bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Social History of Satan, the “Intimate Enemy”: A Preliminary Sketch
Authors: Pagels Elaine
Published: June 2011

The figure of Satan has been a standing puzzle in the history of religion. Where did this figure originate, and what is its role? Satan is scarcely present in traditional Judaism to this day and is not present at all in classical Jewish sources—at least not in the form that later Western Christendom knew him, as the leader of an “evil empire,” of an army of hostile spirits who take pleasure in destroying human beings. Yet images of such spirits did develop and proliferate in certain late antique Jewish sources, from ca. 165 BCE to 100 CE. Specifically, they developed among groups I shall call “dissident Jews,” which included the early followers of Jesus; within decades, the figure of Satan and his demons became central to Christian (and later to Islamic) teaching. How did this occur?
Jewish Tuna and Christian Fish: Identifying Religious Affiliation in Epigraphic Sources
Authors: Kraemer Ross S.
Published: June 2011

In his collection of Jewish inscriptions, Jean-Baptiste Frey identifies as Jewish a stone fragment that contains no writing, but only depictions of an amphora, several birds, a branch of a plant, numerous circular objects with smaller circles within them, and one drawing of a fish. Frey considers the amphora to be an oil jar; the birds to be doves and a goose; the plant branch to be thelulavassociated with the Jewish festival of Sukkoth; the circles to bemasot; and the fish to be the tuna that Jews are said to have eaten on Friday nights and on various Jewish festivals. The stone bears no irrefutably Christian symbols, such as a chi rho, but neither does it bear such things as a seven-branched menorah, which virtually all scholars accept as an explicit Jewish symbol. Frey even speculates that were the stone complete, it would probably be found to include a seven-branched menorah.
In Quest of the Historical Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai
Authors: Neusner Jacob
Published: June 2011

Concerning the effort to recover rabbinic biographies, Professor Judah Goldin writes:

… Such works are hardly biographies in the serious sense of the word, … for not only do the primary sources disappoint us deeply in the amount of reliable historical detail they provide, but even as regards the opinions and teachings of the Sages, one is left to guess what is early and what is late. In short, there is practically no way to get at development, surely and desperately necessary for the historian and biographer. These books therefore are filled with speculation, sometimes plausible, sometimes not. As reflections of the author's own imagination and interpretation, however, and as collections of data about the specific sage, they are informative exercises.

My research exhibits, alas, the deplorable qualities to which Goldin points. At the same time, I have continued to reflect on what we know about Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai. Here are some of the results.
Max Weber Revisited: The “Protestant Ethic” and the Puritan Experience of Order
Authors: Little David
Published: June 2011

The accuracy of Max Weber's grasp of Puritan religious experience has persistently been called into question by the critics of the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Weber is alleged either to have misunderstood the sources of Puritanism, or to have overlooked the real character of Puritan belief and action, or to have misconstrued its social significance. In short, Weber is generally accused of failing to assess correctly the causes, content, and implications of Puritanism.
Modernism as the Final Phase of Americanism: William L. Sullivan, American Catholic Apologist, 1899–1910
Authors: Appleby R. Scott
Published: June 2011

The figure of William L. Sullivan, the Paulist missionary and teacher who renounced Roman Catholicism in 1910 and migrated eventually to Unitarianism, poses a continuing challenge for historians of American religion. How is one to interpret his spiritual pilgrimage? Is Sullivan best understood as a reformer whose abhorrence of the perduring Vaticanism and Romanism in Catholic ecclesiology impelled him towards liberal Protestantism? Was he primarily, as he put it in his unfinished autobiography, “a moral personality under orders,” ultimately restless with every institutional expression of the “religion of the Infinite Spirit”? Or does the key to his life and thought lie in an excessive patriotism and nationalism reflected, in part, by his allegiance to the “cause” of the Americanists? Was he a Modernist? Most provocative, perhaps, is the thesis linking these two heresies: does Sullivan's career stand as the embodiment of the continuity between Americanism and Modernism?
Gruber on the Discernment of True and False Inspiration
Authors: Grossmann Walter
Published: June 2011

The religious community of True Inspired at Amana, Iowa acknowledges and reveres as its two “old country” founding fathers the Württemberg theologian, Eberhard Ludwig Gruber (1665–1728) and his younger friend the saddler, Johann Friedrich Rock (1678– 1749). While Gruber is credited with providing wise religious and organizational leadership, Rock was endowed with the gift of inspiration that characterized the budding movement in the early eighteenth century. Karl Barth wrote of him, “Inspiration … seized Rock and made him a seer and a prophet, to whose curious message half if not all of Germany listened.”
“Mediating Modernism”: Charles Briggs, Catholic Modernism, and an Ecumenical “Plot”
Authors: Massa Mark S.
Published: June 2011

