This collection of essays is presented in honour of John C. Hurd on the occasion of his retirement as Professor of New Testament at Trinity College, Toronto, and in recognition of a distinguished career in the fields of Pauline studies and computing in the humanities. Given Professor Hurd's interest in Christian origins and methodology, it is appropriate that the contributors to this volume deal with the origin and development of various aspects of Judaism and Christianity. In particular they highlight how a greater attentiveness to method has resulted in a reshaping of our understanding of Christianity or Judaism. The volume is divided into three parts: 'New Understandings of Paul', 'New Understandings of the New Testament', and 'New Understandings of the Relationship between Judaism and Christianity'. Contributors include Walter Aufrecht, Karl Donfried, Robert Grant, John Kloppenborg, Gerd Ludemann and Wayne McCready.

This volume celebrates the scholarship of Alan Segal. During his prolific career, Alan published ground-breaking studies that shifted scholarly conversations about Christianity, rabbinic Judaism, Hellenism and Gnosticism. Like the subjects of his research, Alan crossed many boundaries. He understood that religions do not operate in academically defined silos, but in complex societies populated by complicated human beings. Alan’s work engaged with a variety of social-scientific theories that illuminated ancient sources and enabled him to reveal new angles on familiar material. This interdisciplinary approach enabled Alan to propose often controversial theories about Jewish and Christian origins. A new generation of scholars has been nurtured on this approach and the fields of early Judaism and Christianity emerge radically redefined as a result.

Debate about church order has gone on for centuries within Christianity, and an end is nowhere in sight. Perhaps that is good, since the debate shows the weaknesses of many ideas that need correction. Corporate Decision-Making examines church order from a careful exegetical perspective, with particular attention to the social world of the New Testament. While most works about church government address structure and qualities of leadership, Brown deals with the interaction of the people of the church, both with their leaders and with one another, in setting policy. In brief, though all believers in the young church of the New Testament revered Christ and his Word as authoritative, not all church decisions were "top down" from earthly leaders. On the contrary, many were "from the bottom up." This should come as no surprise to those familiar with Jesus' admonition in the Gospels, "You have one teacher, and you are all brothers."

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This is the nineteenth volume of the hard-copy edition of a journal that has been published online (www.jgrchj.net) since 2000. The scope of JGRChJ is the texts, languages and cultures of the Greco-Roman world of early Christianity and Judaism. The papers published in JGRChJ are designed to pay special attention to the ‘larger picture’ of politics, culture, religion and language, engaging as well with modern theoretical approaches.

For those of you who like jargon, this book is about propaganda, protreptics, apologetics and polemics. For those of you who don't, this is a study of ancient religious discourse and the interaction between different religious groups.

Terence L. Donaldson's scholarship in the field of New Testament studies is vital, as he has pressed scholars to pay closer attention to the complex relations between early Christ-followers-who were mostly non-Jews-and the Jewish matrix from which the narrative of the Christian proclamation comes from. This volume allows prominent New Testament scholars to engage Donaldson's contributions, both to sharpen some of his conclusions and to honour him for his work. These essays are located at the intersections of three bodies of literature-Matthew, Paul and Second Temple Jewish Literature-and themes and questions that have been central to Donaldson's work: Christian Judaism and the Parting of the Ways; Gentiles in Judaism and early Christianity; Anti-Judaism in early Christianity. With contributions ranging from remapping Paul within Jewish ideologies, and Paul among friends and enemies, to socio-cultural readings of Matthew, and construction of Christian Identity through stereotypes of the Scribes and Pharisees, this book provides a multi-scholar tribute to Donaldson's accomplishments.

A unique variety of approaches to all aspects of urban culture in the ancient world can be found in Urban Dreams and Realities in Antiquity, a collection of 19 essays addressing ancient cities from an interdisciplinary perspective. As the title indicates, the volume considers both how ancient people lived in their cities as physical structures and how they thought with them as ideas and symbols. Essays in this volume deal with texts and sites from Spain to South India, but there is a particular focus on the archaeology and epigraphy of Roman-era Italy, civic identity in the Roman provinces, the Hebrew Bible and Early Christian literature, Vergil and other imperial Latin authors.

This book provides an interpretation of Galatians 6:11-17 which yields significant insights about Paul's perception of the crisis in Galatia, and the solution he presents to his readers in light of it. In the first section of the book, the epistolary form and function of Galatians 6:11-17 are analysed. Revealed as a body-closing, it works to sharpen and complete Paul's message by spelling out his motivation for writing and establishing the basis for further communication with his readers. The theme of persecution in the letter is then seen rendered both explicitly and implicitly through the examination of pertinent passages. These indicate that all parties involved share some connection to persecution. Finally, an exegetical analysis of Galatians 6:11-17 reveals Paul's claim that the agitators' primary motive is to avoid persecution 'because of the cross of Christ.' He contrasts them with himself by 'boasting' in that same cross. The net effect is that Paul draws on both the redemptive moment of Jesus' death, and the ongoing cross-shaped life he lives, to validate his apostleship.