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This book is an in-depth examination of the pneumatology of Origen of Alexandria. Justin J. Lee argues that Origen conceives of the Holy Spirit as a divine person, but inferior in nature in both person and work. This can be discerned from his understanding of the Son and Father, as well as the influence of Middle Platonism on his theological and cosmological framework. Ontologically, Origens understanding of Trinity is a hierarchy of divine persons in which the greater ministers to the existence of the lower.Origens pneumatology can be best understood by examining how he speaks about the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit participates in the divine work of salvation, reflecting an economic Trinity of shared work and will. The Spirits primary role is to indwell and assist the saints. There are two major actions of the Holy Spirits work: (1) the downward action of God, where the Spirit is the distributor of the divine gifts and graces and (2) the Spirits upward work of revelation and sanctification, by which he leads the saints to the Son and Father. The Spirit thus serves as the practical and personal initiator of believers into the greater processes of salvation and deification.

Although many writings of Edmund Schlink (19031984) have been available in English for several decades, the publication of the new German edition offered a significant impetus for providing a fresh and more accurate translation of them.Matthew L. Becker and his co-translators have consistently translated key terms that occur in all five volumes. Also, they corrected infelicitous and misleading renderings of Schlinks language into English, which more or less happened in all the earlier editions.In this second volume Becker provides the first-ever English translation of Schlinks dogmatics. Representing the culmination of five decades of scholarly work by one of the most important theologians and ecumenists of the twentieth century, Schlinks opus magnum sets forth the "basic features" of Christian doctrine that all Christian churches hold in common. Schlinks Ecumenical Dogmatics thus offers a consistent witness to the living, triune God, who calls sinners to repentance and faith, who acts mightily to save them, and who sends them back into the world to share Gods gospel and love in word and deed.

The Old Testament is transformed from problem to ally when preachers attend to power at work in ancient and modern contexts by mirroring Second Isaiahs proclamation, listening to contemporary servant Israel, and learning from African American preaching in context of domination. This book analyses the impact of domination on Old Testament proclamation and thus leads to several unique contributions. Firstly, it reads Second Isaiah as a homiletic model for proclaiming older (pre-exilic) texts in response to exilic domination. Secondly, it treats the Old Testament as a rich resource for confronting racism and anti-Semitism though teaching and it introduces contemporary Christian-Jewish dialogue in Germany as a model for the Church. Lastly, it highlights preaching traditions within the African American Church as instructive for formulating an effective Old Testament preaching strategy.

Amandus Polanus (15611610) has often been described as a highly significant theologian, but also a neglected one. Part of Polanus significance comes from his inclusion of ethics and practical application in his discussion of theology and the way in which his theology mixes Ramist dichotomies and the scholastic distinctions common in Christian Aristotelianism. Stephen B. Tipton shows how Polanus understanding of Gods essence and attributes is built upon the ground of scripture, arranged with the aid of logical arguments and reasoning, and aimed at the worship and glory of the Triune God. Tipton defends this conclusion against previous research which suggests that Polanus theology is grounded in rationalism and subordinates the Trinity beneath an Aristotelian notion of Gods perfect unity. This research not only corrects these previous notions about Polanus, but it also provides greater insight into the early Reformed Orthodox period and the theology that arose from that time.

Richard Baxter (16151691) was arguably the greatest English Puritan of the seventeenth century. He is well known for his ministerial manual "The Reformed Pastor", in which he expressed the unusual conviction that parish ministers were better off unmarried. And yet, Baxter seemed to contradict himself by marrying one of his parishioners, Margaret Charlton. Though Baxter claimed to be happily married, he continued to champion celibacy for the rest of his life. This book explores Baxters argument for clerical celibacy by placing it in the context of his life and the turbulent events of seventeenth-century England. His viewpoint was shaped by several factors, including the Puritan literature he read, the context of his parish ministry, his burdensome model of soul care, and the formative life experiences shaping his theology and perspective. These factors not only explain why Baxter became the only Puritan to champion clerical celibacy but also why he continued to do so even after marrying.