Historians of religion in America, as enamored of marking “watersheds” in our culture as other scholars, have long used the famous “Briggs Case” as an event for marking that cultural moment when American mainline Protestants, mostly kicking and screaming, began to confront officially the higher criticism of the Bible. Charles Augustus Briggs, as students of Gilded Age religion know well, was a professor of scripture at New York's Union Theological Seminary who, between 1891 and 1893, underwent a peripatetic heresy trial in various Presbyterian church courts—“the most notorious event in 19th century American church history,” as one of its chroniclers has described it—for advocating the application of modern historical-critical methods to the biblical record.
Commitment and Critical Inquiry
Authors: Fiorenza Elisabeth Schüssler
Published: June 2011

We are called together here to mark the beginning of a new school year with a symbolic act—a convocatio. As cultural anthropologists tell us, such ritual symbolic acts function simultaneously to induct participants into the common lifeworld of a community and to hold up to them shared values and visions. The convocation address provides an opportunity to reflect critically on the ritual act itself and on the shared visions and values it embodies. Such exploration can uncover tensions and contradictions in how the community sees itself and the world, contradictions that provide openings and challenges for change. By reflecting on these tensions I seek to display the first step in a feminist theological practice. The inclusion of the previously excluded as theological subjects, I argue, calls for a paradigm shift from a value-detached scientism to a public rhetoric, from a hermeneutical model of conversation to a practical model of collaboration.
On the Meaning of the Term “Jew” in Greco-Roman Inscriptions
Authors: Kraemer Ross S.
Published: June 2011

The Greek terms Ἰουδαῖος/Ἰουδαία and their Latin equivalentsIudaeus/Iudaeahave rarely posed serious translation problems for scholars. Whether in masculine or feminine form, singular or plural, regardless of declension, these terms have usually been taken as straightforward indicators of Jews, at least when applied to individual persons. Only recently A. T. Kraabel has suggested that these terms, uniformly translated “Jew” or “Jews,” might have other significance, in particular as indicators of geographic origin, that is, “Judaean(s).”
Amalarius of Metz and the Laying on of Hands in the Ordination of a Deacon
Authors: Gibaut John
Published: June 2011

Amalarius of Metz (ca. 780–850/851), the premier liturgical scholar of the Carolingian Renaissance, is often cited as a witness to the liturgical usages of the Frankish church in the ninth century. Amalarius's descriptions, critiques, and explanations of the various rites in works such as theLiber officialisappear to many scholars as contrived and visionary. Despite his value as a source for liturgical history, Amalarius's reliability has long been under question.
“Religion” as the Cipher for Identity: The Cases of Emperor Julian, Libanius, and Gregory Nazianzus
Authors: Limberis Vasiliki
Published: June 2011

In this paper I shall explore how religion functioned as a signifier of identity for Emperor Julian, his friend and teacher, Libanius, and his jealous enemy, Gregory Nazianzus, during the bewildering period of Julian's short reign and sudden death. However, before discussing each man's case, it will be useful to clarify the conceptual boundaries of the discussion. Because the term “religion,” as used in the academic world, is problematic for analyzing fourth-century culture, it is first necessary to isolate the concept of religion from the process of universalization. Drawing on the analyses of several post-colonialist theorists, I shall show why the term requires this disengagement, and why its meaning is best understood in light of the complications of specific historical circumstances. Once this issue has been broached, I shall introduce a theoretical basis for viewing “culture” as a commodity that was used by Christianity and pagan religions from 314–365, when, for the most part, both sides enjoyed a rest from institutional persecution. shall also discuss how the concepts of religion and learning were brokered as cultural commodities by these same social groups. Having established this theoretical framework as the basis of my analysis, I shall turn to the investigation of what religion is for Julian, Libanius, and Gregory Nazianzus, how it fits into their own self-image, and what role each envisions for religion as corporate identity for civilized people of theoikoumene.
Armenian Canon Lists II—The Stichometry of Anania of Shirak (c. 615 - c. 690 CE.)
Authors: Stone Michael E.
Published: June 2011

This stichometric list is almost altogether unknown to Western scholarship. Yet it is a rather accurate translation of a Greek stichometric list of the same character as the Stichometry of Nicephorus. The text has been published four times in Armenian, each edition based on a different manuscript or manuscripts. The edition of Ter Movsessian was based upon one manuscript—olim Etchmiadzin 154, a Bible dated 1308, and that of Fehratʿian upon two—Vienna No. 30 and No. 130. Murad based his edition upon four Jerusalem manuscripts, No. 773 (1359 C.E.), which served as his text, and Nos. 343 (1450 C.E.), 835 (1640 C.E.), and 936 (1703 C.E.), which he listed in his apparatus. The text was most recently edited by A. G. Abrahamyan. He did not consult Murad's edition, but based his own work upon two Erevan manuscripts, Nos. 2180 (1644 CE.) and 699 (16th century). He has listed all the variants of Ter Movsessian and of Fehratʿian in his apparatus.
Three New Schleiermacher Letters Relating to His Würzburg Appointment of 1804
Authors: Blackwell Albert L.
Published: June 2011

