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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.

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.

What is the real meaning of the church for Christian life? If we confess Christian faith, the church is one of the twelve articles, which implies that the church is rather important. In the creeds of the early church catholicity is confessed as characteristic for the church. This means that the church cannot exist without catholicity. What does this qualification mean? In this study the author listens to the understanding of the concept of catholicity in the theology of Ignatius, Cyprian, Cyril, Augustine and Vincent. In the second part of the book some representatives of the reformed tradition are analyzed, namely John Calvin, James Ussher, John Owen, Herman Bavinck and Gerrit Berkouwer. This analysis leads to a comparison between the early church and the reformed tradition. Listening to theologians from the early church and the reformed tradition, Van Vlastuin presents an up-to-date concept of the catholicity of the church which clarifies among others that the visibility of the church belongs to the essence of Christs body, that practicing the catholicity of the church is necessary against denominationalism and party formation, that loss of catholicity leads to spiritual and theological impoverishment, that the understanding of catholicity implies also orthodoxy with consequences for the interpretation of semper reformanda and that the consciousness of catholicity is related to the citizenship of two worlds.

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.

Herman Selderhuis as editor of this volume has brought together a team of experts, resulting in a unique approach since each chapter is co-written by a catholic and a protestant author, who have all integrated the latest research results. Each section begins with a brief historiographical overview. The same time, ecclesiastical events are always set within a greater framework of political, social, and cultural developments for which reason each author has taken the liberty to describe its own method. The user will find in this book tables, diagrams, and illustrations. Also many source texts are integrated in the narration. Theses texts are intended to bring the described events and people closer to the reader and, as it were, to let them speak the words. The name of the book as "Handbook of the church history of the Netherlands" immediately brings to mind three problematic complexes which are relevant to its user. First, there is the nature of a handbook, that is intended to be a good tool but also has its limitations: it stimulates and necessitates the use of further books. Second, the area. The Netherlands is a plurality and that is also noticeable in its church history, for each region, town, and village has its own church history. Third, the history of the church for sure is the most important aspect, but this history can only be understood if it is described in the context of political and social developments.

Herman Selderhuis as editor of this volume has brought together a team of experts, resulting in a unique approach since each chapter is co-written by a catholic and a protestant author, who have all integrated the latest research results. Each section begins with a brief historiographical overview. The same time, ecclesiastical events are always set within a greater framework of political, social, and cultural developments for which reason each author has taken the liberty to describe its own method. The user will find in this book tables, diagrams, and illustrations. Also many source texts are integrated in the narration. Theses texts are intended to bring the described events and people closer to the reader and, as it were, to let them speak the words. The name of the book as "Handbook of the church history of the Netherlands" immediately brings to mind three problematic complexes which are relevant to its user. First, there is the nature of a handbook, that is intended to be a good tool but also has its limitations: it stimulates and necessitates the use of further books. Second, the area. The Netherlands is a plurality and that is also noticeable in its church history, for each region, town, and village has its own church history. Third, the history of the church for sure is the most important aspect, but this history can only be understood if it is described in the context of political and social developments.

The first five books of the New Testament contain a large proportion of all uses of the term Farisai/oj in extant literature. In the light of growing scepticism among historians of Judaism over the accuracy and legitimacy of reconstructions of the Pharisees of history, Mary Marshall sets aside the quest for the historical Pharisees and instead offers an analysis of the portrayal of the Pharisees by each evangelist. The author adopts a redaction critical approach which incorporates narrative critical observations where appropriate. Her examination of the texts demonstrates the particularity of each book and its portrayal of the Pharisees. The five books do not portray a monolithic body of evidence but each has its own style, occasion and purpose(s). All New Testament portrayals of the Pharisees occupy a good deal of common ground and yet the pictures they produce are not identical. Every one of the evangelists integrates the Pharisees into his own presentation of the gospel,emphasisingthose aspects of the Pharisees portrayal which serve his own particular concerns. This study of material from the gospels and Acts yields multi-faceted portraits of the Pharisees and discloses the variety of christological, soteriological, ecclesiological and ethical concerns with which they are associated. It alerts the exegete both to the nuances within a given New Testament book and to the subtle differences between books. It demonstrates the combination of fidelity and freedom with which the evangelists regarded their inherited tradition and sources. The way the Pharisees are portrayed in each text is particular to that text and its purposes, and therefore consideration of the Pharisees portrayal is able to enrich our understanding of the gospels and Acts more generally.

