revelation
Authors: Ricoeur Paul
Published: June 2011

The question of revelation is a formidable question in the proper sense of the word, not only because it may be seen as the first and last question for faith, but also because it has been obscured by so many false debates that the recovery of a real question in itself constitutes an enormous task. My lecture today will be devoted to just this enterprise.
Forced Circumcision and the Shifting Role of Gentiles in Hasmonean Ideology
Authors: Weitzman Steven
Published: June 2011

One way in which ancient rulers proclaimed their power over war captives and slaves was to inscribe their bodies with a distinctive mark of ownership. For instance, according to Herodotus, the Persian king Xerxes ordered “royal marks” inscribed on Theban soldiers who had deserted to his side. To cite an example closer to the world of Judaism,3 Macc2.29 reports that the Hellenistic ruler Ptolemy Philopator ordered an ivy-leaf shaped “mark of Dionysus” branded onto Jews. Generally speaking, the mark of circumcision served a very different social role in antiquity, serving in many (though not all) contexts as a sign distinguishing Jews from others. There is reason to believe, however, that circumcision too could serve as a “rite of domination” marking Jewish power over Gentile bodies. Several sources refer briefly to incidents during the second and first centuries BCE when Jewish rulers forcibly circumcised Gentile peoples after subduing them in battle.
The Dialectic of the Return in Eriugena'sPeriphyseon
Authors: Otten Willemien
Published: June 2011

ThePeriphyseon, the magnum opus of the Carolingian thinker Johannes Scottus Eriugena (810–877), is widely recognized as the most original work in the history of Christian thought between Augustine and Anselm. Set in the form of a dialogue between a Master and his Student, thePeriphyseonpresents a daring view of the universe, for which Eriugena coins the termnatura. Instead of the traditional Christian dichotomy of God versus creation, Eriugena presents a unified view of reality, the intimidating whole of which he can only conceive by submitting it to a process of division. Hence the namePeriphyseonorOn the Division of Nature.
“After a High Negative Way”: Emerson's “Self-Reliance” and the Rhetoric of Conversion
Authors: Hodder Alan D.
Published: June 2011

The year 1991 marked the sesquicentennial of the publication of the first volume of Emerson'sEssaysin which appeared, for the first time, “Self-Reliance,” arguably America's most famous essay. Despite the passage of time, this essay has never lost its power to inspire or to enrage. The controversies that continue to swirl around Emerson originate in a few points of contention, but none arouse as much furor as his seemingly innocuous formulation “self-reliance.” From the beginning, Emerson's reception among his readers has been sharply divided. A sampling of studies appearing in the current flood of Emerson criticism suggests that this polarization has never been more characteristic of Emerson's readership than it is currently. On the one hand are those critics of American culture like the late A. Bartlett Giamatti who found Emerson “as sweet as barbed wire” or the sociologist of religion Robert Bellah who located in Emerson the roots of America's most portentous national defects. On the other hand are such notable critics as Harold Bloom, Stanley Cavell, and Richard Poirier who find in Emerson, rightly read and construed, one of the few viable trails left in contemporary culture. The crux of all such articulate responses, whether of detractor or partisan, is the reflexive and seemingly disinterested conception popularized by Emerson as “self-reliance.”
Chaos at the Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Authors: Steenburg David
Published: June 2011

Blake's romantic genius could not but chafe at the theme of rational order and harmony that pervaded eighteenth-century science, art, and theology. Only spiritual blindness could be content with a world reducible to measure and mathematics. Blake longed for a grander synthesis—a celebration of human living beyond the antinomies of reason and passion, understanding and imagination, order and chaos. He longed for the marriage of heaven and hell.
Zealots and Sicarii, Their Origins and Relation
Authors: Smith Morton
Published: June 2011

It has long been the common opinion that the Zealots were the party founded by Judas the Galilean — so Graetz and Jost, for instance, writing in the middle of the past century. Derenbourg, it is true, observed that the term ”Zealots” was not applied to the opponents of the Romans before the revolt, but when he came to the events of the revolt he made a descendant of Judas, Menahem, the leader of the Zealots and so apparently assumed the connection of the party with Judas. Schürer's adherence canonized the common opinion, and also the common description of theSicariias a more fanatical fraction of the party — though the sources contain nothing to suggest that the party had split before the Sicarii appeared. Hence, with only minor variations, Eduard Meyer, Bousset, Baron, and Yadin's account of the Zealots in Masada, to name only the largest studies.
Once More — Statistics and Q
Authors: Carlston Charles E. , Norlin Dennis
Published: June 2011

Exegetes are probably no less prone than anybody else to long for something mathematical, something clearly right or wrong, in their discipline. It is thus hardly surprising that in recent years at least two attempts have been made to examine, on a purely objective statistical basis, the disputed question of synoptic relationships.1 It is our intention in this paper to comment briefly on these two studies and to add new figures to the discussion.
1 Thessalonians 2:13–16: A Deutero-Pauline Interpolation
Authors: Pearson Birger A.
Published: June 2011

In any discussion of the origins of Christian ”anti-Semitism,” among a number of New Testament passages that can be adduced, i Thessalonians 2:14-16 will inevitably be brought to the fore. The purpose of this article is notper seto contribute to the current Jewish-Christian ”dialog,” but to discuss historically and exegetically this important passage in Thessalonians. (Such a study, of course, will not be completely irrelevant to the contemporary theological scene.)
Americanism Revisited: John Spalding andTestem Benevolentiae
Authors: Killen David P.
Published: June 2011