In a letter written on his thirty-fifth birthday, November 21, 1803, Schleiermacher called the year just past the unhappiest of his life. This troubled year provides the background for three letters Schleiermacher wrote to the Würzburg theologian Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob Paulus in January, February, and May, 1804, which are published for the first time below. The first letter is Schleiermacher's reply to an invitation, transmitted by Paulus, for Schleiermacher to join the theological faculty of the University of Würzburg. The second relates to Schleiermacher's acceptance of this Bavarian appointment and to his plans to move there. The third explains the necessity Schleiermacher subsequently faced of breaking his Würzburg contract in order to obey King Friedrich Wilhelm III's command to remain in his Prussian fatherland.
Paul's Abschiedsrede in the Acts of the Apostles
Authors: Budesheim Thomas L.
Published: June 2011

In the introductory essay to a collection of studies on Luke-Acts published in 1966, W. C. van Unnik says that the twovolume work has become “one of the great storm centers of New Testament scholarship.” Old questions are being raised afresh and old answers face fresh review. Among the old questions is that of the sources used by Luke in the writing of Acts. However, the only study of recent vintage referred to by van Unnik is that by Jacques Dupont, The Sources of the Acts (1964). There are no essays in the Keck-Martyn volume itself which deal specifically with the question. Without disputing the importance of other questions (text, style, and especially theology), the sparse attention given of late to source-criticism of the speeches of Acts is not entirely felicitous. One essay does treat the speeches (Eduard Schweizer, “Concerning the Speeches in Acts,” 208-16), but only those in the first seventeen chapters and only in terms of their structural identity. Schweizer's opening remark is interesting: “Ever since Martin Dibelius' essay about this subject, it has been more and more widely recognized that the speeches are basically compositions by the author of Acts who, to be sure, utilized different kinds of materials for particular passages” (208). The question of the sources of the speeches is a difficult one, and any suggested answers are, at best, tenuous. It is however the premise of this essay that further work in the area is warranted, possible, and of contributory value to the rest of Lucan scholarship, a conclusion drawn from an analysis of two of Paul's speeches in Acts: his address to the mob of Jerusalemites (22:1-21) and his Abschiedsrede or parting address to the Ephesian elders at Miletus (20:18-35).
The Gospel of Social Unrest: 450 years after the So-Called “German Peasant's War” of 1525
Authors: Oberman Heiko A.
Published: June 2011

In spite of intensive research, it has proven difficult to set aside terms and concepts that have been current since the time of the Reformation. Thus, we continue to speak without further reflection of the “German Peasants' War” although this limitation has long since proven untenable. For a period of almost two centuries, the so-called tumultus rusticorum, best translated as social unrest or countryside agitation, was a phenomenon extending across all of Europe, from Italy to the Low Countries and from Southern France to Bohemia.
The Eclectic Method in New Testament Textual Criticism: Solution or Symptom?
Authors: Epp Eldon Jay
Published: June 2011

The “eclectic method” in NT textual criticism is one of several disguises for the broad and basic problem of the “canons of criticism” or of the “criteria for originality” as applied to the various readings in the NT textual tradition, and in a real sense eclectic methodology—in its several forms as currently practised—is as much asymptomof basic problems in the discipline as it is a proposed and widely appliedsolutionto those problems. By the same token, perhaps every methodological approach and even every discussion of methodology in NT textual criticism could be described as symptomatic of the problems; yet the eclectic method seems in a particularly pointed way to veil the problems of the discipline, for by its very nature it tries in one way or another to utilize all available approaches to textual problems, and in a single given case of seeking the original text it often wishes to apply to the problem several established text-critical criteria, even if these criteria have the appearance of being mutually exclusive or contradictory.
Armenian Canon Lists III—The Lists of Mechitar of Ayrivankʿ (c. 1285 C.E.)
Authors: Stone Michael E.
Published: June 2011

In the West, the best known Armenian Canon lists are those transmitted by Mechitar of Ayrivank˓, an Armenian savant of the thirteenth century (1222-1307 C.E.). The translation of these lists, which was first publicised in Europe by Theodor Zahn, has been reprinted in various works.
The Antinomian Language Controversy
Authors: Caldwell Patricia
Published: June 2011

Ever since the Boston Church cast out Anne Hutchinson in 1638, the fact of her having “made a Lye” has stood without question. But why she told “soe horrible an Untruth and falshood,” or what it meant to her to do so, has not always been so clear. Part of the problem is an irony so deeply imbedded in the lie itself that it almost escapes notice: when Mrs. Hutchinson denied that she had held the erroneous opinions which countless people had heard her openly proclaim, she was inadvertently saying something about the relationship between thinking and speaking—something about language itself. That “something,” though neither she nor her adversaries could fully grasp or articulate it, was felt to be so subversive that the mere presence of its perpetrator in the community was deemed utterly intolerable: a dishonor to Jesus Christ and a “sine agaynst God” (385).
The Oppressive Elements in Religion and the Religions of the Oppressed
Authors: Long Charles H.
Published: June 2011

In 1912, Ernst Troeltsch published a memorial review article for William James entitled “Empiricism and Platonism in the Philosophy of Religion.” This article which deals with James' The Varieties of Religious Experience is still the clearest succinct statement of James' position within the context of the general problems of Western philosophies of religion.
A form of Ontological Argument
Authors: Ross Robert R. N.
Published: June 2011

