Hanneken (theology, St. Mary's U., Texas) has significantly reworked his 2008 doctoral dissertation, "The Book of Jubilees Among the Apocalypses" at the University of Notre Dame. Jubilees uses the gen
Tite (comparative religion, U. of Washington) has long been intrigued by the little letter written in Paul's name that New Testament scholars and church historians dismiss as a poorly constructed forg
The discovery of the Gospel of Thomas has created an immense flurry of curiosity and speculation. Is the text authentic? Are these the true sayings of Jesus? If they are, what does this mean for conte
In spite of some scholars' inclination to include the book of Jubilees as another witness to “Enochic Judaism,” the relationship of Jubilees to the apocalyptic writings and events surrounding the Macc
This book presents a collection of papers from the fifth conference of the Enoch Seminar. The conference re-examined 2 Enoch, an early Jewish apocalyptic text previously known to scholars only in its
This book addresses two central questions in current research on the Gospel of Thomas: what was its original language and which early Christian works influenced it? At present, theories of Thomas as a Semitic work abound. Simon Gathercole dismantles these approaches, arguing instead that Thomas is Greek literature and that the matter of Thomas's original language is connected with an even more controverted question: that of the relationship between Thomas and the canonical New Testament. Rather than being independent of Matthew, Mark and Luke (as in most Western Aramaic theories of Thomas) or thoroughly dependent on the four gospels (as in most Syriac approaches), Gathercole develops a newly refined approach to how Thomas is influenced by the Synoptic Gospels. Thomas can be seen to refer to Matthew as a gospel writer, and evidence is discussed showing that Thomas incorporates phraseology distinctive to Luke, while also extending that special Lukan language.
The biblical concept of Israel as the Chosen People raises the difficult question about the fate of other nations. Earlier wisdom literature did not argue in national terms but in Ben Sira we have the
Kugel (emeritus, Hebrew literature, Harvard U.) begins with a verse-by-verse commentary on the Book of Jubilees, which in his opinion is the "...most interesting and important composition of late Seco
The present volume contains papers delivered at the International Conference on the Deuterocanonical Books, held at the Sapientia College of Theology, Budapest, Hungary, 14–16 May, 2009. The contribut
In Forming Femininity in Antiquity, Vita Daphna Arbel investigates depictions of the emblematic Eve that are embedded in one of the most influential accounts of Adam and Eve after the Hebrew Bible, na
The Old Testament books describe the 175-164 BCE Jewish rebellion when the Seleucid ruler Antiochus Epiphanes destroyed the temple and tried to assimilate the Jews by force. Though they have been stud
Scholars of religion from Europe and North America explore mystery and secrets in the Nag Hammadi and related Gnostic writings and in Christian and other practices, texts, and material culture. The 2
Jones (history and classics, Baylor U.) has substantially revised and amplified his May 2006 PhD dissertation in ancient history and Mediterranean archaeology at the University of California-Berkeley,
The Wisdom of Solomon 10 is a unique passage among Jewish wisdom texts since it both presents personified divine Wisdom (i.e., Lady Wisdom) as acting directly in early Israelite history and explicitly
The books of Ezra-Nehemiah and 1 Esdras tell the story of the Judean return from exile in Babylon, of rebuilding the temple, and of creating a new community in Zion. For scholars and students trying t
Although the Ben Sira is not considered as authoritative as other books in the Hebrew canon, its popularity is attested to by multiple versions in Hebrew and in Greek, Syriac, and Latin translations.
