Download or read book Like an Everlasting Signet Ring written by Bradley C. Gregory and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2010 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work explores the theological and social dimensions of generosity in the book of Sirach and contextualizes them within the culture and thought of Second Temple Judaism. Ben Sira's understanding of generosity is predicated on the tension between affirming the classic wisdom principle of retributive justice and recognizing its breakdown in the socio-economic circumstances of Seleucid Judea. He forges a new Wisdom-Torah ethic of mercy in which giving generously is an integral part of living "the good life". While loans and surety are essential practices, almsgiving is the preeminent act of generosity. The fundamental theological logic at work consists in viewing the poor as proxies for God and is based on the economic structure of Proverbs 19:17. Giving to the poor is, in reality, a deposit in a heavenly treasury and will pay future dividends. By situating Ben Sira's view of almsgiving within the wider framework of retributive justice and its breakdown, new light is shed on the practical tensions regarding the extent of almsgiving and its relationship to the support of the Jerusalem priesthood. The various dynamics of Ben Sira's thought on generosity are situated within the broader Hellenistic world and in their foundational role for later Jewish and Christian thought.
Download or read book For Your Sake He Became Poor written by Georges Massinelli and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-04-19 with total page 527 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pauline collection for the poor in Jerusalem is the most famous example of financial support for geographically distant groups in early Christianity. Recent assessments of the Pauline collection have focused on patronage to explain the social relations between Jerusalem and the Pauline groups and the strategies adopted by Paul. Through a comparison with the Greco-Roman world and a close reading of the texts, this study challenges the recent approach and proposes that other factors shaped Paul’s stance. Paul was interested in reassuring the Corinthians about the financial outcome of the collection and dispelling doubts that he might take advantage of them. The collection was an action modeled on divine generosity and an exchange within a reciprocal relationship between Christian groups. This study also surveys intergroup support between Christian groups in the first three centuries CE. This practice involved churches from most of the Mediterranean Basin and was known even outside of Christian circles. Transfers of money were organized according to a consistent pattern modeled on local charitable practices. The Pauline collection had similar characteristics and can be seen as part of this widespread economic practice.
Download or read book Dynamics of Charity and Reciprocity in the Book of Sirach written by Stephen Arden Long and published by Mohr Siebeck. This book was released on 2023-12-21 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book What Makes a People written by Dionisio Candido and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2023-11-06 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This set of varied and stimulating papers, by an international group of younger as well as senior scholars, examines the manner in which peoplehood was understood by the Jewish communities of the Second Temple period and by the religious traditions that emerged from those communities and later flourished in Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism. The Hebrew and Greek terms for "people" and "nation" and the name "Israel" are closely analyzed, especially in forays into wisdom literature, Jewish apologetic and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and their uses are related to geographical, political and theological developments, as well as statehood, authority and rulership in the Persian world, Hasmonean times and Ptolemaic Egypt. Especially interesting are the carefully argued and documented suggestions about how Jewish peoplehood expressed itself with regard to charitable behavior, pagan deities, and marital regulations. Those interested in the history of cultural and theological tensions will be intrigued by the studies centered on how the opponents of Jews behaved towards "the people of God", how Hellenistic Jewish culture located the Jews on the Roman rather than on the Greek side, and how early Christian discourse saw the mission among the peoples and interpreted earlier sources accordingly. The idea of the Jewish "way of life" is seen to have influenced the writer of the longer Greek version of Esther and works of fiction are shown to have had important historical data within them. Modern social theory also has its say here in a careful consideration of Cognitive theory of ethnicity and the dynamic of ethnic boundary-making.
Download or read book By Bread Alone written by Sheila E. McGinn and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2014-08-01 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Important ecclesiastical documents have stressed the urgency of world hunger and put in the foreground its natural and historical causes, from famine to global austerity measures and warfare. Here biblical scholars take readings of the Old and New Testaments, exploring the dynamics of hunger and its causation in ancient Israel and the Greco-Roman world and revealing the centrality of hunger concerns to the Bible.