Tillich is widely held to be among those Protestant theologians who proclaim considerable scepticism about the arguments for the existence of God. This particular form of scepticism is not an attack on any individual argument or set of arguments, but rather is a wholesale rejection of the possibility of there being any “argument” for the existence of God at all.
The Theology of Second Clement
Authors: Donfried Karl Paul
Published: June 2011

There has never been a form-critical study of 2 Clement. Because of this, conclusions concerning itsGattunghave varied considerably. Harnack and Goodspeed, for example, have argued that 2 Clement is in the form of a letter, and beyond that, that it was sent by Bishop Soter of Rome (c. 166–74) to Corinth. Contrary to this position, Lightfoot, Knopf, and Windisch, among others, have argued that it is either a sermon or a homily. Although in recent years this latter position has been readily accepted, it always appears as an assertion without support, form-critical or otherwise.
Is Faith Still Possible? Memories of Rudolf Bultmann and Reflections on the Philosophical Aspects of His Work
Authors: Jonas Hans
Published: June 2011

Prefatory Note: In July, 1976, Rudolf Bultmann, the last of the great Protestant theologians of this century, died in Marburg, Germany, a few weeks before his 92d birthday. An almost life-long friendship, beginning with my being his student in the 1920s, bound me to this man of towering scholarship, clarity of mind, purity of character, and deep — if troubled — piety. In November, 1976, the Theological Faculty of Marburg University held a memorial for its longtime professor of New Testament studies, which was attended by many persons from all over Germany and neighboring countries this side of the iron curtain. Of the two academic lectures delivered before that audience, one was by a New Testament theologian and erstwhile student of Bultmann, Professor Erich Dinkler from Heidelberg, the other by me, not a theologian but a philosopher, not a Christian but a Jew. The complete proceedings of the memorial meeting have been published under the title Gedenken an Rudolf Bultmann by J. C. B. Mohr in Tübingen, 1977. Only part of what I had prepared in writing was orally presented at the occasion, but the whole was printed. I here submit my own English version of the unabridged German essay, which in the spirit of Bultmann's own openmindedness pushes some of his theoretical concerns beyond the point which he himself had reached.
The Dynamics of Parallel Verse A poetic analysis of Deut 32:6–12
Authors: Geller Stephen A.
Published: June 2011

The major purpose of this article is to study the dynamics of biblical poetry, especially in terms of its dominant device, parallelism. The goal of poetic analysis is to understand the ways in which a poet strengthens his message through effects engendered by formal devices. The process of analysis needs a principled and reasoned method of study which can be applied to poetic materials. In poetry, as in music, a disciplined approach will deepen not only one's understanding but also one's appreciation of the poetic system as a whole and of individual poems.
Isis and Sophia in the Book of Wisdom
Authors: Kloppenborg John S.
Published: June 2011

If the book of Wisdom (Wisdom of Solomon) was written in Alexandria in the Late Ptolemaic or early Imperial period, as seems most probable, it isa priorilikely that its author and intended audience were familiar with the Egyptian goddess Isis, at least in her hellenized form. This is all the more likely since, as many critics have acknowledged, the author of Wisdom was cognizant of other aspects of Hellenism and was able to adopt some of these in his presentation of Jewish theology. Thus, for example, there are reminiscences of Homer and Hesiod, allusions to Egyptian religious practices, and Greek philosophical vocabulary. That the author was aware of Isis and her mythology need not mean, of course, that this influenced his representation of Sophia to any significant degree. But given the popularity of the goddess, this possibility can scarcely be excluded. It will be the purpose of this article to examine the evidence for the influence of Isis upon Sophia and to inquire into the function of the reshaping of Jewish wisdom speculation as it is encountered in the Wisdom of Solomon.
Retrospection and Introspection: The Gospel According to Mary Baker Eddy
Authors: Stein Stephen J.
Published: June 2011

In 1891 Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910) opened her autobiography, Retrospection and Introspection, with a romanticized account of her family tree entitled “Ancestral Shadows.” Little more than one hundred pages later she closed her presentation with a confident prediction that in future centuries the “Tree of Life” would “blossom” under the influence of “Divine Science,” benefiting all the nations. Between these extremities of genealogy and eschatology she grouped a potpourri of reflections— personal, historical, literary, and theological —which defy easy categorization and lack apparent organization. To this day her selfportrait remains a puzzle, a resource often ignored by those struggling to understand this “remarkable” woman. This essay is an attempt to unlock the enigma of Retrospection and Introspection by examining the content and the structure of the text itself, thereby shedding light on Mary Baker Eddy's self-conception as the discoverer and founder of Christian Science.
Harvard Divinity School Convocation Address September 1982
Authors: Borowitz Eugene B.
Published: June 2011

Conscious of the dignity of this occasion and of the honor bestowed upon me to speak to this convocation, I prepared an address which, I hoped, responded to a major religious concern we Americans share. This weekend, when the Rosh Hashanah celebration ended, I learned of the massacre at Shatila and Sabra. The event and the response to it by Jewish leaders have filled me with such moral anguish that I find the text I have ready inadequate to this time of pain. But I have not found the wisdom, or the power, perhaps because I have not had the courage, to discard what I wrote and address myself to this spiritual calamity. I hope you will understand and that God will forgive my yielding to prudence rather than heeding my conscience. For I have decided to continue now with the address I wrote for this occasion.
Little Lower than God: The Super-Angelic Anthropology of Edward Taylor
Authors: Gatta John
Published: June 2011

