NeotestamenticaPub Date : 2023-06-27DOI: 10.1353/neo.2022.a900316
Erwin Ochsenmeier
{"title":"Antioch as a Church Planting Community: Revisiting Barnabas and Paul's Departure in Acts 13:1–4","authors":"Erwin Ochsenmeier","doi":"10.1353/neo.2022.a900316","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/neo.2022.a900316","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The church of Antioch is commonly taken as a model of a missional community as it supposedly sent Barnabas and Paul on their church planting endeavour (Acts 13:1–4). A close reading of the relevant texts shows that this may be a misreading of the available data. Barnabas and Paul are sent by the Spirit, not Antioch, and, as is common in Acts and the New Testament, apostleship is by divine calling, not institutional decision-making and strategising. The verb ἀπολύω is never used in \"missional\" sending contexts. Additionally, Paul never links his apostleship with Antioch. Furthermore, the common reading downplays and veils important theological patterns in Acts.","PeriodicalId":42126,"journal":{"name":"Neotestamentica","volume":"56 1","pages":"317 - 336"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46670359","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NeotestamenticaPub Date : 2023-06-27DOI: 10.1353/neo.2022.a900315
Louis Ndekha
{"title":"\"Go and Do Likewise\": Jesus and Rhetorical Syncrisis in the Parable of the \"Magnanimous\" Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37)","authors":"Louis Ndekha","doi":"10.1353/neo.2022.a900315","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/neo.2022.a900315","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The article offers a reading of the parable of the good Samaritan from the perspective of the Greco-Roman progymnastic exercise of syncrisis. It argues that in its original context, Jesus's representation of the good Samaritan as a moral examplar, vis-à-vis the image of the priest and the Levite, was critical to the realisation of social harmony and camaraderie among the socially differentiated members of Christ-groups. By introducing the term \"neighbour\" into the fictive language of the early Christian movement, the parable challenged both Jewish exclusive understanding of neighbour and the system of kinship and reciprocity that characterised Greco-Roman social relations. Through this analysis, the article presents new dimensions to the interpretation of the parable of the good Samaritan.","PeriodicalId":42126,"journal":{"name":"Neotestamentica","volume":"56 1","pages":"301 - 316"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43310279","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NeotestamenticaPub Date : 2023-06-27DOI: 10.1353/neo.2022.a900321
Erick Fields
{"title":"The Fables of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke: A New Foundation for the Study of Parables by Justin D. Strong (review)","authors":"Erick Fields","doi":"10.1353/neo.2022.a900321","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/neo.2022.a900321","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42126,"journal":{"name":"Neotestamentica","volume":"56 1","pages":"378 - 381"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49424889","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NeotestamenticaPub Date : 2023-06-27DOI: 10.1353/neo.2022.a900317
Daniel C Smith
{"title":"Purity among the παρθένοι of Revelation 14:1–5 and the Βάκχοι of Western Asia Minor","authors":"Daniel C Smith","doi":"10.1353/neo.2022.a900317","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/neo.2022.a900317","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In this article I argue that in Revelation 14 the followers of the Lamb are presented in ways that overlap with the claims and praxis of Dionysiac groups in Western Asia Minor, thereby necessitating the formation of new lines of separation between the assemblies to which the Apocalypse is addressed and the religious networks surrounding them. Focusing on the process of group formation, I seek to recover the traces of Revelation's groups as they would have been formed within the diverse and varied religious landscapes of Western Asia Minor. A text consumed with the condemnation of its competitors, from nearby synagogues to Caesar in Rome, Revelation here constructs Bacchic and Orphic cults as another set of anti-groups by presenting the pure initiates of the Lamb who have been granted blessing after death in opposition to the unrighteous whose inheritance is the unmixed wine of God's wrath.","PeriodicalId":42126,"journal":{"name":"Neotestamentica","volume":"56 1","pages":"337 - 360"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44607800","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NeotestamenticaPub Date : 2023-06-27DOI: 10.1353/neo.2022.a900314
S. Lim, A. Allen