Is Handels Messiah anti-Judaistic? The question has been coursing through the academic world for some time now. This book shows the oratorios text to be more often than not in agreement with traditional Jewish translation and commentary. Moreover, its divergences from ascribed King-James-Version and Book-of-Common-Prayer texts, in preference for those sourced by the Codex Alexandrinus and Peshitta, evidence not only librettist Charles Jennens philological prowess, but also the oratorio itself as example of eighteenth-century English scholarship at its very best.[Der Text von Handels Messiah. Eine Zeitkapsel der fruhneuzeitlichen Textkritik] Ist Handels Messiah anti-judaistisch? Die Frage bewegt zurzeit die akademische Diskussion. Die Studie zeigt, dass dieser Vorwurf ins Leere greift. Denn der Oratorientext stimmt mit traditionellen judischen Ubersetzungen und Kommentaren uberein. Die Abweichungen von der King James Version und dem Book of Common Prayer, die dem Codex Alexandrinus und der Peschitta entsprechen, beweisen nicht nur die hohe philologische Grundlichkeit des Librettisten Charles Jennens, sondern auch die ausgewogene Komposition des Oratoriums selbst. Das Libretto ist ein Beispiel bester englischer Wissenschaft des 18. Jahrhunderts.

In this retrieval study David Van Brugge addresses how the current understanding of a homiletical use of imagination for expository preaching might be strengthened. The current need for strengthening becomes apparent when the various understandings of imagination and their implications for practical theology are realized. This is compounded as trends in homiletics seem to minimize the imagination or embrace it in modern or postmodern ways.The original contribution of this study is recognizing that the homiletical use of imagination can be strengthened by retrieving the Puritan baroque characteristics of Jonathan Edwards imagination as evidenced in his sermons to the Stockbridge Indians of 17511758. Edwards drew on a rich background to display an imagination that synthesized thoughts and ideas, thought beyond the senses, and that, by the grace of God, transformed thought and practice. Through that creative thought, Edwards maintained Biblical exposition and appeal to the affections.Van Brugge further develops and evaluates the idea of Puritan baroque characteristics, concluding that it is a helpful characterization of Edwards Stockbridge Indian sermons. In these sermons Edwards imaginatively used imagery, light, space, movement, and glorification for the ultimate goal of directing the affections of his audience towards God. Such a use of imagination for affective purpose becomes a key for the strengthening of a homiletical use of imagination today.

Krzysztof Pawlina presents in his book a profile of a candidate for the priesthood who enters a seminary in Poland. The study was first conducted by survey method in 2000 and then repeated twenty years later. In the former period, the survey covered seminarians born and partly brought up during the communist rule in Poland, while in the latter, the survey subjects were young people who were brought up in the conditions of a democracy and the free market economy. The research captured the change that had taken place in regard to the social identity, lifestyle and mentality of candidates for the priesthood. The study covered aspects such as the geographical and social sources of priestly vocations, the cultural background of priesthood candidates, their religiosity, their world of values, their motivations, their understanding of the priesthood and the Church. This change in question was explored in the context of social transformations, especially the secularisation processes taking place in the last two decades of Poland.

The early Christian movement known as "Montanism" referred to itself as the "New Prophecy". This collected volume, featuring contributions from the first-ever symposium on the New Prophecy, examines the origins of the Phrygian New Prophecy during the pandemic under Marcus Aurelius, its debated presence in North Africa and its relation to Tertullian, its relationship with mainstream Christians in Asia, its female leaders, and its echoes in the writings of Lucian of Samosata, Celsus, Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius, and Honoriuss legislation. The book concludes with a systematic-theological reflection for todays churches and William Tabbernees bibliography.Contributions by Heidrun E. Mader, Bernard Doherty, Peter Lampe, David E. Wilhite, Andrew McGowan, Petr Kitzler, Megan DeVore, Barbara Crostini, Ronald E. Heine, Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, Maria DellIsola, Andrzej Wypustek, Geoffrey D. Dunn, Alistair C. Stewart, and Gyula Homoki.

Today, wellbeing is high on the personal and societal agenda, but thinking about wellbeing certainly is not a new phenomenon. The Greek philosopher Aristotle, for example, came up with the concept of Eudaimonia the contented state of feeling healthy, happy, and prosperous and this concept has been influential up until today. Starting from Augustines thoughts on the topic of wellbeing, which had a great influence on theologians and others in the Early Modern Era, the contributions in this book reflect on a variety of topics ranging from wellbeing for the soul and the body to broader related concepts and theories approaching the theme from such disciplines as music, literature, history and theology.