Despite his arresting talents as a poet, Edward Taylor presents no comparable claims to originality as a theologian. Apparently this New Englander's mind was no match for that of Jonathan Edwards: most of Taylor's theological ideas were not only orthodox, but commonplace. Yet the poet's religious anthropology would seem to be one notable exception. In both prose and verse, Taylor is continually breaking into chants of heartfelt wonder over the exalted state bestowed upon human nature by Christ's redemption: “The Highest Design of Divine Wisdom, and the richest, and the most Glorious Design of Divine Grace … is pitched upon Mankinde, and Humane Nature. For higher exaltation Created Nature seems utterly incapable of than to be made partaker of all the Fulness of the Godheads, bodily.”
Coleridgean Polarity and Theological Vision
Authors: Cutsinger James S.
Published: June 2011

This essay concerns two closely related subjects: the religious philosophy of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the need for a new vision in Christian theology today. Though it is the second, more ambitious and adventurous topic that deserves the more sensitive treatment, it is rather to Coleridge himself that I have given the greater part of my attention. The reasoning behind this procedure is based upon a fairly simple fact: Coleridge's religious thought is still largely unknown to most people in the philosophical and theological communities. During the past twenty years or so, as many of Coleridge's hitherto unpublished notebooks and other manuscripts have been brought to light, a number of scholars of English literature have begun to study his thought, including his theology, with greater care. But it is still rare to find a researcher outside literature per se who knows much of Coleridgean philosophy, beyond (perhaps) a few phrases from his theory of the imagination in the Biographia Literaria.
Christopher Dawson: A Bibliography
Authors: Locas Claude
Published: June 2011

This bibliographical listing of Christopher Dawson's works was compiled as the preliminary step to a doctoral dissertation which dealt with his representation of the Middle Ages and was presented at the Institut d'études médiévales of the Université de Montréal. One of the last representatives of a school of thought that has enjoyed a very wide audience, especially because of its interpretation of the Middle Ages and of its attitude towards the modern world, Dawson not only deserves an effort such as this but in fact calls for it if, indeed, the intricate workings of this very typical mind are ever to be delved into.
Bishop Berkeley on Religion and the Church
Authors: Kohlenberg Philip
Published: June 2011

The traditional account of Berkeley's philosophy recognizes that his philosophical activity was an attempt to refound science and philosophy on a religiously acceptable basis. But it is not clear, from this account, just how he proposed to do it. The traditional opinion emphasizes the apparent claim of the esse est percipi principle to provide at one stroke a conclusive proof of the existence of God and a definitive account of the character of physical objects; according to that account, however, both of these claims are practically absurd. It is not altogether clear why Berkeley thought that such a weak proof and such a bad explanation could help the cause of religion.
Black Studies in Theological Education: The Camel Comes of Age
Authors: Traynham Warner R.
Published: June 2011

Several Sundays ago, I sat in the congregation of a local church which is part of a black denomination. The Church was celebrating its 100th Anniversary. The pastor took his text from the psalter, “How wonderful is the Lord in all his works. In wisdom has he made them all.” The preacher's sermon title was “Consider the Camel.” He proceeded to describe this ungainly beast with broad flat feet, skinny legs, and a shuffling gait, with an unsightly hump on his back, a neck like a giraffe and a face ludicrous to behold — in short, a grotesque, the proverbial horse designed by a committee, a divine joke on all four-footed things. Ah, but not so, for it turns out that the Camel, far from being ridiculous, is in its setting a thing of beauty. Those broad feet enable it to walk across the sands when the hoofs of more traditionally shapely creatures would be hopelessly ensnared. That hump, far from being a deformity, is a marvelous storage tank enabling the beast to carry its own commissary in a land singularly devoid of any regular fruitstands or water fountains. And the eyes in that unspeakable head are equipped with transparent lids which permit the creature to see while they are closed protecting his pupils from the wind and sand. “How wonderful is the Lord in all — even his most unlikely — works. In wisdom has he made them all.” The Camel turns out to be perfectly designed for what we would regard as a harsh, unfriendly setting. He is designed for a particular kind of adversity. The preacher, however, did not have a zoologist's interest in this creature but hastened to use it as an object of comparison to the congregation, at its foundation, shortly after the War Between the States. At that time he averred, when men and women of quality worshiped in Gothic and Georgian structures lighted with beeswax candles or gas chandeliers, the founders of that house of worship gathered in a humble home. When the people of quality were driven to church in coaches or borne in sedan chairs by their servants to the door, these former slaves trudged on foot through the dust of summer and the mud and snow of winter to praise their creator. And while the better folks heard well-seasoned sermons delivered in a calm and critical mode and were inspired by string quartets or deep-boweled organs, the poor blacks hooped and shouted, lined out their hymns, and accompanied themselves with clapping hands and patting feet. To their more cultured fellow believers they must have seemed as foolish and unfortunate as the Camel. Yet — as the Camel was designed for his particular setting — it was the preacher's intent to make us see that the congregation of which he spoke was similarly designed, and that the wisdom which Divine grace lavished on the Camel, he lavished also upon the black church.
Marginalia on the Norman Anonymous
Authors: Woody Kennerly M.
Published: June 2011