{"title":"Jairus's Family Revisited: A Collaborative Model of Parenting (Mark 5:21–24, 35–43)","authors":"S. Lim, A. Allen","doi":"10.1353/neo.2022.a900314","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/neo.2022.a900314","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The present study proposes parentist criticism as a new approach to reading the biblical text. As a test case, we revisit the healing of Jairus's daughter (Mark 5:21–24, 35–43) to reconfigure family dynamics with a focus on the role of each parent and their collaboration for the sake of their child. A review of recent scholarship reveals that the roles of Jairus and his wife as parents are treated in isolation from one another, when considered at all—thus, failing to address the larger picture of family dynamics. We, therefore, propose parentist criticism as a more holistic alternative. This criticism takes shape in three stages. Firstly, we examine the gendered roles of Jairus and his wife as they intersect with parental duties within the first-century patriarchal cultural codes. Secondly, we scrutinise the gendered parental roles of Jairus and his wife in light of their crossings of these roles as it pertains to the care of their daughter. Finally, we reconsider the family dynamics in this text as read through a lens of collaborative parenting. Taken together, we propose reading this text with a parentist approach in order to highlight the text's potential to break down gendered household hierarchies through shared parental concern and action, oriented towards the well-being of the child(ren).","PeriodicalId":42126,"journal":{"name":"Neotestamentica","volume":"56 1","pages":"275 - 299"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46835858","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NeotestamenticaPub Date : 2023-06-27DOI: 10.1353/neo.2022.a900311
Izaak J. L. Connoway, A. Asumang
{"title":"Being At Home or Taking Up Habitation? A Verbal Aspectual Analysis of Christ's Habitation in Ephesians 3:17","authors":"Izaak J. L. Connoway, A. Asumang","doi":"10.1353/neo.2022.a900311","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/neo.2022.a900311","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The prayer in Ephesians 3:16–19 is filled with syntactical oddities and the portrayal of Christ's habitation in the readers' hearts (3:17) is also quite enigmatic. Does it describe the inception of Christ's habitation or his durative habitation? The grammar seems to imply it is a request for Christ to take up habitation (inceptive), while the context (e.g., 2:22) suggests they are already indwelt by Christ (durative). Many commentators favour the latter, though a minority favours the former. This article contributes to the literature on Ephesians 3:17 by employing verbal aspect theory to evaluate the cogency of the inceptive interpretation so as to shed some light on the enigma of Christ's habitation in this verse.We begin with a study of the structural and theological background to the problem. After that, we show the significance of verbal aspect for the Greek verbal system and demonstrate its operation with the tense-mood combinations found in this pericope. Through this, we show that the inceptive interpretation cannot be avoided. Last, we do a theological synthesis to establish the author's communicative purpose and in so doing shed light on the apparent contradiction between the context and grammar of Ephesians 3:17.","PeriodicalId":42126,"journal":{"name":"Neotestamentica","volume":"56 1","pages":"213 - 231"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49363866","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NeotestamenticaPub Date : 2023-06-27DOI: 10.1353/neo.2022.a900312
Juraj Feník
{"title":"Fire and Fire: Luke 3:7–14 and 16:19–31 in Correspondence","authors":"Juraj Feník","doi":"10.1353/neo.2022.a900312","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/neo.2022.a900312","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Luke's Gospel is famous for its impressive series of parallels between John the Baptist and Jesus, including a number of matching points in the ethical teaching of the two. This study, which joins the spate of works highlighting similarities between persons and texts within this Gospel, argues that John's preaching to the crowds in the vicinity of the Jordan river in 3:7–14 and Jesus's parable of the rich man and Lazarus in 16:19–31 represent one such point of correspondence. It accomplishes this objective by demonstrating that a number of lexical and thematic elements in 3:7–14 are echoed in 16:19–31. This leads to the suggestion that Jesus's message, transmitted through this parable, can be interpreted as a reprise of John's preaching at the beginning of the narrative. Since John is portrayed in Luke 3 as a prophet of repentance in the face of the impending judgment, the similarity of Jesus's teaching in Luke 16 to that of John emphasises Jesus's role as a prophet, frequently elaborated in Luke.","PeriodicalId":42126,"journal":{"name":"Neotestamentica","volume":"56 1","pages":"233 - 252"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43010367","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NeotestamenticaPub Date : 2023-06-27DOI: 10.1353/neo.2022.a900313
A. Heidel
{"title":"Perspectives for Reading the Epistle to the Hebrews as a Constructive Contribution to Jewish-Christian Dialogue","authors":"A. Heidel","doi":"10.1353/neo.2022.a900313","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/neo.2022.a900313","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The Epistle to the Hebrews, with its strong antithesis between the old and new covenants, has often been accused of supporting anti-Jewish polemics or even of displaying them itself. Hebrews is thus considered an obstacle to Jewish-Christian dialogue. This contribution aims to further the dialogue. It offers hermeneutical and exegetical perspectives to formulate a positive eschatological view of \"Israel\" from the overall theological witness of Hebrews in analogy to Romans 9–11, without abandoning the Christ-centred soteriology of the letter. These perspectives promote the idea of the one \"believing people of God\" in combination with the eschatological idea in Hebrews 11:39–40, that all believers will together enter their eschatological completion.","PeriodicalId":42126,"journal":{"name":"Neotestamentica","volume":"56 1","pages":"253 - 274"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44159085","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NeotestamenticaPub Date : 2023-06-27DOI: 10.1353/neo.2022.a900319