The intertextuality research of antique texts and their reception in Medieval and modern times is the subject of this volume: (1) What is a text and what is an intertext? This concerns the various different forms of text and how they present themselves in architecture, iconography, lexicography, the study of lists, etc. (2) Forms of intertextuality on the relationship between writtenness and oralness, how oral texts are objectified during textualisation and become fixed acts of speech (K. Ehlich), how especially antique texts were shaped by the continual interconnectedness of oral and written traditions. (3) What is understood in ancient Oriental and antique literature by "tradition" and "transmission"? To this end, the research includes languages, historical reality and antique thought structures, making clear that the transferral of tradition occurs not only within a close cultural circle, but in the exchange with neighbouring cultures over large distances and geographic boundaries. (4) On the relationship between intertextuality and canon. A number of contributions study this aspect of ongoing historical debate as it often found for culturally definitive and canonised texts a necessary part of the their rejuvination process. Contributions by M. Bauks, A. Lange / Z. Plese, Ph. Alexandre, S. Aufrere, M. Oeming, K. Davidowicz, A. Wagner, G. Selz, M.F. Meyer, L. Roig Lanzillotta, M. Dimitrova, F. Waldman, W. Horowitz, M. Risch, J. van Ruiten, L. Bormann, A. Miltenova, J. Taschner, G. Brooke, G. Dorival, A. Harder and S. Alkier.

David Luckensmeyer gelingt durch die Untersuchung der eschatologischen Motive ein hervorragender Zugang zum ersten Thessalonicherbrief. Er analysiert die grundlegenden Richtungen des enthaltenen Diskurses erstmalig, und verdeutlicht sowohl die Rhetorik wie auch die Briefstruktur des 1. Briefes an die Thessalonicher. Durch diese Zugangsweise lassen sich die verschiedenen eschatologischen Motive als Teil einer systematischen Aufforderung des Verfassers an eine Gemeinde verstehen, die einen Konflikt zu bestehen hat.Luckensmeyer verdeutlicht die Eschatologie als den besten hermeneutischen Schlussel, um die systematischen Aspekte des Briefes zu interpretieren. Es besteht kein Zweifel: Eschatologische Motive sind im Uberfluss vorhanden, etwa in 1,910; 2,1316; 4,1318 oder 5,111. Der Frage, auf welche Weise diese Motive die Absichten des Paulus in seinem Schreiben verdeutlichen, widmet sich Luckensmeyer ganz besonders. Paulus kann verstandlich machen, warum die Thessalonicher im Konflikt leben und sie zugleich zu einem neuen Verstandnis von Gemeinde ermutigen.Die ausfuhrliche Bibliographie gibt einen guten Uberblick uber die neueste Sekundarliteratur und verschiedene Register erleichtern den Zugang.

The investigation of union with Christ and justification has been dominated by the figure of John Calvin. Calvins influence, however, has been exaggerated in our own day. Theologians within the Early Modern Reformed tradition contributed to the development of these doctrines and did not view Calvin as the normative theologian of the tradition. John V. Fesko, therefore, goes beyond Calvin and explores union with Christ and justification in the Reformation, Early Orthodox, and High Orthodox periods of the Reformed tradition and covers lesser known but equally important figures such as Juan de Valdes, Peter Martyr Vermigli, Girolamo Zanchi, William Perkins, John Owen, Francis Turretin, and Herman Witsius. The study also covers theologians that either lie outside or transgress the Reformed tradition, such as Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, Faustus Socinus, Jacob Arminius, and Richard Baxter. By treating this diverse body of figures the study reveals areas of agreement and diversity on these two doctrines. The author demonstrates that among the diverse formulations, all surveyed Reformed theologians accord justification priority over sanctification within the broader rubric of union with Christ. Fesko shows that Reformed theologians affirm both union with Christ and the golden chain of salvation, ideas that moderns find incompatible. In sum, rather than reading an individual theologian isolated from his context, this study provides a contextual reading of union with Christ and justification in the Early Modern Reformed context.