Some years ago, while preparing for one of John Mundy's medieval seminars at Columbia University and leafing through the pages of the Norman Anonymous, I was surprised to find myself reading a passage which I had read a short time earlier in an equally anonymous Pelagian work of the fifth century. While I found it a little disturbing to discover so pronounced an Augustinian as the Norman Anonymous silently borrowing material from a Pelagian source, there was nothing distinctively Pelagian about the passage itself, and I did not think the discovery important enough to deserve publication. I now feel that I was mistaken. I have recently found the latest editor of the Norman Anonymous, Karl Pellens, supporting his “pedagogic theory” of the purpose of the C.C.C. 415 tractates with the passage in question and, on looking closer, find that it has led others astray as well.
Jewish Astrology in the Talmud, Pseudepigrapha, The Dead Sea Scrolls, and Early Palestinian Synagogues
Authors: Charlesworth James H.
Published: June 2011

In a recent publication a scholar suggests that the Talmud preserves teachings only against astrology, and claims that astrology never obtained a foothold within Judaism, remaining only a sectarian phenomenon “at variance with normative Judaism.” The suggestion and claim should not go unchallenged. The present paper looks at the debates over astrology preserved in the Talmud, scans the major relevant sections in the Pseudepigrapha—with an introduction of a Jewish astrological document which should become a new addition to the Pseudepigrapha—reviews the astrological documents found in Cave 4 near Khirbet Qumran, and points again to the abundant evidence of zodiacal wheels and other astrological symbols in early Palestinian synagogues. The necessary breadth precludes exhaustive discussion in any area.
Armenian Canon Lists IV—The List of Gregory of Tatʿew (14th Century)
Authors: Stone Michael E.
Published: June 2011

One of the most inclusive of the Armenian Canon lists is that compiled by Gregory of Tatʿew (1346–1410 C.E.). He was a man of great and comprehensive learning, head of the monastery of Tatʿew, in the province of Siunikʿ. This was a most important center of Armenian learning, which flourished in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
The Uses of Antithesis in Hebrews 8–10
Authors: Attridge Harold W.
Published: June 2011

The interaction between early Christianity and the Judaism from which it emerged took many and diverse forms, and Christians’ attitudes toward their Jewish heritage varied considerably. The Epistle to the Hebrews represents a particularly complex case of both the appropriation and the rejection of that heritage. This ambivalent attitude reaches its climax in the central expository section of the text, where the significance of the death of Christ is explored using primarily the analogy of the Yom Kippur sacrifice. This portion of Hebrews is replete with exegetical difficulties which cannot be resolved here. What this essay will attempt is an analysis of the literary techniques through which the model of the Yom Kippur ritual is appropriated.
Reflections on the Mormon “Canon”
Authors: Davies W. D.
Published: June 2011

This essay might seem inappropriate for this volume, but it is not. Krister Stendahl is particularly distinguished by a catholicity of mind and spirit which enables him to look with understanding, sympathy, and empathy on all sorts and conditions in what he once unpejoratively called “God's menagerie of religions.” That Mormons do not belong to the main bodies of Christians does not exclude them from his purview. But apart from this, the Mormons are in fact highly germane to the theme of this volume. Uniqueness is always hard to substantiate: Christians, Jews, and Gentiles have been related in many varied and complex ways. But there seems to be no parallel to the way in which Mormons—while claiming to be Christians—assert as well that they are genealogically connected with Jews and that they are therefore physically a rediscovered, restored, and reinterpreted “Israel.” As far as I am aware they constitute a very special, if not unique, case of Christians among Jews and Gentiles since by implication they have redefined all three of these terms. This is the justification for the inclusion of this essay in this volume. We here reflect on one aspect of Mormon life: their fixation of their own “canon.”
Towards Assessing the Latin Text of “5 Ezra”: the “Christian” Connection
Authors: Kraft Robert A.
Published: June 2011

5 Ezra is a curious and challenging little work, crying out for detailed examination. It exists only in Latin, which presumably was translated from Greek. The text has received minimal attention from modern scholarship, despite its presence on the fringes of the Christian canonical scriptures. 5 Ezra provides living proof that one need not wait for new manuscripts to be uncovered in graves or caves to engage in work on hitherto virtually unexamined materials, and its contents seem directly relevant to questions about early Christian use of Jewish materials.
An ’′EktpΩma, Though Appointed From the Womb: Paul's Apostolic Self-Description in 1 Corinthians 15 and Galatians 1
Authors: Nickelsburg George W. E.
Published: June 2011