C. Stenschke
{"title":"Christ, Creation and the Cosmological Goal of Redemption: A Study of Pauline Creation Theology as Read by Irenaeus and Applied to Ecotheology by J. J. Johnson Leese (review)","authors":"C. Stenschke","doi":"10.1353/neo.2022.a900319","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/neo.2022.a900319","url":null,"abstract":"In this study, based on a doctoral dissertation at the University of Durham in 2014, J. J. Johnson Leese examines Paul’s understanding of Jesus Christ’s relationship to creation in relation to Irenaeus of Lyon’s understanding of Paul and the theology of creation, which Irenaeus developed in combatting gnostic heresies. The picture arising from this analysis is then related to the contemporary discussions of the intricate relationship between religion and nature. Leese seeks to examine “how the Pauline corpus might contribute towards a robust creation and ecotheological theology” (1). Leese addresses two research questions:","PeriodicalId":42126,"journal":{"name":"Neotestamentica","volume":"56 1","pages":"367 - 371"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41488451","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
NeotestamenticaPub Date : 2023-06-27DOI: 10.1353/neo.2022.a900318
Frank England
{"title":"The History of the Religious Imagination in Christian Platonism: Exploring the Philosophy of Douglas Hedley ed. by Christian Hengstermann, and: Divine Bodies: Resurrecting Perfection in the New Testament and Early Christianity by Candida R. Moss, and: Broken Bodies: The Eucharist, Mary, and the Body in Trauma Theology by Karen O'Donnell, and: The Cappadocian Mothers: Deification Exemplified in the Writings of Basil, Gregory, and Gregory by Carla D. Sunberg (review)","authors":"Frank England","doi":"10.1353/neo.2022.a900318","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/neo.2022.a900318","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>The History of the Religious Imagination in Christian Platonism: Exploring the Philosophy of Douglas Hedley</em> ed. by Christian Hengstermann, and: <em>Divine Bodies: Resurrecting Perfection in the New Testament and Early Christianity</em> by Candida R. Moss, and: <em>Broken Bodies: The Eucharist, Mary, and the Body in Trauma Theology</em> by Karen O'Donnell, and: <em>The Cappadocian Mothers: Deification Exemplified in the Writings of Basil, Gregory, and Gregory</em> by Carla D. Sunberg <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Frank England </li> </ul> Hengstermann, Christian, ed. 2021. <em>The History of the Religious Imagination in Christian Platonism: Exploring the Philosophy of Douglas Hedley</em>. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1350172968. Pp. 249. $102 (hardcover), $39.95 (paperback). Moss, Candida R. 2019. <em>Divine Bodies: Resurrecting Perfection in the New Testament and Early Christianity</em>. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300179767. Pp. 208. $40.01 (hardcover). O'Donnell, Karen. 2018. <em>Broken Bodies: The Eucharist, Mary, and the Body in Trauma Theology</em>. London: SCM. ISBN 978-0334056249. Pp. 256. $37.97 (hardcover), $37.44 (paperback). Sunberg, Carla D. 2018. <em>The Cappadocian Mothers: Deification Exemplified in the Writings of Basil, Gregory, and Gregory</em>. Cambridge: James Clarke. ISBN 978-1498282437. Pp. 254. $54 (hardcover), $34 (paperback). <h2>Imagining Bodies</h2> <p>Matter matters. In recent years, the awareness that bodies are matter that matters, and that bodies matter in meaning making, interpretative scrutiny and critique, and in the acquisition of knowledge, has achieved prominence in Anglo-American academies. Book cover photographs of authors often depict somewhat pleased countenances basking in their \"new\" discoveries of material existence and \"4E Cognition\" (for a recent and judicious appeal, see Watts 2021). Indeed, their posture, wide smiles, and self-congratulatory anticipation of expected approval is itself embodied mattering. But an occasional meeting with a distant southern colleague who greets them with a bear hug and then holds their hand for an entire conversation, or their participation in a peace-exchanging social scrum during the Eucharist in a local parish church of their same icily detached northern denomination, may lead them to question the \"newness\" of embodied meaning—at least, in pre- and post-Covid-19 times. In this respect, there is a forlorn corner of NT research in which matter matters so much that, not infrequently, it is politely ignored. <strong>[End Page 361]</strong></p> <p>In the Apostles' Creed, Christians continue to affirm their faith in \"the resurrection of the body.\" But what does this mean? Exploring this question in a first-century context, Candida Moss returns to the post-death appearances of Jesus and the gospel noti","PeriodicalId":42126,"journal":{"name":"Neotestamentica","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138539099","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}