"How does Paul's bodily mortality both collapse his apostolic authority in Corinth and yet confirm his gospel? Richard I. Deibert explores the vital relationship between Paul's experience of death and his theology of death."--Back cover.

Solving the mystery of Satan's messenger Paul's enigmatic "thorn in the flesh" in 2 Corinthians has baffled interpreters for centuries. Many offer suggestions as to the identity of Satan's messenger; others despair that the puzzle is unsolvable. In Paul's Thorn in the Flesh: New Clues for an Old Problem, Kenneth Berding reopens the case. He follows a trail of clues that includes ancient beliefs about curses, details from Paul's letters, Jesus's own suffering, and the testimony of the earliest Christian interpreters. Berding offers twenty criteria—some familiar, others neglected—that any proposal must explain. While the usual suspects fall short, Berding suggests a new solution—one that satisfies all the evidence and gives us a fuller view of Paul. Far from an abstract puzzle, Paul's own suffering is relevant to Christians today. Paul's Thorn in the Flesh is an accessible study that casts new light on Pauline studies, first--century background, and theological and pastoral concerns.

These essays examine how various communities remembered and commemorated their shared past through the lens of utopia and its corollary, dystopia, providing a framework for the reinterpretation of rapidly changing religious, cultural, and political realities of the turbulent period from 300 to 750 CE. The common theme of the chapters is the utopian ideals of religious groups, whether these are inscribed on the body, on the landscape, in texts, or on other cultural objects. The volume is the first to apply this conceptual framework to Late Antiquity, when historically significant conflicts arose between the adherents of four major religious identities: Greaco-Roman 'pagans', newly dominant Christians; diaspora Jews, who were more or less persecuted, depending on the current regime; and the emerging religion and power of Islam. Late Antiquity was thus a period when dystopian realities competed with memories of a mythical Golden Age, variously conceived according to the religious identity of the group. The contributors come from a range of disciplines, including cultural studies, religious studies, ancient history, and art history, and employ both theoretical and empirical approaches. This volume is unique in the range of evidence it draws upon, both visual and textual, to support the basic argument that utopia in Late Antiquity, whether conceived spiritually, artistically, or politically, was a place of the past but also of the future, even of the afterlife. Memories of Utopia will be of interest to historians, archaeologists, and art historians of the later Roman Empire, and those working on religion in Late Antiquity and Byzantium.

This extract from the Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible provides Prinslo’s introduction to and concise commentary on Psalms. The Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible presents, in nontechnical language, the best of modern scholarship on each book of the Bible, including the Apocrypha. Reader-friendly commentary complements succinct summaries of each section of the text and will be valuable to scholars, students, and general readers. Rather than attempt a verse-by-verse analysis, these volumes work from larger sense units, highlighting the place of each passage within the overarching biblical story. Commentators focus on the genre of each text—parable, prophetic oracle, legal code, and so on—interpreting within the historical and literary context. The volumes also address major issues within each biblical book—including the range of possible interpretations—and refer readers to the best resources for further discussions.

One in an ongoing series of esteemed and popular Bible commentary volumes based on the New International Version text.