In his undergraduate classes in New Testament Introduction, Krister Stendahl used to cite 1 Cor 15:8 as a classic example of a text with an exegetical crux that is signalled through diverse translations in the modern versions. The crucial word is ἔκτρωμα, literally “abortion,” “miscarriage,” “embryo,” or “stillborn child.” Cataloging the witnesses to the Resurrection, Paul states that the risen Christ appeared to him last, as to “an (or the) ektrðma.” But in what sense does the apostle apply the metaphor to himself?
Christians and Jews-Some Positive Images
Authors: Saperstein Marc
Published: June 2011

The dean of contemporary Jewish historians, S. W. Baron, has shown that many modern conceptions of Jewish experience in medieval Christian Europe suffer from a fundamental distortion. Writing history was not a natural vocation for medieval Jews; most Jewish historiography was inspired by calamities that generated the impulse to record and, if possible, to explain. Therefore, most medieval Jewish chronicles are little more than accounts of the massacres and attacks suffered by various communities at different times. The tendency to assume that these historiographical sources present a full picture of reality resulted in what Baron called the “lachrymose conception of Jewish history,” viewing medieval Jewish experience as essentially a succession of tragedies in a vale of tears.
Paul's Arguments as Evidence of the Christianity from which he Diverged
Authors: Smith Morton
Published: June 2011

While the topic of this paper is familiar, I believe that one source of information has been generally neglected: the arguments that Paul does not use. Since Bishop Stendahl has done so much to illuminate Paul's words, it seems appropriate to dedicate to him this brief sketch of things to be learned from Paul's silence.
The Exaltation of Jesus and the Restoration of Israel in Acts 1
Authors: Tiede David L.
Published: June 2011

“Lord, at this time are you restoring the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6)

The disciples' leading question in Acts 1:6 sets the context for Luke's narration of the last words which the risen Jesus speaks on earth. The Lord's oracular answer clearly divides in two parts. Acts 1:7 conveys a sharp caution to those who would speculate about God's timetable: “It is not yours to know the periods or occasions which the Father has established in his own authority.” Yet Jesus' final words respond positively to the question of restoration by revealing the deployment of theocratic dominion, even indicating the geographic staging of Acts: “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the end of the earth” (1:8).
Rahner and Ogden: Man's Knowledge of God
Authors: Robertson John C.
Published: June 2011

There is a large and growing number of people, both Catholic and Protestant, who are coming to recognize Karl Rahner, S.J., as the most important Roman Catholic theologian of the present period. While a number of books and articles on Rahner are beginning to appear, most of them are limited simply to expositing his position. What has yet to be done in a satisfactory way is to think through critically his relationship to and significance for the wider theological enterprise, that is, in terms of the interconfessional discussion (as well as in terms of current secular reflection upon general human experience). Rahner's work deserves such consideration, although, because of the fact that since the Reformation and Vatican I Protestant and Catholic thought have tended to develop independently of each other, it is difficult for one schooled sufficiently in Rahner's tradition to understand his work to understand Protestant thought sufficiently well to make a discussion meaningful, and the opposite situation is also the case. Without claiming exemption from this handicap, I should like to make a beginning at the sort of clarification and critical analysis that seems to me to be needed.
Ingenious Piety: Anglican Casuistry of the Seventeenth Century
Authors: Slights Camille
Published: June 2011

In The Country Parson or the Priest to the Temple George Herbert portrays his ideal parish priest not only as a man learned in the works of the Church Fathers and contemporary theology but as one who “greatly esteems also of cases of conscience, wherein he is much versed,” because “herein is the greatest ability of a parson to lead his people exactly in the wayes of Truth.” The case of conscience which the pastor of Bemerton praised so highly was, in the seventeenth century, the characteristic form of casuistry, the branch of theology which attempts to provide the perplexed human conscience with a means of reconciling the obligations of religious faith with the demands of particular human situations. In the case of conscience, the casuist poses, or is posed with, a difficult moral problem and solves it, often with a startling display of erudition and logical ingenuity.
A Dark Side of Seventeenth-Century English Protestantism: The Sin against the Holy Spirit
Authors: Tipson Baird
Published: June 2011

Every student of Christianity learns how the Protestant Reformation wrested the bible from the clutches of priests and monks. Luther's insistence on scripture's preeminent authority, the spate of vernacular translations, and the invention of movable type all combined to draw literate laypeople to the biblical texts. Once the clerical monoply was broken, Christianity entered a new phase of its history.
Conservative Voices in the Western Messenger: William Greenleaf Eliot and Harm Jan Huidekoper
Authors: Green Judith Kent
Published: June 2011

The Western Messenger (1835–41) has often been given honorable mention in American literary history and has some reputation as one of the best-written magazines to appear in the early American West. Many scholars who are at all familiar with the Messenger associate it primarily with American Transcendentalism and often mention it as a precursor of the Dial. Indeed, it did defend the right of Ralph Waldo Emerson and several others to express the “New Views,” and a few articles which did so were excerpted by Perry Miller for his authoritative anthology The Transcendentalists. However, the material appearing in its five full years of monthly publication cannot so easily be reduced to a single theme. The magazine's original intention was to serve as an organ of Unitarian missionizing, and several of its most supportive writers, wary of the claims of Transcendentalism, continued to contribute articles that emphasized the scriptural basis for a Unitarian interpretation of Christianity. This persistent identification with traditional Unitarianism, alongside support for an open-minded examination of the ideas being put forward by Emerson, William Henry Furness, George Ripley, and Bronson Alcott, illustrates how Transcendentalist thought could be incorporated into a Unitarian forum without the recrimination associated with Andrews Norton's attack on Emerson's Divinity School Address. The denomination, even in its fledgling Western development, was far more diverse and dynamic than has usually been appreciated.
Anselm and The Logic of Religious Belief
Authors: Anderson Albert
Published: June 2011

