{"title":"Jesus and the Full Personhood of Women: Through the Lens of a Hermeneutics of Affect","authors":"Y. Dreyer","doi":"10.1080/2222582X.2018.1470471","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2222582X.2018.1470471","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Biblical hermeneutics and New Testament exegesis have been based mostly on a rational approach and executed by means of cognitive methods. Feminist exegetes, female and male, who have pointed out the need for a hermeneutics of suspicion when exploring the wisdom, role and contribution of women in the Bible and have developed exegetical methods from this perspective, have also mostly done so by means of rational epistemologies. This article explores a “hermeneutics of affect” as an example of alternative “ways of knowing” to revisit some narratives on Jesus and women. A hermeneutics of affect is explained by making use of insights of Johann Gottfried Herder, Friedrich Schleiermacher and William James, whose epistemologies show an appreciation for affect and experience. From such a broadened rationality the article illustrates Jesus's disposition of respect for the full personhood of all people, including women.","PeriodicalId":40708,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Early Christian History","volume":"8 1","pages":"57 - 73"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2018-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2222582X.2018.1470471","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49503686","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Paulus – Werk und Wirkung: Festschrift für Andreas Lindemann zum 70. Geburtstag, edited by Paul-Gerhard Klumbies and David S. du Toit","authors":"C. Stenschke","doi":"10.1080/2222582X.2018.1491129","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2222582X.2018.1491129","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40708,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Early Christian History","volume":"8 1","pages":"107 - 111"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2018-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2222582X.2018.1491129","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43602543","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Listen to Her: Women as Avatars of Wisdom in Late Ancient Homiletical Discourse","authors":"M. Doerfler","doi":"10.1080/2222582X.2017.1352453","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2222582X.2017.1352453","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT For some decades now, historians have focused on attending to or, where possible, retrieving women's voices. In late antiquity, as indeed in other pre-modern eras, this salutary interest has encountered numerous challenges, including in many instances late ancient writers’ interest in obscuring, circumscribing, or otherwise silencing these voices. Ancient authors from Homer onward praised women's silence and worried about women's overly public speech. Early Christians had perhaps more reason for concern than many of their contemporaries; after all, as patristic writers liked to remind their audiences, it was the first woman's dubious counsel that had misled Adam and had put an end to humanity's paradisiacal existence. It is all the more striking when women's voices do emerge as authoritative purveyors of wisdom in late ancient texts, particularly where those voices are depicted as preferable to male wisdom. This article examines three such instances: that of a mother whose teaching discredits a tyrant in Gregory of Nazianzus’ Discourse 15; of a daughter whose insight bests her father's in Isaac's sogitha on the daughter of Jephthah; and that of a wife whose wisdom saves both husband and son in a homily on Abraham and Isaac attributed to Amphilochium of Iconium. The women in these homilies emerge in contexts of crisis—their own violent death or the actual or threatened death of their offspring—and in these homilies become central to these crises’ resolution. In the process, they emerge as avatars of wisdom for late ancient homilists and their audiences. While these texts and the characters narrated in them do not grant access to the voices of historical women, they nevertheless allow readers glimpses into the distinctive shape of women's wisdom in early Christian writings and the discourses surrounding it.","PeriodicalId":40708,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Early Christian History","volume":"8 1","pages":"28 - 56"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2018-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2222582X.2017.1352453","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46971942","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Peter between Jerusalem and Antioch: Peter, James and the Gentiles, by Jack J. Gibson","authors":"C. Stenschke","doi":"10.1080/2222582X.2018.1491128","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2222582X.2018.1491128","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40708,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Early Christian History","volume":"8 1","pages":"112 - 116"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2018-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2222582X.2018.1491128","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43321718","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Orality, Literacy and Memory in the Composition and Transmission of Christian Ezra Apocalypses","authors":"Lydia Gore-Jones","doi":"10.1080/2222582X.2018.1484670","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2222582X.2018.1484670","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT A cluster of Christian Ezra apocalypses from the 2nd to 9th century, namely the Greek Apocalypse of Esdras, the Greek Apocalypse of Sedrach and the Latin Vision of Ezra, clearly draw their inspiration from the first-century Jewish apocalypse 4 Ezra (2 Esdras 3–14) and share many common features among themselves. Yet conventional textual criticism has failed to offer a satisfactory explanation to account for their similarities and divergences both among themselves and vis-à-vis other apocalyptic works not in the pseudonym of Ezra. This article presents an alternative approach to explain textual relationship by taking into account 1) the role orality played in the process of composition, performance and transmission; 2) the interplay of orality and literacy; 3) the role of memory in the formation of traditions; and 4) eventually viewing textual relationship not as stemmatics but a network of traditions in a common religious and intellectual context.","PeriodicalId":40708,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Early Christian History","volume":"8 1","pages":"75 - 95"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2018-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2222582X.2018.1484670","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46770303","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Augustine on the Christian Life, by Gerald