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When focusing on the sapiential traits in text of the Fourth Gospel, it should be noted that in its images of wine, water, and bread, connected by the common theme of eating and drinking, one can see Jesus the Giver, who, like the Old Testament personified wisdom, bestows his gifts on man. Although single references to the Old Testament sapiential texts have been suggested for the Johannine images of wine, water, bread, light, and the vine, no detailed study of these images, as well as their juxtapositions even in the aspect of eating and drinking, has been published so far. The selected topic seems to be important for showing a comprehensive approach to the Johannine banquet motif in its sapiential aspect, broken down into particular Johannine images, which are the events related to wine, water, and bread. It is ultimately significant to present Jesus full identity through these three metaphors, referring to the personified and preexisting wisdom as described in the Old Testament sapiential literature.

In the light of the research undertaken in this book the author concludes that the so called "anti-Jewish" texts in Johannine Gospel are not directed against the Jews being an ethnic or religious community. The object of the polemic and attacks is not the entire Jewish nation across the span of all the ages but a group of the Jewish leaders or opponents to Jesus in the First Century AD. Looking through the prism of the aposynagogal polemics, one can notice that the state of tension between the Johannine community and the rabbinic Judaism is inter-Jewish, not anti-Jewish, in character. The source of the polemical language of the Fourth Gospel is the Christological discussion in the historical and sociological context (the Messianic confession, the excommunication from the Synagogue, the presence of Samaritans in the Johannine community, the struggle for the preservation of the identity).

There is no doubt that Jerusalem in the Bible is a city of great historical and theological significance. However, many modern readers are unaware that authors writing in Greek used its two names, Ierousalem and Heriosolyma. Among the few who used both names simultaneously is Luke the Evangelist. Commentators of this onomastic phenomenon have tried to explain this fact in various ways, referring to Lukes literary and theological choices or denying its meaning altogether. Krzysztof Mielcareks monograph proposes a new view and explanation of this phenomenon in a theological-historical key. In his opinion, Lukes choices may be underpinned by his deep immersion in the world and terminological richness of the Septuagint, as well as important historical events that influenced the perception of the Holy City by the Hellenistic Jewish community and later also by the early Christians.

The European reformations meant major changes in theology, religion, and everyday life. Some changes were immediate and visible in a number of countries: monasteries were dissolved, new liturgies were introduced, and married pastors were ordained, others were more hidden. Theologically, as well as practically the position of the church in the society changed dramatically, but differently according to confession and political differences.This volume addresses the question of how the theological, liturgical, and organizational changes changes brought by the reformation within different confessional cultures throughout Europe influenced the everyday life of ordinary people within the church and within society.The different contributions in the book ask how lived religion, space, and everyday life were formed in the aftermath of the reformation, and how we can trace changes in material culture, in emotions, in social structures, in culture, which may be linked to the reformation and the development of confessional cultures.

John Calvins understanding of works-righteousness is more complex than is often recognized. While he denounces it in some instances, he affirms it in others. This study shows that Calvin affirms works-righteousness within the context where faith-righteousness is already established, and that he even teaches a form of justification by works. Calvin ascribes not only a positive role to good works in relation to divine acceptance, but also soteriological value to believers good works. This study demonstrates such by exploring Calvins theological anthropology, his understanding of divine-human activity, his teaching on the nature of good works, and his understanding of divine grace and benevolence. It also addresses current debates in Calvin scholarship by exploring topics such as union with Christ, the relation between justification and sanctification, the relation between good works and divine acceptance, the role of good works in the Christian life, and the content of good works.