By their very nature, traditions are diverse. This is particularly the case with theological traditions, even including those cases where they have been named for a single individual (e.g. Augustinianism, Thomism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism). In the eras of the Reformation and of Reformed orthodoxy there was intense theological debate, leading to confessional identity and confessional boundaries; hence the Remonstrant controversy in the early seventeenth century. What the essays of this volume look at, however, are the debates that took place within the Reformed theological tradition, particularly within Puritan England. Some of the debates considered here threatened to rise to a confessional level whereas others were not so serious insofar as they did not press on confessional boundaries. The Puritan tradition surveyed in these essays looks at both major and minor intra-Reformed debates. Most of these debates analyzed have been passed over in the older scholarship in its quest to find the few true Calvinians to oppose to the so-called Calvinists. By contrast, none of the studies included in the present volume brands one side of a seventeenth-century debate as un-Calvinian or identifies an alteration of doctrinal perspective as a declension from Reformation-era purity. Calvin no longer appears as a norm, although he does appear, with other Reformers, as an antecedent of certain lines of argument. Lastly, the essays document the ongoing concern among Reformed theologians to further the Reformation cause. In this pursuit, Reformed theologians, as they did during the time of the Reformation theologians, often found themselves disagreeing on a number of theological doctrines.

Even though it has always been widely debated, the theology of Jacob Arminius (15591609) has not received the scholarly attention one would expect. Given also its remarkable influence, it is surprising how little research has been devoted to it. Only since the 1980s has the world of scholarship seen some movement on this front. The present study by William den Boer offers a new contribution to the understanding of Arminiuss theology by focusing on the theological motive that lay at its very foundation. Arminius has been characterized as a theologian of free will, of creation, or of freedom, and lately also as a theologian of the assurance of faith. The question as to Arminiuss central concern in his theology has been answered in different ways, with each author focusing on aspects of differing degrees of importance. William den Boer defends the thesis that another characterization needs to be added, and designates Arminius as a theologian of the justice of God, or more precisely, as a theologian of the twofold love of God. He goes on to illustrate how these two characterizations are valid at one and the same time, and why they do not exclude but include all other characterizations that have been offered by placing them in their proper perspective.In Part 1 the author posits that the leading motif of Arminiuss theology lay in a careful defense of the justice of God. Part 2 considers the reception of his theology in the discussions between Remonstrants and Counter-Remonstrants during the Hague Conference Haagsche or Schriftelicke Conferentie of 1611. Finally, Arminiuss theology is placed within the context of sixteenth-century debates on the cause of sin and Gods relationship to evil.

From his first publication of hymns in 1707, common knowledge regarding Isaac Watts (16741748) often revolves around his hymn-writing legacy. Though Watts legacy as a hymnographer is significant, he also functions as a key transitional figure between the English Puritans and the Evangelicals during eighteenth-century English dissent. As a pastor, theologian, philosopher, and literary mainstay of his era, Watts influence grew well beyond his early work in hymnody to impact scores of Christians on both sides of the Atlantic. Watts approach to Christian spirituality is an area of his thought thats been unexplored. This book provides the first ever analysis of Watts theological vision for the Christian spiritual life. In emphasizing the experience of holiness and happiness, Watts leans heavily upon his Reformed theological heritage to underscore how knowing and loving God are central to Gods preparation of the soul for heaven.

Samuel Rutherfords (1600-1661) scholastic theology has been criticized as overly deterministic and even fatalistic, a charge common to Reformed Orthodox theologians of the era. This project applies the new scholarship on Reformed Orthodoxy to Rutherfords doctrine of divine providence. The doctrine of divine providence touches upon many of the disputed points in the older scholarship, including the relationship between divine sovereignty and creaturely freedom, necessity and contingency, predetermination, and the problem of evil. Through a close examination of Rutherfords Latin works of scholastic theology, as well as many of his English works, a portrait emerges of the absolutely free and independent Creator, who does not utilize his sovereignty to dominate his subordinate creatures, but rather to guarantee their freedom. This analysis challenges the older scholarship while making useful contributions to the lively conversation concerning Reformed thought on freedom.