Johann Georg Hamann, that great critic of the Enlightenment, once satirized the contemporary philosophical effort of his time by writing certain memoirs of Socrates “fuer die lange Weile des Publicums zusammengetragen von einem Liebhaber der langen Weile.” No doubt another article on Anselm also runs the risk of contributing to ennui. Still, in the history of philosophy his work is virtually unrivaled as a source for philosophical puzzlement. Nearly every anthology which introduces philosophy includes a section of his Proslogion, and recent analysis continues to demand attention to “the ontological argument” which is attributed to him. The present offering is, perhaps presumptuously, one more attempt to untangle some of the puzzlement and to do away with some of the misunderstanding that has accrued to the Anselmic tradition.
Christ in the Eschaton: Calvin and Moltmann on the Duration of theMunus Regium
Authors: Muller Richard A.
Published: June 2011

In his important Christological study,The Crucified God, Jürgen Moltmann addresses the problem of the ultimate relation Christ to believers, using as the focus of his analysis Calvin's exegesis of 1 Cor 15:24–28. Moltmann argues that thislocus classicusof Pauline subordinationism— “Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father … then shall the Son also himself be subject”—marks the point in Calvin's Christology at which “divine rule” is transferred from Christ's humanity to his divinity.
Jonathan Edwards's Change of Position On Stoddardeanism
Authors: Jamieson John F.
Published: June 2011

When Jonathan Edwards was installed as assistant to his grandfather Solomon Stoddard at Northampton in 1727, he not only assumed the major pastoral responsibility for the largest congregation in western Massachusetts, but he also became coadministrator of the “lax” mode of admission to the sacraments that had prevailed at Northampton and throughout the Connecticut River Valley for some thirty years. This system granted both baptism and communion to all persons of age who had historical knowledge of the gospel and were of a “non-scandalous” life, on the grounds that all divinely established ordinances were capable of “begetting” faith. Although Stoddard did not originate the “lax” system, the practice was generally referred to as “Stoddardeanism” because from the time of his celebrated dispute with Increase Mather in 1700 (the so-called “Stoddardean controversy”) Stoddard had been its most systematic, persistent, and influential proponent in New England.
Kant's “Appropriation” of Lampe's God
Authors: Palmquist Stephen
Published: June 2011

It would be difficult to find a philosopher who has suffered more injustices at the hands of his commentators (friends and foes alike) than Immanuel Kant. This is particularly true when it comes to the many anecdotes that commentators are, for some reason, quite fond of reciting about Kant. The problem is that such tales are often used surreptitiously to twist Kant's own explicit claims about what he was attempting to accomplish, so that when his writings are read with these stories in mind, misunderstanding is almost inevitable. As an example, it is only necessary to think of the tale of the old ladies of Königsberg who became so familiar with Kant's rigid schedule that they used to set their clocks by his daily comings and goings. This may or may not be true; the point is that unless this anecdote is recounted with a certain skepticism, it is likely to encourage a prejudice whereby the reader of Kant assumes at the beginning that Kant's writings are filled with the unreasonably rigid and formalistic ravings of someone out of touch with the unpredictable passions that punctuate the life of an ordinary person. In other words, such stories are in danger of creating an image of Kant that may have little or no justification in the text. One could cite other examples, such as the story of how Kant used to lead the procession of university professors up to the cathedral each Sunday, only to desert it at the door, or Bertrand Russell's quip that Kant's response to being “awakened” by Hume was merely to invent a transcendental “soporific” to help him fall asleep again.
The Sources, Date and Transmission of Didache 1.3b–2.1
Authors: Layton Bentley
Published: June 2011

The unsatisfactory quality of the witnesses to the text of the Didache, especially that of Bryennios' codex Hierosolymitanus 54 (a.D. 1056), has been emphasized in a well-known paper by Erik Peterson. This evaluation holds true for Did. 1.3D–2.1, the object of the present study, to an even greater extent than was indicated by Peterson.
The Ladder of Jacob
Authors: Kugel James
Published: June 2011

One of the strangest texts to be included in recent collections of biblical pseudepigrapha is that known as the Ladder of Jacob. Known only from the Slavonic Tolkovaya Paleya, this text elaborates on the story of Jacob's dream at Bethel in Gen 28:11–22, adding details to the vision described there and containing a prayer and angelic revelation nowhere present in the biblical narrative. It is clear that the Slavonic text is a translation from Greek; it appears likely to me that the Greek is itself a translation from an original Aramaic or Hebrew text dating from, roughly speaking, the Second Temple period.