Download or read book Wisdom Cosmos and Cultus in the Book of Sirach written by A. Jordan Schmidt and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-03-04 with total page 794 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the attention that has already been paid to the theme of creation in the book of Sirach, scholarship has yet to provide a comprehensive analysis of Ben Sira's instruction regarding the cosmic order and its role in the divine bestowal of wisdom upon human beings. This book, which consists of two parts, fills a lacuna in scholarship by offering such an analysis. The first part of this study examines Ben Sira's three main treatments of the created world, thus providing a comprehensive description and synthesis of Ben Sira's doctrine concerning the created order of the cosmos. The second part of this work analyzes the place of human beings in general, and the Jewish people in particular, within the cosmic order. This second part includes an analysis of the role of the created order in Ben Sira's wisdom instruction in 1:1-10 and 24:1-34 as well as an elucidation of the way in which his treatments of various kinds of people—civic leaders, wives, doctors, manual laborers, scribes, and cultic personnel—are integral to Ben Sira's doctrine of creation. This study demonstrates that the created order is a fundamental category that Ben Sira relies upon in articulating his instructions about wisdom and wise behavior.
Download or read book Jewish Christian Dialogues on Scripture in Late Antiquity written by Michal Bar-Asher Siegal and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-16 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marshalling previously untapped Christian materials, Bar-Asher Siegal offers radically new insights into Talmudic stories about Scriptural debates with Christian heretics.
Download or read book Theology and Anthropology in the Book of Sirach written by Bonifatia Gesche and published by SBL Press. This book was released on 2020-09-18 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New research on Sirach for scholars and students The present volume of English and German essays includes the proceedings of an international conference held in Eichstaett, Germany, in 2017. Themes of creation, emotions, life, death, wisdom, knowledge, the individual and society, family, gender, mercy, justice, and freedom are but a few of the topics that contributors explore in this new collection. Essays explore the rich intertextual connections between Sirach and other biblical texts. Features: Attention to theological distinctions presented in the Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions of the book of Sirach Examination of the reception of Sirach in the New Testament and the early modern era English abstracts for German-language essays and German abstracts for English-language essays
Download or read book The Wisdom of Sirach written by Walter T. Wilson and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2023-06-06 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Study the wisdom of Ben Sira. A deuterocanonical collection of proverbs from the intertestamental period, the Book of Sirach has been treated by many Protestants as a bit of Catholic trivia. Yet careful study of Sirach reveals fascinating insights into Jewish thought two centuries before Jesus. Walter T. Wilson invites scholars and nonspecialists alike to discover the wisdom of this important yet under-studied text. A temple scribe writing in the second century BCE, Ben Sira aimed to instill fear of the Lord and discipline in his community. Interweaving practical advice and theoretical wisdom, his book instructs readers—then and now—in the principles of wisdom so that they may apply them to right action and lead the good life. Based on the New Revised Standard Version, Wilson’s commentary explicates the translated English text with careful attention to its historical and religious contexts, formal qualities, prevailing themes, and place in the canon (or lack thereof). The volume includes a helpful bibliography and notes.
Download or read book Scribes and Their Remains written by Craig A. Evans and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-09-05 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scribes and Their Remains begins with an introductory essay by Stanley Porter which addresses the principal theme of the book: the text as artifact. The rest of the volume is then split into two major sections. In the first, five studies appear on the theme of 'Scribes, Letters, and Literacy.' In the first of these Craig A. Evans offers a lengthy piece that argues that the archaeological, artifactual, and historical evidence suggests that New Testament autographs and first copies may well have remained in circulation for one century or more, having the effect of stabilizing the text. Other pieces in the section address literacy, orality and paleography of early Christian papyri. In the second section there are five pieces on 'Writing, Reading, and Abbreviating Christian Scripture.' These range across numerous topics, including an examination of the stauros (cross) as a nomen sacrum.
Download or read book Scriptural Authority in Early Judaism and Ancient Christianity written by Géza G. Xeravits and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-06-26 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The impact of earlier works to the literature of early Judaism is an intensively researched topic in contemporary scholarship. This volume is based on an international conference held at the Sapientia College of Theology in Budapest,May 18–21, 2010. The contributors explore scriptural authority in early Jewish literature and the writings of nascent Christianity. They study the impact of earlier literature in the formulation of theological concepts and books of the Second Temple Period.
Download or read book Ben Sira in Conversation with Traditions written by Francis M. Macatangay and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2022-08-01 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume of essays on Ben Sira is a Festschrift on the occasion of the 65th birthday of Prof. Nuria Calduch-Benages. The volume gathers the latest studies on Ben Sira's relationship with other Jewish traditions. With a variety of methods and approaches, the volume explores Ben Sira's interpretation of received traditions, his views on the prevailing issues of his time, and the subsequent reception of his work.
