Jirǐ ̌Dvorǎćěk examines the usage of the messianic title Son of David in Matthew's Gospel against the background of contemporary Jewish ideas, focusing especially on how the Solomon as exorcist tradition shaped Matthew's final portrait of Jesus as the healing Messiah.
Contrary to the prevailing view that βασιλεία is a verbal noun signifying God’s rule, this study demonstrates how the term’s pragmatic range in Matthew’s Gospel covers both five distinct types of use and their integration into a coherent concept. The study, which is the first to examine all occurrences of βασιλεία in the First Gospel from the perspective of semantic monosemy, extends and enhances our appreciation of the Matthean Zentralbegriff, and engenders a more accurate apprehension of the nature and aims of the Matthean narrative and the theological views it conveys.
Although the Gospel of Matthew emphasizes Jesus as the son of David, no one has systematically investigated how 1-2 Samuel influence Matthew's portrayal of Jesus as the son of David. This work addresses that lacuna and shows how the sustained use of 1-2 Samuel in Matthew evokes the themes of mercy and righteousness as the hallmarks of a proper Davidic shepherd. The book's systematic intertextual and narrative approach offers another way to understand Matthew’s Christology and portrayal of the kingdom of heaven. It helps the reader appreciate the justice-focused nature of Jesus’ rule and its religious and political implications.
In this book, Matthew Levering unites eschatologically charged biblical Christology with metaphysical and dogmatic Thomistic Christology, by highlighting the typological Christologies shared by Scripture, the Church Fathers, and Aquinas. Like the Church Fathers, Aquinas often reflected upon Jesus in typological terms (especially in his biblical commentaries), just as the New Testament does. Showing the connections between New Testament, Patristic, and Aquinas' own typological portraits of Jesus, Levering reveals how the eschatological Jesus of biblical scholarship can be integrated with Thomistic Christology. His study produces a fully contemporary Thomistic Christology that unites ressourcement and Thomistic modes of theological inquiry, thereby bridging two schools of contemporary theology that too often are imagined as rivals. Levering's book reflects and augments the current resurgence of Thomistic Christology as an ecumenical project of relevance to all Christians.
In this book, Michael Patrick Barber examines the role of the Jerusalem temple in the teaching of the historical Jesus. Drawing on recent discussions about methodology and memory research in Jesus studies, he advances a fresh approach to reconstructing Jesus' teaching. Barber argues that Jesus did not reject the temple's validity but that he likely participated in and endorsed its rites. Moreover, he locates Jesus' teaching within Jewish apocalyptic eschatology, showing that Jesus' message about the coming kingdom and his disciples' place in it likely involved important temple and priestly traditions that have been ignored by the quest. Barber also highlights new developments in scholarship on the Gospel of Matthew to show that its Jewish perspective offers valuable but overlooked clues about the kinds of concerns that would have likely shaped Jesus' outlook. A bold approach to a key topic in biblical studies, Barber's book is a pioneering contribution to Jesus scholarship.
This book surveys the current landscape of New Testament studies, offering readers a concise guide to contemporary discussions. Bringing together a diverse group of experts, it covers research on the most important issues in New Testament studies, including new discipline areas, making it an ideal supplemental textbook for a variety of courses on the New Testament. Michael Bird, David Capes, Greg Carey, Lynn Cohick, Dennis Edwards, Michael Gorman, and Abson Joseph are among the contributors.
Papers collected in this volume try to illuminate various aspects of philosophical theology dealt with by different Jewish and early Christian authors and texts (e.g. the Acts of the Apostles, Philo, Origen, Gregory of Nazianzus), rooted in and influenced by the Hellenistic religious, cultural, and philosophical context, and they also focus on the literary and cultural traditions of Hellenized Judaism and its reception (e.g. Sibylline Oracles, Prayer of Manasseh), including material culture ("Elephant Mosaic Panel" from Huqoq synagogue). By studying the Hellenistic influences on early Christianity, both in response to and in reaction against early Hellenized Judaism, the volume intends not only to better understand Christianity, as a religious and historical phenomenon with a profound impact on the development of European civilization, but also to better comprehend Hellenism and its consequences which have often been relegated to the realm of political history.
A comprehensive introduction to ancient wisdom literature, with fascinating essays on a broad range of topics. The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Wisdom Literature is a wide-ranging introduction to the texts, themes, and receptions of the wisdom literature of the Bible and the ancient world. This comprehensive volume brings together original essays from established scholars and emerging voices to offer a variety of perspectives on the “wisdom” biblical books, early Christian and rabbinic literature, and beyond. Varied and engaging essays provide fresh insights on topics of timeless relevance, exploring the distinct features of instructional texts and discussing their interpretation in both antiquity and the modern world. Designed for non-specialists, this accessible volume provides readers with balanced coverage of traditional biblical wisdom texts, including Proverbs, Job, Psalms, and Ecclesiastes; lesser-known Egyptian and Mesopotamian wisdom; and African proverbs. The contributors explore topics ranging from scribes and pedagogy in ancient Israel, to representations of biblical wisdom literature in contemporary cinema. Offering readers a fresh and interesting way to engage with wisdom literature, this book: Discusses sapiential books and traditions in various historical and cultural contexts Offers up-to-date discussion on the study of the biblical wisdom books Features essays on the history of interpretation and theological reception Includes essays covering the antecedents and afterlife of the texts Part of the acclaimed Wiley Blackwell Companions to Religion series, the Companion to Wisdom Literature is a valuable resource for university, seminary and divinity school students and instructors, scholars and researchers, and general readers with interest in the subject.
A leading New Testament scholar provides an easy-to-navigate resource for studying and understanding the Gospels. Written with classroom utility and pastoral application in mind, this accessibly written volume summarizes the content of each major section of the biblical text to help students, pastors, and laypeople quickly grasp the sense of particular passages. The series, modeled after Baker Academic's successful Old Testament Handbook series, focuses primarily on the content of the biblical books without getting bogged down in historical-critical questions or detailed verse-by-verse exegesis. The book covers all four Gospels and explores each major passage, showing how Jesus is the central figure of each plot. It also unpacks how the Old Testament informs the Gospels.