Michael Labahn

Andreas Schmidt-Rhaesa

The first part of this collection is devoted to one of the key questions of the 'Synoptic Problem': the literary and christological relationship between Mark and Q. The second part deals with the 'Third Quest' for the historical Jesus, concentrating on his teaching and its cultural context. These interrelated themes each attract detailed analysis of their methodology as well as their impact on New Testament studies generally, providing a very useful introduction to the state of research in these important fields.

The Teaching of Jesus and Its Earliest Records

Jesus, Mark and Q

Outi Lethipuu

This collection of essays investigates signs of toleration, recognition, respect and other positive forms of interaction between and within religious groups of late antiquity. At the same time, it acknowledges that examples of tolerance are significantly fewer in ancient sources than examples of intolerance and are often limited to insiders, while outsiders often met with contempt, or even outright violence. The essays take both perspectives seriously by analysing the complexity pertaining to these encounters. Religious concerns, ethnicity, gender and other social factors central to identity formation were often intertwined and they yielded different ways of drawing the limits of tolerance and intolerance. This book enhances our understanding of the formative centuries of Jewish and Christian religious traditions. It also brings the results of historical inquiry into dialogue with present-day questions of religious tolerance.

Tolerance, Intolerance, and Recognition in Early Christianity and Early Judaism

Most of the articles wore presented and discussed at the seminar Early Christianity between Judaism and Hellenism at the Annual Meeting of the European Association of Biblical Studies in Piliscsaba and Budapest. Hungary, in August 2006. The anthropological quest is still one of the classical approaches in historical-critical as well as in other methodological approaches to the New Testament. The complexity of anthropological ideas in the New Testament is seldom presented neither explicitly nor in clearly defined terms, but rather in stories about human beings or their (inter-)actions and/or parenetic teaching that is based on some, often unstated, presuppositions of what humans are like. The different essays in Anthropology in the New Testament and its Ancient Context are raking care of this complex situation and address a selection of important problems from the variety of ideas on anthropology in Early Christianity as well as in its Jewish and its Hellenistic context. The book does not aim to show a coherent New Testament anthropology as it is to write a coherent New Testament theology, but rather tries to present new insights into the complexity of ancient anthropological discourses. With that aim the collection includes presentations on the human body and its purity --- a key feature in many ancient cultures and their anthropological systems, questions of purity and impurity, on the key anthropological terms σαρξ and αωμα Paul, how a Greco-Roman reader would understand Paul's anthropological reasoning. Paul's anthropology is also set in relation to Philo's view of humanity. Platonic, tripartite anthropology is also part of an article analyzing the common elements in the teaching concerning the human soul among Sethian, Valentinian and Platonic writers. Conversion, another kind of adaptation of a Hellenistic philosophical concept to early Christianity, different early Christian ideas of the resurrected body, and so-called "sepulchral anthropology" are further subjects addressed in the book which finally deals with selected anthropological imagery in the Gospel of John and with anthropological perspectives in Hebrews. The book contains contributions by Ida Frochlich.Tom Holmen, Lorenzo Scornaienchi, Martin Meiser, George van Kooten, Pnivi Vahakangas, Miguel Herrero de Jauregui, Outi Lehtipuu. Imre Peres, Margareta Gruber and Walter Ubelacker. The essays offer some new angles, new methodological approaches and important insights relevant to anthropological views in the New Testament.

Papers from the EABS-meeting in Piliscaba/Budapest

Anthropology in the New Testament and Its Ancient Context

Jürgen Zangenberg

Imperial Rome truly was one of the most "multicultural" cities in antiquity. Syrians, Africans, Gauls, Egyptians, Jews and other groups flocked into the city and formed their communities—as well as Christians. The essays here examine questions such as: How did these ethnic and religious minority groups maintain and develop their identity? How did the "cultural majority" react towards these sometimes exotic groups? The first section gives a general survey about living conditions in early Christian Rome and how Christians, Jews and Egyptians related to their urban context. The second part focuses on the interaction between majorities and minorities in the early Christian community of Rome on the basis of New Testament texts and traditions. The third and final part follows the development of the post-New Testament Christian community into the second and third centuries.

Modes of Interaction and Identity Formation in Early Imperial Rome

Christians as a Religious Minority in a Multicultural City

L. J. Lietaert Peerbolte

The various contributions intend to demonstrate for what reason miracle stories were told in different religious, political and historical circumstances. All authors are experts in their field and position the narrating of miracle stories within a specific literary and religio-historical context.

The Purpose of Narrating Miracle Stories in the New Testament and Its Religious Environment

Wonders Never Cease

This collection explores the importance of magic within Early Christianity

Michael Labahn

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