You may have to register before you can download all our books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Few New Testament topics have been discussed as often and as intensely as Q, the hypothesized second major source alongside the gospel of Mark for the gospels of Matthew and Luke, and the parables. And yet, no monograph to date has been devoted to considering the parables in Q. In addition to filling this gap in New Testament scholarship, Dieter T. Roth addresses the need to move scholarship on both Q and the parables forward along methodological and interpretive lines. Roth considers Q not as a text behind Matthew and Luke that needs to be reconstructed but rather as an intertext between Matthew and Luke that offered plots, characters, and images in parables that were taken up by Matthew and Luke and utilized in their own respective texts. In addition, Roth draws on recent parables research in his examination of the 27 parables in Q (two spoken by John the Baptist, one by the Centurion, and 24 by Jesus) in order to consider their purpose and function in this early Christian text.
An internationally renowned Jesus scholar rethinks our knowledge of the historical Jesus in light of recent progress in the scientific study of memory.
The Q-Hypothesis has functioned as a mainstay of study of the synoptic gospels for many years. Increasingly it comes under fire. In this volume leading proponents of Q, as well as of the case against Q, offer the latest arguments based on the latest research into this literary conundrum. The contributors to the volume include John Kloppenborg, Christopher Tuckett, Clare Rothschild, Mark Goodacre, and Francis Watson. The Q-Hypothesis is examined in depth and the discussion moves back and forth over Q's strengths and weaknesses. As such the volume sheds light on how the gospels were composed, and how we can view them in their final literary forms.
A provocative reinterpretation of accounts of spirit possession and exorcism in early Christianity The earliest Christian writings are filled with stories of possession and exorcism, which were crucial for the activity of the historical Jesus and for the practice of the earliest groups of his followers. Most critical scholarship, however, regularly marginalizes these topics or discards them altogether in reconstructing early Christian history. This innovative book approaches the study of possession from a different methodological angle by using a comparative lens that includes contemporary ethnographies of possession cross-culturally. Possession, besides being a harmful event that should be exorcized, can also have a positive role in many cultures. Often it helps individuals and groups to reflect on and reshape their identity, to plan their moral actions, and to remember in a most vivid way their past. When read in light of these materials, these ancient documents reveal the religious, cultural, and social meaning that the experience of possession had for the early Christ groups.
For a long time mainstream gospel scholarship has assumed that the so-called Q material (the "double tradition") in Matthew and Luke represents a document or tradition that was almost exclusively orientated towards the sayings of Jesus of Nazareth, with little interest in a narrative about him. This book argues, on the contrary, that the narrative material in the double tradition existed from the very beginning within a coherent Jesus narrative that ran from his baptism to his passion. Far from being inserted by Matthew and Luke into the framework of Mark, the double tradition is structured on the very same narrative framework as the Gospel of Mark (a framework that predates Mark). Conventional dichotomies in gospel origins, the historical Jesus, and the history of early Christianity are thus drawn into question.
V. 1. How to study the historical Jesus -- v. 2. The study of Jesus -- v. 3. The historical Jesus -- v. 4. Individual studies.
This publication updates Bruce Metzger's monumental Index to the present. In addition to all the periodicals indexed by Metzger (where these are still active), this volume updates the list with a number of newer periodicals which had not yet begun publication when Metzger compiled his work. Metzger's original citations (10.000+) are complemented by an additional 4.800+ new references, using the same basic arrangement employed by Metzger.
How can we explain the difference between the "miraculous" Christianity expressed in the Gospels and the nearly miracle-free Christianity of Paul? In this historically informed study, senior New Testament scholar Graham Twelftree challenges the view that Paul was primarily a thinker and reimagines him as an apostle of Jesus for whom the miraculous was of profound importance. Highlighting often-overlooked material in Paul's letters, Twelftree offers a fresh consideration of what the life and work of Paul might teach us about miracles in early Christianity and sheds light on how early Christians lived out their faith.
Back cover: Recently reconstructed by scholars, Q is one of the New Testament's earliest source documents. Olegs Andrejevs performs a new literary-critical, narrative, and philological analysis of a number of Q passages, supplementing it with recent advances made in the study of Jewish apocalyptic literature.
Tucker S. Ferda examines the theory of the Galilean crisis: the notion that the historical Jesus himself had grappled with the failure of his mission to Israel. While this theory has been neglected since the 19th century, due to research moving to consider the response of the early church to the rejection of the gospel, Ferda now provides fresh insight on Jesus' own potential crisis of faith. Ferda begins by reconstructing the origin of the crisis theory, expanding upon histories of New Testament research and considering the contributions made before Hermann Samuel Reimarus. He shows how the crisis theory was shaped by earlier and so-called “pre-critical” gospel interpretation and examines how, despite the claims of modern scholarship, the logic of the crisis theory is still a part of current debate. Finally, Ferda argues that while the crisis theory is a failed hypothesis, its suggestions on early success and growing opposition in the ministry, as well as its claim that Jesus met and responded to disappointing cases of rejection, should be revisited. This book resurrects key historical aspects of the crisis theory for contemporary scholarship.