Die Eucharistie ist Jesus
Die Eucharistie ist Jesus

Author: Herbert Schmid

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2007-09-30

Total Pages: 567

ISBN-13: 9047421639

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Given the concept of salvation through knowledge in Valentinian Gnosis, which is basically anti-materialist, one would not expect concrete physical rituals to play a large role in its practice. The Nag Hammadi Gospel of Philip is widely recognized as a Valentinian text, yet it contains portions of a treatise on the value of baptism, anointing, and the eucharist. The text, which arguably comes from the end of the second century, presents the first developed theory and justification of these sacraments in Early Christianity. The present study reconstructs this theory from the fragmentary text and considers its consequences for the organization of the community. Thus, the book is also an attempt to address the problem of institutionalization in early Christian communities.

Purity, Community, and Ritual in Early Christian Literature
Purity, Community, and Ritual in Early Christian Literature

Author: Moshe Blidstein

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-04-15

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 0192509764

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Purity, Community, and Ritual in Early Christian Literature investigates the meaning of purity, purification, defilement, and disgust for Christian writers, readers, and listeners from the first to third centuries. Anthropological and sociological works over the past decades have demonstrated how purity and defilement rituals, practices, and discourses harness the power of a raw emotion in order to shape and manipulate cultural structures. Moshe Blidstein builds on such theories to explain how early Christian writers drew on ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman traditions on purity and defilement, using them to create new types of community, form Christian identity, and articulate the relationship between body, sin, and ritual. Blidstein discusses early Christian purity issues under several headings: dietary law, death defilement, purity of the heart, defilement of outsiders, and purity of the community. Analysis of the motivations shaping the development of each area of discourse reveals two major considerations: polemical and substantive. Thus, Christian writing on dietary law and death defilement is essentially polemical, constructing Christian identity by marking the purity practices and beliefs of others as false. Concerning the subjects of baptism, eucharist, and penance, however, the discourse turns inwards and becomes more substantive, seeking to create and maintain theories of ritual and human nature coherent with the theological principles of the new religion.

Gospels and Gospel Traditions in the Second Century
Gospels and Gospel Traditions in the Second Century

Author: Jens Schröter

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2018-12-03

Total Pages: 506

ISBN-13: 3110541262

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The second century CE has often been described as a kind of dark period with regard to our knowledge of how the earliest Christian writings (the gospels and Paul’s letters) were transmitted and gradually came to be accepted as authoritative and then, later on, as “canonical”. At the same time a number of other Christian texts, of various genres, saw the light. Some of these seem to be familiar with the gospels, or perhaps rather with gospel traditions identical or similar to those that found their way into the NT gospels. The volume focuses on representative texts and authors of the time in order to see how they have struggled to find a way to work with the NT gospels and/or the traditions behind these, while at the same time giving a place also to other extra-canonical traditions. It studies in a comparative way the reception of identifiably “canonical” and of extra-canonical traditions in the second century. It aims at discovering patterns or strategies of reception within the at first sight often rather chaotic way some of these ancient authors have cited or used these traditions. And it will look for explanations of why it took such a while before authors got used to cite gospel texts (more or less) accurately.

Rediscovering John
Rediscovering John

Author: Lesław Daniel Chrupcała

Publisher: Edizioni Terra Santa

Published: 2014-05-29T00:00:00+02:00

Total Pages: 679

ISBN-13: 8862402953

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The idea of dedicating a Festschrift to honor Professor Frédéric Manns on the happy occasion of his 70th birthday came to mind in the autumn of 2011 and work on this project had been continuing ever since. Felicitously achieving this goal, the Faculty of Biblical Sciences and Archaeology (Studium Biblicum Franciscanum) and the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land present this volume to Father Manns with gratitude for his profound scholarship and a lifetime service in the Holy Land. Perusing through Father Manns’ writings, it is easy to see a prominent and distinctive place devoted to the Gospel of John. It seemed therefore suitable to focus on this subject in the Festschrift honoring him: the title, Rediscovering John, relates to Manns’ significant contribution towards the better understanding of the Fourth Gospel. The volume comprises 21 studies authored by renowned scholars from various parts of the world, from different institutions and denominations. While the first half of the studies examines general issues (history of interpretation, textual transmission, intertextuality, theological themes, archaeology), the second half treats literary, narrative and exegetical approaches to particular texts of the Fourth Gospel. We augur that this rich collection will help to stimulate further discussion and reflection on the Gospel of John, as well as constitute an incentive to an already distinguished scholar to continue writing challenging and thought-provoking essays and books. (from the Foreword by the Editor)

Connecting Gospels
Connecting Gospels

Author: Francis Watson

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-04-04

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 0192546406

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By the late second century, early Christian gospels had been divided into two groups by a canonical boundary that assigned normative status to four of them while consigning their competitors to the margins. Connecting Gospels: Beyond the Canonical/Non-canonical Divide finds new ways to reconnect these divided texts. Starting from the assumption that, in spite of their differences, all early gospels express a common belief in the absolute significance of Jesus and his earthly career, this authoritative collection makes their interconnectedness fruitful for interpretation. The contributors have each selected a theme or topic and trace it across two or more gospels on either side of the canonical boundary, and the resulting convergences and divergences shed light not least on the canonical texts themselves as they are read from new and unfamiliar vantage points. This volume demonstrates that early gospel literature can be regarded as a single field of study, in contrast to the overwhelming predominance of the canonical four characteristic of traditional gospels scholarship.