In her Epilogue entitled "What Is His Greatness?", Ola Elizabeth Winslow stated in the first serious modern biography of Jonathan Edwards: "In a word, it is the greatness of one who had a determining art of initiating and directing a popular movement of far-reaching consequence, and who in addition, laid the foundations for a new system of religious thought, also of far-reaching consequence." After two and a half centuries since Edwardss death, Winslows statement is undoubtedly true, and perhaps, more so now than ever. The recovery of Edwards pioneered by Perry Miller, Ola Winslow, and Thomas Schafer, among others, has become what is often referred to as an "Edwards renaissance," and has been made even more popular among lay people by John Piper, Stephen Nichols, and the like. Since the free online access of The Works of Jonathan Edwards by Yale University, dozens of books, and articles, as well as numerous dissertations, each year are written to seek a facet of Edwardss "greatness," and thus as an exemplar of his continued "far-reaching consequence."Jonathan Edwards, more than any other pre-revolutionary colonial thinker, grappled with the promises and perils of the Enlightenment. Organized by John T. Lowe and Daniel N. Gullotta, Jonathan Edwards within the Enlightenment brings together a group of young and early career scholars to present their propping the life, times, and theology of one of Americas greatest minds. Many of these subjects have been seldom explored by scholars while others offer new and exciting avenues into well covered territory. Some of these topics include Edwards interaction with and involvement in slavery, colonialism, racism, as well as musings on gender, populism, violence, pain, and witchcraft.

Who was Jacob Latomus? What did he write in the series of lectures to which Luther penned an answer in 1521, an answer which is now so central to many interpretations of the great reformer? And how is the reading of that answer affected when it is preceded by an interpretation of what Latomus wrote?The study goes through the most important parts of Latomus treatise against Luther (1521). The aim is to identify Latomus theological convictions and thus to pin down who and what Luther was up against. The second and major part of the book is a reading of Luthers pamphlet against Latomus (1521). Parallels are drawn with Latomus theology in order to facilitate as much as possible an appreciation of the differences between the two.The comparison between the two theologians shows that they speak completely different languages and that their viewpoints do not square at all. Basically their ways depart in their understanding of Gods word and how it is communicated to man. This generates two ways of perceiving the matter of theology, and of speaking theologically : and prevents mutual understanding. Latomus cannot understand Luthers view of the autonomy of Gods word and the special character of proclamation, and hence a theology which is incompatible with natural reason. Even though he accepts a division between a natural and a supernatural rationality, and thus admits that natural reason has a limit, he grants the very same natural reason an important role in the ascent of cognition towards revelation. Everything else such as Luthers theology is a dehumanization of the human being. Luther, on the other hand, regards Latomus theology as a result of the impulse in sinful man towards ruling and controlling the word of God with his own inadequate natural abilities. In Luthers eyes that proclamation of Christ, which in the shape of a human being comes to man in contradiction of everything human, here disappears in the twinkling of an eye.

The contributors to this volume examine the complex and dynamic role that Protestant majorities and minorities played in shaping the Reformations of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In doing so, it offers an important perspective on the range of intellectual, social, economic, political, theological and ecclesiological factors that governed intra- and inter-confessional encounter in the early modern period. While the principal focus is on the situation of different Protestant majority and minority groups, many of the contributions also engage the relation of Protestants and Catholics, with a number also considering early modern Christian dialogue with Muslims and Jews.The volume is organised into five sections, which together provide a comprehensive picture of Protestant majorities and minorities. The first section explores intellectual trajectories, especially those which promoted confessional unity or sought to break down confessional boundaries. The second section, taking the neglected Spanish Reformation as an important case-study, examines the clandestine aspect of minority activities and the efforts of majorities to control and suppress them. The third section pursues a similar theme but examines it through the lens of Flemish and Walloon Reformed refugee communities in Germany and the Netherlands, demonstrating the way in which confessional factors could lead to the integration or exclusion of minorities. The fourth section examines marginal or peripheral Reformations, whether geographically or doctrinally understood, focussing on attempts to implement reform in the shadow of the Ottoman Empire. Finally, the fifth section looks at confessional identity and otherness as a principal theme of majority and minority relations, providing both theoretical and practical frameworks for its evaluation.