This book brings together leading experts in the field of ancient synagogue studies to discuss the current issues and emerging trends in the study of synagogues in ancient Palestine. Divided into four thematic units, the different contributions apply archaeological, textual, historical and art historical methodologies to questions related to ancient synagogues.Part One addresses issues related to the origins and early development of synagogues up to 200 CE. The contributions provide different explanations to the alleged lack of evidence for synagogues built in the second and third centuries CE and ask how much continuity or change there is between the late Second Temple and late Roman/early Byzantine synagogues. Part Two deals with architecture and dating of ancient synagogues. It gives an overview of all synagogues found so far, approaches the dating of Galilean synagogues in the light of the recently-exposed synagogue at Huqoq, and provides a stylistic re-evaluation of the Capernaum synagogue decoration.Part three examines leadership, power and daily life in late antique synagogue contexts, illustrating non-monumental inscriptions, amulets and dining in synagogue contexts as well as the role of individual benefactors. Section four contextualizes synagogue art. An overview of synagogue mosaics in late antique Palestine is complemented with reinterpretations of the mosaics two synagogues. The section also offers a discussion of the appearance of the menorah.

The question of how theology shapes a Christian historians reading of the past has been debated thoroughly in various academic periodicals. Should historians recognise the role of providence in their accounts of past events? Should they sympathise with their subjects theology? Can objectivity be lost due to theological bias? And, last but not least, is there a compromise of faith if one writes "natural" instead of "supernatural" history? Such questions are important for understanding the historians profession. Arnold Dallimore, who trained and specialised in pastoral ministry in Canada, wrote an influential biography of the revivalist George Whitefield, as well as others on Charles and Susanna Wesley, Edward Irving, and Charles Spurgeon. How did his Reformed theological perspective impact his historiography? How does his work fit into larger historiographical debates concerning the nature of Christian history? While other books look at Christian historiography using abstract and methodological approaches, this book examines the subject precisely by looking at the life and work of an individual historian. It does so by placing Dallimore in the context of being a minister in twentieth-century Canada as well as his role in the development of Reformed Theology in the Anglosphere. It also examines the quality of his various biographies focusing on key issues such as the nature of religious revival, the problem of Christianity and slavery, and the question of charismatic religious experience. His study concludes by examining the relationship between the discipline and profession of church history and asking what is required for one to be considered a church historian.

The aim of the present conference volume is to study the interrelationship of literary and material approaches to historical investigation of gender. Paradigmatically the significance and meaning of gender and sexuality is explored in the context of private and public, religious and secular spaces. Historical, cultural, and social norms (and deviations) of daily life are examined through the lens of textual, archaeological, and art historical investigations to interpret relics of ancient Israelite, Jewish, and Christian communities from the Iron Age through Late Antiquity. Scholars from varied disciplines such as biblical and classical archaeology, epigraphy, Old and New Testament exegesis and religious studies assembled to engage in a dialogue involving both texts and material culture.

Dries De Crom intends to stimulate the cross-fertilization of Septuagint Studies and Translation Studies, particularly the theoretical framework of Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS). It engages with concepts and theories from DTS in order to demonstrate their applicability to the study of the Septuagint. The aim is not to replace the established methods of Septuagint Studies, but rather to show that they are fully compatible with descriptive approaches to translation.The greater part of the volume is dedicated to a meticulous verse-by-verse comparison between the LXX and MT texts of Song of Songs. As there is at present no full critical edition of the Greek texts of Song of Songs, due attention is given to the most important witnesses to the pre-Hexaplaric text. The textual study engages with matters of translation technique, textual criticism, linguistic interference and the interpretation of LXX Song of Songs.On the basis of this textual analysis, the volume explores the question of Kaige-Theodotion and LXX Song of Songs relation to it, as well as the peculiar textual-linguistic profile of LXX Songs of Songs, against the background of translational norms, interference, interlanguage and literary code.

For more than forty years now there has been a steady stream of interest in Richard Hooker. This renaissance in Hooker Studies began with the publication of the Folger Library Edition of the Works of Richard Hooker. With this renaissance has come a growing recognition that it is anachronistic to classify Hooker simply as an Anglican thinker, but as yet, no generally agreed-upon alternative label, or context for his thought, has replaced this older conception; in particular, the question of Hookers Reformed identity remains hotly contested.Given the relatively limited engagement of Hooker scholarship with other branches of Reformation and early modern scholarship to date, there is a growing recognition that Hooker must be evaluated not only against the context of English puritanism and conformism but also in light of his broad international Reformed context. At the same time, it has become clear that, if this is so, scholars of continental Reformed orthodoxy must take stock of Hookers work as one of the landmark theological achievements of the era.This volume aims to facilitate this long-needed conversation, bringing together a wide range of scholars to consider Richard Hookers theology within the full context of late 16th- and early 17th-century Reformed orthodoxy, both in England and on the Continent. The essays seek to bring Hooker into conversation not merely with contemporaries familiar to Hooker scholarship, such as William Perkins, but also with such contemporaries as Jerome Zanchi and Franciscus Junius, predecessors such as Heinrich Bullinger, and successors such as John Davenant, John Owen, and Hugo Grotius. In considering how these successors of Hooker identified themselves in relation to his theology, these essays will also shed light on how Hooker was perceived within 17th-century Reformed circles. The theological topics touched on in the course of these essays include such central issues as the doctrine of Scripture, predestination, Christology, soteriology, the sacraments, and law. It is hoped that these essays will continue to stimulate further research on these important questions among a wide community of scholars.

The Sahidic version of 1 Samuel is an ancient daughter version of the Septuagint. Because the Sahidic translation was made before most of the Greek manuscripts we know were copied, it potentially contains ancient readings no longer preserved or only faintly attested in the Greek tradition.This study considers the Sahidic version of 1 Samuel as a translation and how it may best be used in Greek textual criticism. The aim of this study is twofold. First, to examine the translation technique of the Sahidic translator. Second, to analyze the affiliations between the Sahidic manuscripts as well as the affiliations between the Sahidic version and Greek traditions.In the translation-technical section, clause connections and translator s additions feature prominently. In the chapter concerning the affiliations of the Sahidic text, detailed textual analyses prevail. These analyses describe the textual character of each Sahidic manuscript, and search for the existence of secondary readings and/or corruptions.This study supports the creation of a new critical edition of the Septuagint of 1 Samuel for the Gottingen series. With respect to this edition, the primary goal is to identify the affiliations of the Sahidic version. This translation-technical study, however, will additionally allow for a more careful and accurate citation of the Sahidic version within the critical apparatus of the Greek text.

This ambitious and engaging book sets itself the task of combining a wide range of approaches to cast new light on the form and function of several ancient Jewish letters in a variety of languages. The focus of The Performance of Ancient Jewish Lettersis on applying a new emerging field of performance theory to texts and arguing that letters and other documents were not just read in silence, as is normal today, but were "performed," especially when they were addressed to a community. A distinctive feature of this book consists of being one of the first to apply the approach of performance criticism to ancient Jewish letters. Previous treatments of ancient letters have not given enough consideration to their oral context; however, this book prompts the reader to "listen" sympathetically with the audience. The Performance focuses close attention on the ways in which the engagement of the audience during the performance of a text might be read from traces present in the text itself. This book invites the audience to hear a fresh reading of a family letter from Hermopolis, concerning ugly tunics and castor oil; festal letters, about issues surrounding the celebration of Passover, Purim and Hanukkah; a diaspora letter on how to live in a foreign land; and also an official letter concerning the building of the Jerusalem temple. These letters will help us understand a text from the Dead Sea Scrolls, namely, MMT. Marvin L. Miller argues for the centrality of performance in the life of Jews of the Second Temple period, an area of study that has been traditionally neglected. The Performanceadvances the fields of orality and epistolography and supplements other scholars works in those fields.

Authentikos Logos (NHC VI,3), also known as Authoritative Teaching,is a little studied story of a souls descent and ascent in the Nag Hammadi library. With her book Ulla Tervahauta fills a gap in the scholarship and provide the first monograph-length study that has this writingas its primary focus. The aim is to find a place and context for Authentikos Logos within early Christianity, but Tervahauta also adds new insight into the scholarship of the Nag Hammadi Library and study of early Christianity. Contrary to the usual discussion of the Nag Hammadi writings from the viewpoint of Gnostic studies, she argues that Authentikos Logos is best approached from the context of Christian traditions of late ancient Egypt between the third and the fifth centuries.Tervahauta discusses the story of the souls journey in light of various Christian and Platonic writings. Also, she analyses the relationship of Authentikos Logos with the Valentinian Wisdom myth and suggests that no firm evidence connects the writing closely with Valentinian traditions. And although a Platonic mind-set can be assumed, the writing combines motifs in a unique manner. For example, the four epithets used in the writing the "invisible soul", the "pneumatic soul", the "material soul", and the "rational soul" are not found thus combined elsewhere. Discussion of matter (hyle) is connected with Christian scriptural allusions and the focus is on ethics and the evilness of matter. The body, on the other hand, is the souls place of contest and progress. The Pauline term "pneumatic body" (1 Cor 15:44) is used allusively and from a Platonic perspective. With this book Ulla Tervahauta makes an important contribution to the study of early Christianity in late ancient Egypt by discussing a writing thatshows knowledge and creative combination of literary traditions that circulated in late ancient Egypt.