Leo XIII's letterTestem Benevolentiaewas the culmination of a tumultuous period in American Catholic history which may be designated as beginning with the deliberations of Baltimore III in 1884. The issues which tore at the spirit of episcopal fraternity during this period were varied and complex. Although certain groups of prelates might be labeled as conservative and others as progressive, e.g., Bishops McQuaid and Corrigan as opposed to Bishops Ireland, Gibbons, and Keane, John Lancaster Spalding had a foot sometimes in one camp and sometimes in the other, but rarely both feet in either camp at the same time.
Armenian Canon Lists I — The Council of Partaw (768 C. E.)
Authors: Stone Michael E.
Published: June 2011

There is a good deal of very interesting material preserved in the Armenian tradition belonging to the general category of Canon Lists. Some of this has been published and some not; very little of it has been translated into European languages. The series of studies of which the present note is the first will make available in a single place some of the most interesting of those lists which have been published in Armenian, as well as certain new materials recently discovered in the manuscript traditions. The translations and notes, it is hoped, will make this material readily accessible to scholars concerned with Canon Lists and the Biblical Canon.
Psalm 29: A Structural Analysis
Authors: Freedman David Noel , Hyland C. Franke
Published: June 2011

In 1935, H. L. Ginsberg published an article demonstrating the existence of Canaanite elements in Psalm 29. Among these were: 1) the mention of the benē 'ēlīm related to the assembly of thebanu iliin the Ugaritic texts; 2) the glorification of the voice of Yahweh, an adaptation of the praises of Baal, the Canaanite storm god; 3) topographical references to Lebanon, Sirion, and Kadesh, all located in Syria; 4) the first discovery in the Bible of an encliticmem(vs. 6); 5) the kingship of Yahweh, similar to the formula of Baal's triumph over his foes. Since then, others have developed and supplemented this original investigation, especially with the aid of recent work in Ugaritic. Linguistic and textual problems remain, however. The present paper suggests that a structural analysis of the psalm not only supports the integrity of the present text but also points to some complex and sophisticated techniques of Hebrew poetry.
Orthogenesis and God-Omega
Authors: Smith Robert B.
Published: June 2011

A recent article by George B. Murray draws the attention of philosophers and theologians to a problem in the thought of Teilhard de Chardin which they often tend to overlook. The “synthetic theory” of evolution held by the majority of contemporary biologists, Father Murray points out, is not to be found in Teilhard's scientific writings. Instead, Teilhard proposes a theory of orthogenesis, a word and concept now almost universally rejected by biologists. This discrepancy between Teilhard and the best contemporary biological thought is often ignored by those who find his writings a promising approach to the reconciliation of science and Christianity or to problems of science and philosophy. Father Murray gives a very useful analysis of probable reasons for Teilhard's insistence on retaining the word “orthogenesis” in the face of opposition from fellow-scientists and in spite of the fact that his modifications of the meaning of orthogenesis might have been more readily acceptable had he described them by a different name. However, much more important than the reasons why Teilhard insisted on the use of the word “orthogenesis” is the question, which Murray does not discuss, of the importance and place of orthogenesis in Teilhard's thought, whether it is legitimate for philosophers and theologians to accept the general outline of Teilhard's theories and leave this technical scientific question to the scientists, or whether Teilhard's whole system of thought stands or falls with a discredited theory of biology.
Maimonides on the Miraculous Element in Prophecy
Authors: Kaplan Lawrence
Published: June 2011

For the diction of this Treatise has not been chosen at haphazard, but with great exactness and exceeding precision (Maimonides, Introduction toThe Guide of the Perplexed, p. 15).

In 2.32 ofThe Guide of the Perplexed,at the very outset of his section on prophecy, Maimonides states: “The opinions of people concerning prophecy are like their opinions concerning the eternity of the world or its creation in time” (p. 360).
Hellenistic Utopia and the Essenes
Authors: Mendels Doron
Published: June 2011

In light of our present knowledge it seems clear that the Essenes, despite all their intentions to be “true Israel,” in fact constituted a digression from the Judaism of their times, both in their mode of life and in certain of their basic concepts. As to their concepts, one can think of dualism, determinism, astrology, manticism, and perhaps also their highly developed hierarchical angelology; as to their modes of life, illustrations include their extreme segregation, their living in communes, common property, common meals, solar calendar, and baptism as a principal part of their ritual. Many attempts have been made to trace these traits within the Stoa, Cynicism, and Neopythagoreanism, as well as in the Persian religon. Some have been content with comparing the Essenes to other sects of the Hellenistic era. In the following pages I assume the well-established theory of the identity of the Essenes depicted in Philo and Josephus with the community of the Qumran scrolls and propose to show that the accounts of Philo and Josephus did not contain commonplacetopoiof classical Utopias.
An Arabian Trinity
Authors: Bowersock G. W.
Published: June 2011

In 1875 the collector and scholar Wilhelm Froehner published a short text incised on a gem of red jasper that had been offered to him in Nazareth for possible purchase. Of the six lines of this text only the first three have been much cited because they consist of three gods’ names, and reference has customarily been not to Froehner's original publication but to Louis Robert's quotation from it in his Collection Froehner of 1936. In making an apposite allusion to the Froehner gem in her excellent study of the cults of the Hawran in the Roman period, Dominique Sourdel was under the impression that the great nineteenth-century collector had actually acquired the piece; but Froehner himself reports unambiguously that he refused to pay the dealer's price. The object has therefore been lost to the world of scholarship. Nonetheless Froehner's transcription, entirely baffling to him in its second half, is worth resurrecting in the light of more recent discoveries in the Roman Near East. It bears upon several important cults among the inhabitants of provincia Arabia.