This volume contains the plenary papers and a selection of shortpapers from the Seventh Annual RefoRC conference, which was held May 1012th 2017 in Wittenberg. The contributions concentrate on the effects of Luthers new theology and draw the lines from Luthers contemporaries into the early seventeenth century. Developments in art, catholic responses and Calvinistic reception are only some of the topics. The volume reflects the interdisciplinarity and interconfessionality that characterizes present research on the 16th century reformations and underlines the fact that this research has not come to a conclusion in 2017. The papers in this conference volume point to lacunae and will certainly stimulate further research.Contributors: Wim François, Antonio Gerace, Siegrid Westphal, Edit Szegedi, Maria Lucia Weigel, Graeme Chatfield, Jane Schatkin Hettrick, Marta Quatrale, Aurelio A. Garcia, Jeannette Kreijkes, Csilla Gabor, Gabor Ittzes, Balazs David Magyar, Tomoji Odori, Gregory Soderberg, Herman A. Speelman, Izabela Winiarska-Gorska, Erik A. de Boer, Donald Sinnema, Dolf te Velde.

In very different ways the writings of the New Testament have shaped cultures until today. The Novum Testamentum Patristicum project will give a full documentation of ancient Christian receptions of the New Testament in late antiquity. This volume focuses on the different mainly narrative receptions of New Testament texts in ancient Christian apocryphal literature. While it has been accepted for a long time that apocryphal writings mainly wanted to fill the gaps of New Testament texts in more or less fantastic ways, the articles in this volume discover a rich and very different variety of re-writings, relectures, and receptions of New Testament texts, motifs and ideas.

Korinna Zamfir explores the manner in which the Pastoral Epistles redefine roles and ministries within a changed ecclesiological framework (the ekkl?sia as oikos Theou). The contextual investigation focuses on the cultural and social background of the station codes and church orders. Applying the environmental approach advanced by Abraham MalherbeZamfir discusses the Pastoral Epistles as writings intimately linked to their Greco-Roman social and cultural environment. The volume addresses the mentalities reflected in moral philosophies, political theories, drama and epigraphy, focusing on the discourse articulated in these sources. Exploring the adoption of conservative mentalities, the monograph advances a reading of the Pastoral Epistles based on ideology critique. It also incorporates insights gained from research on the social world of earliest Christianity, in particular on private associations.Korinna Zamfir argues that the ecclesiology of the Pastoral Epistles presupposes the metaphorical use of oikos Theou and shows that in Greco-Roman antiquity oikos denotes larger social entities like the religious association, the polisand the cosmos. The ekkl?sia is the oikos and polis of God. As a consequence the Pastoral Epistles define roles and ministries based on the public-private divide and on honor and shame mentality. The theo-logical and cosmic dimension of the household of Godexplains the essentialist understanding of social and ecclesial roles. The author also tackles the contrast between discourse and ecclesial reality.

Dieser Band konnte zu einem Wegweiser fur die kunftige Richtung der Calvinforschung, sicher aber mitbestimmend fur die Reformationsforschung im Allgemeinen werden. Seine Beitrage reflektieren die neuesten Forschungen zu Biographie und Theologie Johannes Calvins (15091564). Die Calvinforschung hat in den vergangenen Jahren durch neue Archivfunde, die wiederbelebte Erforschung der Briefe und Kommentare Calvins sowie deren Neueditionen und neue theologische Fragestellungen viele fruchtbare Impulse erhalten. Der vorliegende Band wirft neues Licht auf die Calvin- und Reformationsforschung.