The Naassenes
The Naassenes

Author: M. David Litwa

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-10-20

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1000989925

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This volume offers an accessible investigation of the Naassene discourse embedded in the anonymous Refutation of All Heresies (completed about 222 CE), in order to understand the theology and ritual life of the Naassene Christian movement in the late second and early third centuries CE. The work provides basic data on the date, genre, and provenance of the Naassene discourse as summarized by the author of the Refutation (or Refutator). It also offers an analysis of the Refutator’s sources and working methods, an analysis which allows for a full reconstruction of the original Naassene discourse. The book then turns to major aspects of Naassene Christianity: its intense engagement with Hellenic myth and “mysteries,” its biblical sources, its cosmopolitan hermeneutics, its snake symbology, as well as its distinctive approach to baptism, hymns, and celibacy. A concluding chapter outlines all we can securely reconstruct about the Naassene Christian movement in terms of its social identity and place in the larger field of early Christianity and ancient Mediterranean religions more broadly. The Naassenes: Exploring an Early Christian Identity is suitable for students, scholars, and general readers interested in Early Christianity, Gnostic and Nag Hammadi Studies, Classics, and Ancient Philosophy, as well as hermeneutical issues like allegory and intertextuality.

Images of Rebirth
Images of Rebirth

Author: Hugo Lundhaug

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2010-08-09

Total Pages: 611

ISBN-13: 9004216502

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This book offers fresh readings of the Gospel of Philip (NHC II.3) and the Exegesis on the Soul (NHC II.6) from new theoretical and historical perspectives. Eschewing the category of “Gnosticism” and challenging common categorisations, the book analyses the preserved Coptic texts as coherent Christian compositions contemporary with the production and use of the Nag Hammadi Codices. A methodological framework based on Cognitive Poetics is outlined and applied to illuminate how the texts present a soteriology of transformation through religious rituals and practices using complex conceptual and intertextual blends with important polemical and paraenetic functions. The analysis highlights the use of metaphors and allusions in (re-)interpretations of authoritative Scripture, ritual and dogma. Complete Coptic texts and translations are included.

Cognitive Linguistic Explorations in Biblical Studies
Cognitive Linguistic Explorations in Biblical Studies

Author: Bonnie Howe

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2014-10-24

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 3110350130

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Writing, reading, and interpretation are acts of human minds, requiring complex cognition at every point. A relatively new field of studies, cognitive linguistics, focuses on how language and cognition are interconnected: Linguistic structures both shape cognitive patterns and are shaped by them. The Cognitive Linguistics in Biblical Interpretation section of the Society of Biblical Literature gathers scholars interested in applying cognitive linguistics to biblical studies, focusing on how language makes meaning, how texts evoke authority, and how contemporary readers interact with ancient texts. This collection of essays represents first fruits from the first six years (2006–2012) of that effort, drawing on cognitive metaphor study, mental spaces and conceptual blending, narrative theory, and cognitive grammar. Contributors include Eve Sweetser, Ellen van Wolde, Hugo Lundhaug and Jesper T. Nielsen.

Angelomorphic Pneumatology
Angelomorphic Pneumatology

Author: Bogdan Gabriel Bucur

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 9004174141

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This book discusses the occurrence of angelic imagery in early Christian discourse about the Holy Spirit. Taking as its entry-point Clement of Alexandria s less explored writings, Excerpta ex Theodoto, Eclogae propheticae, and Adumbrationes, it shows that Clement s angelomorphic pneumatology occurs in tandem with spirit christology, within a theological framework still characterized by a binitarian orientation. This complex theological articulation, supported by the exegesis of specific biblical passages (Zech 4: 10; Isa 11: 2-3; Matt 18:10), reworks Jewish and Christian traditions about the seven first-created angels, and constitutes a relatively widespread phenomenon in early Christianity. Evidence to support this claim is presented in the course of separate studies of Revelation, the Shepherd of Hermas, Justin Martyr, and Aphrahat.

The Dyophysite Christology of Cyril of Alexandria
The Dyophysite Christology of Cyril of Alexandria

Author: Hans van Loon

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2009-04-07

Total Pages: 648

ISBN-13: 904742669X

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The formula ‘one incarnate nature of the Word of God’ has often been depicted as a summary of Cyril of Alexandria’s (ca 378-444) christology. But no systematic study into his christological works has been published. Besides, there is no consensus regarding the meaning of the key terms and expressions in these works. This book addresses this deficiency by an integral investigation of the archbishop’s christological writings during the first two years of the Nestorian controversy, and comes to the conclusion that his christology is basically dyophysite. This re-appraisal of his christology bears on the understanding of the Council of Chalcedon and on contemporary ecumenical relations, especially those between the Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox.