This work serves as an investigation of the Isis cult by tracing its development from Egypt into Greco-Roman society. The origin of the Isis cult is described by using the accounts of Plutarch, Apuleius, and Diodorus before examining the effects of Isis on Egyptian culture. The Isis cult soon overflows into the Greco-Roman world. While this mysterious religion initially encounters opposition, especially since it clashes with Roman patriarchal society, it overcomes these limitations.
Paul, Politics, and New Creation: Reconsidering Paul and Empire nuances Paul’s relationship with the Roman Empire. Using rhetorical, sociohistorical, and theological methods, Najeeb T. Haddad reevaluates claims of Paul’s anti-imperialism by situating him in his proper Hellenistic Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts.
Paul's view of the church as the temple and his concern about its purity in 1-2 Corinthians has traditionally been interpreted from the perspective of a Jewish background. However, Yulin Liu reveals that the pagans were very aware of temple purity when visiting some temples in the Greco-Roman world, and the purification concerns of three pagan temples in Corinth are documented in his work. The author affirms that the Gentile believers among the Corinthian community were able to grasp Paul's message because of it. Also, Liu investigates Paul's use of temple purity to address the necessity of unity, holiness and faithfulness of the Corinthian Christians in an eschatological sense. The separation of God's people from profane matters actually points to a new exodus and a progressive consummation of the construction of the eschatological temple-community.
Scholars are divided in their views about the teachings on riches in 1 Timothy. Evidence that has been largely overlooked in NT scholarship appears in Ephesiaca by Xenophon of Ephesus and suggests that the topic be revisited. Recently dated to the mid-first century C.E., Ephesiaca brings to life what is known from ancient sources about the social setting and cultural rules of the wealthy in Ephesus and provides details that enhance our knowledge of life and society in that place and time. In this volume, Hoag introduces Ephesiaca and employs a socio-rhetorical methodology to explore it alongside other ancient evidence and five passages in 1 Timothy (2:9–15; 3:1–13; 6:1–2a; 6:2b–10; and 6:17–19). His findings augment our modern conception of the Sitz im Leben of the wealthy in Ephesus. Additionally, because Ephesiaca contains some rare terms and themes that are found in 1 Timothy, this groundbreaking research offers fresh insight for biblical reading and interpretation.
Volume 2 of Women in the Biblical World: A Survey of Old and New Testament Perspectives encompasses the latest research in feminist biblical scholarship. New angles of interpretation and fresh perspectives regarding often overlooked biblical women will be gained from the pages of this volume. This volume focuses on such women as Tamar, Deborah, Manoah's wife, Queen Vashti, and Job's wife. Attention is also given to socio-historical backgrounds lurking behind the biblical text (such as women in Greco-Roman education and syncretism in Ephesus), demonstrating how these backgrounds directly influenced the writings about women. Some emphasis on contemporary application is also stressed regarding problematic passages, such as 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. This multi-faceted approach to women in the Bible will prove to be invigorating, refreshing, and enlightening for all to read.
This study investigates why "faith" (pistis/fides) was so important to early Christians that the concept and praxis dominated the writings of the New Testament. It argues that such a study must be interdisciplinary, locating emerging Christianities in the social practices and mentalites of contemporary Judaism and the early Roman empire. This can, therefore, equally be read as a study of the operation of pistis/fides in the world of the early Roman principate, taking one small but relatively well-attested cult as a case study in how micro-societies within that world could treat it distinctively. Drawing on recent work in sociology and economics, the book traces the varying shapes taken by pistis/fides in Greek and Roman human and divine-human relationships: whom or what is represented as easy or difficult to trust or believe in; where pistis/fides is "deferred" and "reified" in practices such as oaths and proofs; how pistis/fides is related to fear, doubt and scepticism; and which foundations of pistis/fides are treated as more or less secure. The book then traces the evolution of representations of human and divine-human pistis in the Septuagint, before turning to pistis/pisteuein in New Testament writings and their role in the development of early Christologies (incorporating a new interpretation of pistis Christou) and ecclesiologies. It argues for the integration of the study of pistis/pisteuein with that of New Testament ethics. It explores the interiority of Graeco-Roman and early Christian pistis/fides. Finally, it discusses eschatological pistis and the shape of the divine-human community in the eschatological kingdom.
The extraordinary daughter of Cleopatra and Mark Antony seeks to reclaim her birthright in the first novel of an epic historical fiction trilogy from the New York Times bestselling author of America's First Daughter. From the first breath of her life, young Princess Selene understands herself to be a cherished daughter and the future queen of Egypt. But when Alexandria falls and her parents are forced into suicide, the once-pampered princess and her two surviving brothers are left at the mercy of their captors and dragged through the streets of Rome in chains. Trapped in an empire that reviles her heritage and is suspect of her faith, Selene struggles for survival in a court of intrigue. She can’t hide the hieroglyphics that carve themselves into her hands, nor can she stop the Roman emperor from using her powers for his own ends. Faced with a new and ruthless Caesar who is obsessed with having a Cleopatra of his very own, Selene is determined to resurrect her mother’s dreams and succeed where she failed. But there’s no telling what success will cost her in a treacherous political game where the only rule is win or die....
An unusually polyvalent symbol, fire assumes numerous functions in the Bible. It is a defining feature of theophanies, it serves as an instrument of judgment, and in some instances it cleanses and purifies. Examining a complex of traditions ranging from John the Baptist to Jesus of Nazareth and from the Pauline to the Petrine Epistles, Daniel Frayer-Griggs identifies a recurring motif in the New Testament, arguing that these disparate traditions, which appear in both very early and very late New Testament texts, testify to a shared belief that everyone--both the righteous and the wicked--would be subjected to eschatological judgment by fire and that the righteous would experience this judgment as a fiery ordeal through which they would be tested and, in some cases, ultimately purified.
Isis has a history spanning millennia and an influence stretching across land and sea. She is a Goddess who transcends time and geography, remaining one of the most popular Goddesses from the ancient world to this day. The book explores Isis' mythic journey and how she became the Goddess we recognise today. Striking a balance between the old and the new, Pagan Portals - Isis provides an historical account of her mythology and worship alongside modern Pagan perspectives and offers the reader tools for Isis' contemporary veneration.
This book investigates the long-term continuity of large-scale states and empires, and its effect on the Near East’s social fabric, including the fundamental changes that occurred to major social institutions. Its geographical coverage spans, from east to west, modern-day Libya and Egypt to Central Asia, and from north to south, Anatolia to southern Arabia, incorporating modern-day Oman and Yemen. Its temporal coverage spans from the late eighth century BCE to the seventh century CE during the rise of Islam and collapse of the Sasanian Empire. The authors argue that the persistence of large states and empires starting in the eighth/seventh centuries BCE, which continued for many centuries, led to new socio-political structures and institutions emerging in the Near East. The primary processes that enabled this emergence were large-scale and long-distance movements, or population migrations. These patterns of social developments are analysed under different aspects: settlement patterns, urban structure, material culture, trade, governance, language spread and religion, all pointing at movement as the main catalyst for social change. This book’s argument is framed within a larger theoretical framework termed as ‘universalism’, a theory that explains many of the social transformations that happened to societies in the Near East, starting from the Neo-Assyrian period and continuing for centuries. Among other influences, the effects of these transformations are today manifested in modern languages, concepts of government, universal religions and monetized and globalized economies.