This book gives attention to the language and style of the letter of James, with a hypothesis about its rhetorical purpose in mind. It focuses on what we can learn about the author of James, by reading the text in light of a guiding research question: How does the author establish and assert authority? The letter builds literary authority for a number of purposes, one of which is to address socioeconomic disparity, a major concern for the author.The author of James presents a speech-in-character in the shape of a letter to establish his ethos (Ch. 2), employing vocabulary and style to signal his education implicitly (Ch. 3 & 4) and includes himself in the categories of sage, teacher and exegete explicitly (Ch. 5). From this standpoint, the author can address the rich as equals, rebuke them and admonish both rich and poor to receive Gods wisdom (Ch. 6).The comparison with ancient literary criticism shows that the categories at play are the same. The insight that language and ethos are inseparable categories in antiquity provides us with renewed ways to interpret the literary production of early Christianity. Both James and the Classicists present a competing epic in the context of the early imperium, the former with an Israelite piety that is superior to contemporary economic and moral categories and the latter with the supremacy of Greek culture as a foundation for Rome.The letter of James emerges as a document that builds educational ethos as a balance against the rich and powerful, a strategy that calls for a revision of both its rhetoric and socio-economic situation.

The book presents many aspects of the phenomenon of translation and commentary work of the Bible in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th and 17th centuries. It contains studies of eminent scholars as well as of some young adepts, coming mainly from Poland, but also from Lithuania and Czech Republic. The texts present various aspects of the researches conducted on this phenomenon nowadays. As it was an exceptional movement, extremely varied and long-time lasting, it would be difficult to offer its complete synthesis in one volume. Though, the exhaustive presentation of the historical and linguistic contexts allows the reader to understand the phenomenon. Intensified interest in translations of the Bible is closely connected with the interest in the Polish language, its literary expression as well as its grammatical and orthographic standardisation that occurred just in the same time. The intellectual activity related to the Bible contributed simultaneously to the development of the Polish literary language and even inspired the translations of the sacred texts of other religions present in the country. Moreover, contacts between different languages of Central and Eastern European area, where many attempts of new translations appeared, are very important. A quick rise of the different Reformation movements contributed to a natural need for new translations and commentaries to be used by community members. These new currents, first easily accepted and spread in the country, even when suppressed, could not stop this activity, and later new Catholic translations and commentaries of the post-Trident period, both in Polish and Lithuanian, proved it. Big part of study is also dedicated to particular typographical realizations of this activity and an interesting example of the musical expression directly inspired by the biblical translation, is also provided.

This present volume aims to stimulate Bucer-research as it brings together a selection of the best of De Kroons and Vant Spijkers articles some of which appear for the first time in English translation. In the first section Bucer is described as taking his independent stand in the patristic and scholastic tradition. The next five articles go into the close personal and theological relation between Bucer and John Calvin and make clear how much of Bucer works through in Calvin and Calvinism. Bucers efforts to bridge theological and ecclesiastical gaps brought him often in discussion with catholic as well as protestant theologians. How he dealt with this is the topic of the third section in this volume. The two following articles deal with his view on discipline and on the right of resistance. The next articles deal with Bucers doctrinal legacy and the last section focuses on sanctification as one of the most important characteristics of his theology.The most important issues of contemporary Bucer-research and the outlines of his theology are convincingly presented in this volume by known experts for this topic.

Melanchthon and Calvin were late medieval people, stemming from a world of order and unity, and at the same time they fully lived in the early modern world, in which everything was changing. In this new world they committedly, enthusiastically, and restlessly sought to introduce some order, in theory as well as practice. The sixteenth-century church was governed by multiple coercive constructions and systems. Did the two Reformers really succeed in disconnecting themselves from them, and to what extent did they connect to, for example, the existing forms of eucharistic piety?The established church had come under serious criticism, and people were massively turning their backs on the less than attractive ecclesiastical practicessomething connecting that era to ours. In these highly turbulent and suspenseful 1520s, when it was not yet clear whether the ten-year-old evangelical movement in Germany was still viable, Melanchthon tried to introduce at least some order into the chaos by means of a confession accompanied by a church order. As it turned out, the new doctrine on Christian freedom and justification by faith alone was easily interpreted in a one-sided manner. Through a careful analysis of the sources, Herman A. Speelman examines Melanchthons church visitations in 1527 and Calvins five attempts to shape the modernisation of ecclesiastical life. In addition to the gospel, also penance and the preaching of the law received a place in the Protestant liturgy and spirituality.Melanchthons and Calvins contributions were not only to have an enormous impact on the theological evolutions in the evangelical movement in Europe, but they also proved to be of eminent importance for the way in which the new doctrine was given meaning in practice. Their instructions continue to be highly influential in large parts of Europe today.

In the last decades, many countries in Latin America underwent a transition from dictatorship to democracy. Truth commissions were an essential instrument of uncovering politically motivated crimes and serious human rights violations. However, in many cases truth came without justice, perpetrators were not held accountable, and the reparations policy was rather restrictive. The authors of this volume address the issue from a transdisciplinary perspective. On the one hand, they focus on a past that is shaped by fierce conflicts but also by attempts of fostering reconciliation in the middle of conflict. On the other hand, they address a reconciliation that still lies in the future and has to do with justice.Their first part offers a collection of case studies that approach the topics of reconciliation and conflict resolution during and in the aftermath of dictatorship and civil war from different perspectives and academic disciplines. Their second part is dedicated to experiences with reconciliation, conflict resolution and migration from a global and comparative perspective.Several contributors reflect the Holderlin perspective of "reconciliation in the middle of dispute". Other contributions aim to deepen our theoretical understanding of reconciliation by exploring the diversity of interpretations of the concept itself and elaborating the specific benefit of reconciliatory approaches for a sustainable peace. Two authors offer an in-depth analysis of particular conflicts, and one article deals with the influence of religion and culture on the social role of Brazilian migrants in Japan.

While in the 16-17th centuries about the two thirds of the Hungarians belonged to the Reformed Church, the presence of the "spirit of capitalism" and the "protestant ethic" is rather questionable. The Calvinists did not play a different or decisive role in the capitalization process of Hungary at the end of the 19th century. The historical analysis focuses on the puritan doctrines can be found in the religiosity of Hungarian puritans and Reformed people in the 17th century. The "Hungarian Protestant ethic" differs from Webers ideal-type in two respects: the Hungarian version is more pietistic, less activist; and it seems to have less practical influence in everyday life because of the weak religiosity. The Hungarian case does not refute Webers thesis, but it call the attention to two important parts of historical analysis: the reinterpreting, selecting procedure in social context; and the intensity of religiosity.

This collection of essays seeks to analyse historically these influences, connections, and impact from multiple points of view, such as but not limited to the links between war and rebellion, the issues of trust and religious violence, early modern university debates on war and peace, the problems engendered by intolerance and the difficult management of tolerance, the delicate matters of politico-religious accommodation and the implementation of peace in towns and contested territories, the reappraisals and changes in the narratives of military prowess and religious fidelity, the role of women in the religious conflicts in the long sixteenth century, the porous boundaries (imagined or real) which existed between enemies in times of war and the issues connected to the cohabitation with the Other in times of peace.

The period of Revolution and Toleration in England was filled with rapid change, political uncertainty, and ecclesiastical volatility. Still recovering from the strife of Civil War and a divisive Restoration, the relationship between the Church of England and Nonconformists remained deeply strained. Although Dissenters were granted the right to gather for worship under Toleration, their legitimacy was regularly challenged. Within this context, a variety of significant controversies arose in which James Owen, a Welsh Presbyterian minister, played a prominent role and was a leading voice for moderate Nonconformity.Along with a group of moderate Nonconformist friends like Edmund Calamy, Philip and Matthew Henry, and Francis Tallents, Owen defended a version of Protestant ecumenism. This was a theological conviction that (1) the unity of the Protestant Church was indispensable and (2) this unity was to be found in agreement on essential doctrines, not in sharing ecclesiastical structures. Owen, along with his associates, defended the Dissenters separation from the Church of England as biblically sanctioned and at the same time emphasized that such separation was not schismatic.Owens clear, biblically articulate, and historically informed writing made his contribution to the period of Toleration significant and influential.