Download or read book Death Warning in the Garden of Eden written by Chris W. Lee and published by Mohr Siebeck. This book was released on 2020-08-28 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: La 4e de couverture indique : "In this book, Chris W. Lee provides a text-critical analysis of the divine death warning in Genesis 2:16-17 in its original context and traces the history of its reception and interpretation within biblical and non-biblical Second Temple Jewish Literature"
Download or read book An Early History of Compassion written by Françoise Mirguet and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-12 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Françoise Mirguet traces the appropriation and reinterpretation of pity by Greek-speaking Jewish communities of Late Antiquity. Pity and compassion, in this corpus, comprised a hybrid of Hebrew, Greek, and Roman constructions; depending on the texts, they were a spontaneous feeling, a practice, a virtue, or a precept of the Mosaic law. The requirement to feel for those who suffer sustained the identity of the Jewish minority, both creating continuity with its traditions and emulating dominant discourses. Mirguet's book will be of interest to scholars of early Judaism and Christianity for its sensitivity to the role of feelings and imagination in the shaping of identity. An important contribution to the history of emotions, it explores the role of the emotional imagination within the context of Roman imperialism. It also contributes to understanding how compassion has come to be so highly valued in Western cultures.
Download or read book Intertextuality in the Second Century written by D. Jeffrey Bingham and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume offers an appreciation of the value of intertextuality—from Greek, Roman, Jewish, and biblical traditions—as related to the post-apostolic level of Christian development within the second century. Here one sees biblical texts at work, Jewish and Greek foundations at play, and interaction among patristic authors.
Download or read book T T Clark Encyclopedia of Second Temple Judaism Volume Two written by Loren T. Stuckenbruck and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-12-26 with total page 912 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The T&T Clark Encyclopedia of Second Temple Judaism provides a comprehensive reference resource of over 600 scholarly articles aimed at scholars and students interested in Judaism of the Second Temple Period. The two-volume work is split into four parts. Part One offers a prolegomenon for the contemporary study and appreciation of Second Temple Judaism, locating the discipline in relation to other relevant fields (such as Hebrew Bible, Rabbinics, Christian Origins). Beginning with a discussion of terminology, the discussion suggests ways the Second Temple period may be described, and concludes by noting areas of study that challenge our perception of ancient Judaism. Part Two presents an overview of respective contexts of the discipline set within the broad framework of historical chronology corresponding to a set of full-colour, custom-designed maps. With distinct attention to primary sources, the author traces the development of historical, social, political, and religious developments from the time period following the exile in the late 6th century B.C.E. through to the end of the Bar Kokhba revolt (135 C.E.). Part Three focuses specifically on a wide selection of primary-source literature of Second Temple Judaism, summarizing the content of key texts, and examining their similarities and differences with other texts of the period. Essays here include a brief introduction to the work and a summary of its contents, as well as examination of critical issues such as date, provenance, location, language(s), and interpretative matters. The early reception history of texts is also considered, and followed by a bibliography specific to that essay. Numerous high-resolution manuscript images are utilized to illustrate distinct features of the texts. Part Four addresses topics relevant to the Second Temple Period such as places, practices, historical figures, concepts, and subjects of scholarly discussion. These are often supplemented by images, maps, drawings, or diagrams, some of which appear here for the first time. Copiously illustrated, carefully researched and meticulously referenced, this resource provides a reliable, up-to-date and complete guide for those studying early Judaism in its literary and historical settings.
Download or read book Jesus and the Empire of God written by Margaret Froelich and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-10-21 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Margaret Froelich examines the Gospel of Mark using political and empire-critical methodologies, following postcolonial thinkers in perceiving a far more ambivalent message than previous pacifistic interpretations of the text. She argues that Mark does not represent an entirely new way of thinking about empire or cosmic structures, but rather exhibits concepts and structures with which the author and his audience are already familiar in order to promote the Kingdom of God as a better version of the encroaching Roman Empire. Froelich consequently understands Mark as a response to the physical, ideological, and cultural displacement of the first Roman/Judean War. By looking to Greek, Roman, and Jewish texts to determine how first-century authors thought of conquest and expansion, Froelich situates the Gospel directly in a historical and socio-political context, rather than treating that context as a mere backdrop; concluding that the Gospel portrays the Kingdom of God as a conquering empire with Jesus as its victorious general and client king.