Bray","authors":"T. Sabo","doi":"10.1080/2222582X.2018.1450094","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2222582X.2018.1450094","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40708,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Early Christian History","volume":"8 1","pages":"96 - 99"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2018-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2222582X.2018.1450094","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41857963","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Spirit and the Scriptures: Revisiting Cyprian's Use of Prosopological Exegesis","authors":"Kyle R Hughes","doi":"10.1080/2222582X.2018.1429941","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2222582X.2018.1429941","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT While recent research into the early Christian reading practice of prosopological exegesis, which seeks to identify various persons (prosopa) as the “true” speakers or addressees of a scriptural text in which they are otherwise not in view, has highlighted the complexities involved in attempts to identify the Holy Spirit as the prosopological speaker of Old Testament quotations, there remains a need for clear criteria by which scholars can distinguish between different forms of the Spirit's speech. Building on terminology suggested by Matthew Bates, this article proposes just such a means of distinguishing between when the Spirit functions as the primary speaking agent and when it functions as an inspiring secondary agent, with the former endowing the Spirit with a sufficient degree of theodramatic personhood to make its speech truly prosopological in nature. Applying this criteria to an analysis of Cyprian of Carthage's use of prosopological exegesis in On Works and Alms (De opere et eleemosynis), this article challenges the conclusions of David Downs by demonstrating that the Spirit does not truly speak from its own person in this treatise, though Cyprian may make some moves in this direction elsewhere in his writings. As a result of this study, we have not only a means of better assessing the extent of the pneumatological discontinuity between Cyprian and his Carthaginian predecessor Tertullian but also a clearer path forward for future scholarship that seeks to investigate how early Christian writers conceived of the relationship between the Spirit and the Scriptures.","PeriodicalId":40708,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Early Christian History","volume":"8 1","pages":"35 - 48"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2018-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2222582X.2018.1429941","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41465239","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Paul's Journeys in 3D: The Apostle as Ideal Ancient Traveller","authors":"Mark Wilson","doi":"10.1080/2222582X.2017.1411204","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2222582X.2017.1411204","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Travel in Asia Minor during the Roman period was ubiquitous. The apostle Paul is used as a heuristic model of the ideal ancient traveller. His first journey in provincial Galatia— geographical Pamphylia, Pisidia, and Phrygia—is examined, particularly as it relates to suggested routes and time of travel. It will utilise Bekker-Nielsen's pioneering 3D methodology that applies Naismith's rule to produce more objective outcomes. Practical issues related to ancient travel, such as equipment, load, and weather, will also be explored. This investigation will help to refine travel times and itineraries, and thus hopefully produce more accurate Pauline chronologies.","PeriodicalId":40708,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Early Christian History","volume":"8 1","pages":"16 - 34"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2018-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2222582X.2017.1411204","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47718727","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pentecostal Spirituality in Dialogue with Three Early Fathers of the Eastern Orthodox Tradition: A Question of Continuity","authors":"M. Nel","doi":"10.1080/2222582X.2018.1454262","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2222582X.2018.1454262","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The Pentecostal movement originated as a primitivist-restorationist movement that perceived itself in continuity with the spirituality practices of the early church, as an attempt to re-establish basic features of New Testament Christianity. The claim to stand in continuity with the early church necessitates an investigation into the spirituality presupposed by early fathers of the church. The investigation is defined by the writings of three fathers from the Eastern (Orthodox) tradition, Gregory of Nazianzus, also known as Gregory the Theologian (329–89 CE), Isaac the Syrian (of Nineveh; 613–c. 700 CE) and Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022 CE) because their writings are characterised by their interest in developing the outlines of mystical spirituality and lend themselves to a comparison with contemporary Pentecostal spirituality. Contemporary Pentecostal spiritual experiences cannot be compared with the Eastern mystical tradition because mystical experiences cannot be replicated. However, when one is exposed to the writings of the fathers until the means of expression and the spiritual experiences are understood, it seems that the experiences show enough similarities that one may speak of a revival of or a return to those kinds of experiences. Pentecostal and mystical hermeneutics seems to build its foundation upon the experiential aspect of theology; it is impossible to talk about God without the experience of fellowship with him. Worship provides the vehicle for theology, and theology serves as a commentary on the worship which has always been the central reality. The Spirit is taken as the starting point and prayer is at the heart of mystical and Pentecostal spirituality; it is impossible to know God and the things of God without prayer.","PeriodicalId":40708,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Early Christian History","volume":"8 1","pages":"49 - 74"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2018-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2222582X.2018.1454262","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48042610","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Representatives of Roman Rule: Roman Provincial Governors in Luke-Acts, by Joshua Yoder","authors":"C. Stenschke","doi":"10.1080/2222582X.2018.1491127","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2222582X.2018.1491127","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40708,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Early Christian History","volume":"8 1","pages":"100 - 101"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2018-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2222582X.2018.1491127","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44736023","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}