Ephrem the Syrian
Ephrem the Syrian

Author: Saint Ephraem (Syrus)

Publisher: Paulist Press

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 500

ISBN-13: 9780809130931

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In this volume is a translation of a collection of hymns of Christ, composed by Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306-373), the most famous and prolific of the Fathers of the Syriac-speaking Church.

The Gnostic Bible
The Gnostic Bible

Author: Willis Barnstone

Publisher: Shambhala Publications

Published: 2009-06-30

Total Pages: 874

ISBN-13: 0834824140

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A collection of Gnostic texts spanning centuries, geographical locations, and cultural traditions—“a wonderful achievement” (Elaine Pagels, author of The Gnostic Gospels) Gnosticism was a wide-ranging religious movement of the first millennium CE—with earlier antecedents and later flourishings—whose adherents sought salvation through knowledge and personal religious experience. Gnostic writings offer striking perspectives on both early Christian and non-Christian thought. For example, some gnostic texts suggest that god should be celebrated as both mother and father, and that self-knowledge is the supreme path to the divine. Only in the past fifty years has it become clear how far the gnostic influence spread in ancient and medieval religions—and what a marvelous body of scriptures it produced. The selections gathered here in poetic, readable translation represent Jewish, Christian, Hermetic, Mandaean, Manichaean, Islamic, and Cathar expressions of gnostic spirituality. Their regions of origin include Egypt, the Greco-Roman world, the Middle East, Syria, Iraq, China, and France. Also included are introductions, notes, an extensive glossary, and a wealth of suggestions for further reading.

Papers Presented at the Fourteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies Held in Oxford 2003: Liturgia et cultus; Theologica et philosophica; Critica et philologica; Nachleben; First two centuries
Papers Presented at the Fourteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies Held in Oxford 2003: Liturgia et cultus; Theologica et philosophica; Critica et philologica; Nachleben; First two centuries

Author: Frances Margaret Young

Publisher: Peeters Publishers

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 550

ISBN-13: 9789042918832

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Papers presented at the Fourteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2003 (see also Studia Patristica 39, 41, 42 and 43). The successive sets of Studia Patristica contain papers delivered at the International Conferences on Patristic Studies, which meet for a week once every four years in Oxford; they are held under the aegis of the Theology Faculty of the University. Members of these conferences come from all over the world and most offer papers. These range over the whole field, both East and West, from the second century to a section on the Nachleben of the Fathers. The majority are short papers dealing with some small and manageable point; they raise and sometimes resolve questions about the authenticity of documents, dates of events, and such like, and some unveil new texts. The smaller number of longer papers put such matters into context and indicate wider trends. The whole reflects the state of Patristic scholarship and demonstrates the vigour and popularity of the subject.

Reading with an "I" to the Heavens
Reading with an

Author: Angela Kim Harkins

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2012-07-04

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 3110251817

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This book examines the collection of prayers known as the Qumran Hodayot (= Thanksgiving Hymns) in light of ancient visionary traditions, new developments in neuropsychology, and post-structuralist understandings of the embodied subject. The thesis of this book is that the ritualized reading of reports describing visionary experiences written in the first person "I" had the potential to create within the ancient reader the subjectivity of a visionary which can then predispose him to have a religious experience. This study examines how references to the body and the strategic arousal of emotions could have functioned within a practice of performative reading to engender a religious experience of ascent. In so doing, this book offers new interdisciplinary insights into meditative ritual reading as a religious practice for transformation in antiquity.

Teaching Through Song in Antiquity
Teaching Through Song in Antiquity

Author: Matthew E. Gordley

Publisher: Mohr Siebeck

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 476

ISBN-13: 9783161507229

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While scholars of antiquity have long spoken of didactic hymns, no single volume has defined or explored this phenomenon across cultural boundaries in antiquity. In this monograph Matthew E. Gordley provides a broad definition of didactic hymnody and examines how didactic hymns functioned at the intersection of historical circumstances and the needs of a given community to perceive itself and its place in the cosmos and to respond accordingly. Comparing the use of didactic hymnody in a variety of traditions, this study illuminates the multifaceted ways that ancient hymns and psalms contributed to processes of communal formation among the human audiences that participated in the praise either as hearers or active participants. The author finds that in Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian contexts, many hymns and prayers served a didactic role fostering the ongoing development of a sense of identity within particular communities.

Proclamation and Praise
Proclamation and Praise

Author: Ronald Man

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2007-09-01

Total Pages: 119

ISBN-13: 1556350562

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An important missing element in today's raging worship debates is a proper acknowledgment of the continuing ministry of the living Christ in mediating and leading our worship. This is a crucial truth that transcends issues of style and form and thus provides a foundation for a unified and unifying understanding of worship, in spite of the wide diversity of worship expressions that has always characterized the body of Christ. The wonderful fact is that we are not left to worship God on our own strength! Rather, the grace of God, which is so abundantly provided to us for our salvation and sanctification, can be seen to be just as operational and effectual when it comes to our worship. Our worship is acceptable and pleasing to God not because of any inherent excellence of its own, but because we come in Christ and his righteousness into the Father's presence. In Hebrews 2:12 we find an amazingly succinct yet powerful description of the two-way mediating ministry of Christ: he continues to be the agent of God's revelation to us and also serves as the leader and facilitator of our response back to God in worship. Christ does not just open or show us the way into the Father's presence in worship; he actively leads us, takes us with him so that we might enjoy the same relationship of love and fellowship that he himself enjoys with the Father. This transforming understanding opens up a wide range of complementary truths concerning the Trinitarian and Christological implications of worship--with profound implications for our churches.

Critical Reflections on the Odes of Solomon
Critical Reflections on the Odes of Solomon

Author: James H. Charlesworth

Publisher: Burns & Oates

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13:

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The Odes of Solomon is recognized as the earliest Christian hymnbook. Questions, however, abound. Are the Odes essentially Jewish, Jewish-Christian, gnostic, or simply Christian? There is wide agreement that the Odes are related in some way to the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gospel of John. Charlesworth argues that the Odes were composed in an early form of Aramaic-Syriac and, like the Psalter, in poetic parallelism. Pointing to parallels with the Thanksgiving Hymns and other Qumran texts, he concludes that the Odist had probably been an Essene before he became a Christian, a member of the Johannine community.

Ancient Texts for New Testament Studies
Ancient Texts for New Testament Studies

Author: Craig A. Evans

Publisher: Hendrickson Publishers

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 584

ISBN-13:

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One of the daunting challenges facing the New Testament interpreter is achieving familiarity with the immense corpus of Greco-Roman, Jewish, and pagan primary source materials. From the Paraphrase of Shem to Pesiqta Rabbati, scholars and students alike must have a fundamental understanding of these documents' content, provenance, and place in NT interpretation. But achieving even an elementary facility with this literature often requires years of experience, or a photographic memory. Evans's dexterous survey-a thoroughly revised and significantly expanded edition of his Noncanonical Writings and New Testament Interpretation - amasses the requisite details of date, language, text, translation, and general bibliography. Evans also evaluates the materials' relevance for interpreting the NT. The vast range of literature examined includes the Old Testament apocrypha, the Old Testament pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, assorted ancient translations of the Old Testament and the Targum paraphrases, Philo and Josephus, the New Testament pseudepigrapha, the early church fathers, various gnostic writings, and more. the NT, and a comparison of Jesus' parables with those of the rabbis will further save the interpreter precious time.