Among the predominantly Hebrew collection of the Dead Sea Scrolls are twenty-nine compositions penned in Aramaic. While such Aramaic writings were received at Qumran, these materials likely originated in times before, and locales beyond, the Qumran community. In view of their unknown past and provenance, this volume contributes to the ongoing debate over whether the Aramaic texts are a cohesive corpus or accidental anthology. Paramount among the literary topoi that hint at an inherent unity in the group is the pervasive usage of the dream-vision in a constellation of at least twenty writings. Andrew B. Perrin demonstrates that the literary convention of the dream-vision was deployed using a shared linguistic stock to introduce a closely defined set of concerns. Part One maps out the major compositional patterns of dream-vision episodes across the collection. Special attention is paid to recurring literary-philological features (e.g., motifs, images, phrases, and idioms), which suggest that pairs or clusters of texts are affiliated intertextually, tradition-historically, or originated in closely related scribal circles. Part Two articulates three predominant concerns advanced or addressed by dream-vision revelation. The authors of the Aramaic texts strategically employed dream-visions (i) for scriptural exegesis of the antediluvian/patriarchal traditions, (ii) to endorse particular understandings of the origins and functions of the priesthood, and (iii) as an ex eventu historiographical mechanism for revealing aspects or all of world history. These findings are shown to give fresh perspective on issues of revelatory discourses in Second Temple Judaism, the origins and evolution of apocalyptic literature, the ancient context of the book of Daniel, and the social location of the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls.

Byung Soo Han intends to answer, by investigating the merger of patristic and contemporary sources in the theological method of Amandus Polanus, a significant question concerning the way in which the intellectual and methodological eclecticism of the Reformed was able to establish a coherent "system" of thought capable of defense as not only confessional but also orthodox in its theology and broadly catholic, drawing both on the thought of the Reformers and on the resources of the great tradition of Christian thought that extended back to the church fathers. From a methodological perspective, Polanuss development from the Ramistically-organized doctrinal framework of the early Partitiones, through the increasingly detailed and specialized efforts of the commentaries, disputations, and Symphonia, indicates a fairly clear, concerted effort to build toward a detailed systematic presentation and in fact, each of these earlier efforts provided as it were building-blocks that would be incorporated into the Syntagma. This constructive labor itself serves to set aside the claim that Polanus based his theology on a deductive principle. The specific focus of the book is on the place and function of backgrounds and sources, traditional and contemporary, with particular emphasis on the place of the church fathers in Reformed orthodoxy. Polanuss patristic work, Symphonia, and its eventual impact on his full systematic work, the Syntagma, provides a singular case, within the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, of the reformulation of patristic thought in a fully systematized form, suitable for combination with the results of biblical exegesis and contemporary doctrinal argumentation in the formulation of Reformed orthodox theology. This study attempts to assess the claim of catholicity and orthodoxy by Reformed theology, demonstrating the formative function of patristic thought in Polanuss theology. Further, the study illustrates the place of this traditionary exercise within the methodologically eclectic approach followed by Polanus and his contemporaries as they created a theology that drew not only on Scripture and contemporary philosophical assumptions but also on patristic, medieval, Reformation-era, traditionary Aristotelian, Platonic, and Ramist sources. This study, therefore, reappraises the development of Reformed orthodoxy. In Polanuss case, an older scholarship that read his theology as based on central dogmas or as an exercise of rationalism will be set aside in favor of a more nuanced view of his sources and method. Within this larger framework, Polanuss use of the fathers builds on and confirms the Reformerss assumption of catholicity in the face of the detailed polemics of Robert Bellarmine as well as confirming the point that his approach to formulation was traditionary and somewhat eclectic. Finally, the book identifies the theological cohesion of the early orthodox Reformed model, as exemplified by Polanuss thought, especially in its method of drawing together of traditionary materials from varied sources. In short, the book demonstrates the importance of the church fathers to the formulation of a Reformed orthodox and catholic theology in the context of showing, contrary to previous studies of Polanuss thought and contrary to the older stereotypes of "Calvinist" orthodoxy, that Reformed orthodoxy was neither a rigid monolith nor a matter of philosophical speculation but the product of a carefully conceived exercise in the compilation and assessment of biblical and traditionary materials.