Download or read book Foundations for Sociorhetorical Exploration written by Vernon K. Robbins and published by SBL Press. This book was released on 2016-09-02 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Engaging resources for understanding the importance of bodies and spaces in producing and interpreting persuasive language This volume collects essays that represent intellectual milestones that are informing sociorhetorical interpretation during the twenty-first century. The essays are arranged into five parts: (1) Topos; (2) Cultural Geography and Critical Spatiality; (3) Rhetorolects and Conceptual Blending; (4) Rhetography; and (5) Rhetorical Force. Features: Tools for integrating multiple approaches to biblical interpretation Resources that emphasize the importance of language that prompts mental pictures in effective rhetoric Essays from classicists, rhetoricians, and biblical scholars

Download or read book Troubling Topics Sacred Texts written by Roberta Sterman Sabbath and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-10-04 with total page 712 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abrahamic scriptures serve as cultural pharmakon, prescribing what can act as both poison and remedy. This collection shows that their sometimes veiled but eternally powerful polemics can both destroy and build, exclude and include, and serve as the ultimate justification for cruelty or compassion. Here, scholars not only excavate these works for their formative and continuing cultural impact on communities, identities, and belief systems, they select some of the most troubling topics that global communities continue to navigate. Their analysis of both texts and their reception help explain how these texts promote norms and build collective identities. Rejecting the notion of the sacred realm as separate from the mundane realm and beyond critical challenge, this collection argues—both implicitly and sometimes transparently—for the presence of the sacred within everyday life and open to challenge. The very rituals, prayers, and traditions that are deemed sacred interweave into our cultural systems in infinite ways. Together, these authors explore the dynamic nature of everyday life and the often-brutal power of these texts over everyday meaning.

Download or read book Journal of Greco Roman Christianity and Judaism Volume 15 written by Stanley E. Porter and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2020-11-19 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume 15 2019 This is the fifteenth volume of the hard-copy edition of a journal that has been published online (www.jgrchj.net) since 2000. As they appear, the hard-copy editions replace the online materials. The scope of JGRChJ is the texts, language and cultures of the Greco-Roman world of early Christianity and Judaism. The papers published in JGRChJ are designed to pay special attention to the larger picture of politics, culture, religion and language, engaging as well with modern theoretical approaches.

Download or read book The New Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation written by Ian Boxall and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-12-22 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Cambridge Companion offers an up-to-date and accessible guide to the fast-changing discipline of biblical studies. Written by scholars from diverse backgrounds and religious commitments – many of whom are pioneers in their respective fields – the volume covers a range of contemporary scholarly methods and interpretive frameworks. The volume reflects the diversity and globalized character of biblical interpretation in which neat boundaries between author-focused, text-focused, and reader-focused approaches are blurred. The significant space devoted to the reception of the Bible – in art, literature, liturgy, and religious practice – also blurs the distinction between professional and popular biblical interpretation. The volume provides an ideal introduction to the various ways that scholars are currently interpreting the Bible. It offers both beginning and advanced students an understanding of the state of biblical interpretation, and how to explore each topic in greater depth.

Download or read book Scripture Cultures and Criticism written by K. K. Yeo and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2022-08-23 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of nineteen representative essays is a Festschrift written by former colleagues and students in honor of Prof. Dr. Robert Jewett (1933–2020) and his legacy. Our hope is that future generations of Bible readers will find this textbook on biblical interpretation helpful for navigating through the strong winds of exegetical, theological, and hermeneutical methods. Jewett’s expansive research interests have inspired each author in this tribute volume, each of whom has witnessed to the ways that helmsman Jewett has navigated through the often-choppy ocean waters of biblical interpretation—as well as the complex, changing world of religion, sacred texts, films and popular culture, psychology and sociology, politics and Pauline studies.

Download or read book The Art of Visual Exegesis written by Vernon K. Robbins and published by SBL Press. This book was released on 2017-04-28 with total page 533 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A critical study for those interested in the intersection of art and biblical interpretation With a special focus on biblical texts and images, this book nurtures new developments in biblical studies and art history during the last two or three decades. Analysis and interpretation of specific works of art introduce guidelines for students and teachers who are interested in the relation of verbal presentation to visual production. The essays provide models for research in the humanities that move beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries erected in previous centuries. In particular, the volume merges recent developments in rhetorical interpretation and cognitive studies with art historical visual exegesis. Readers will master the tools necessary for integrating multiple approaches both to biblical and artistic interpretation. Features Resources for understanding the relation of texts to artistic paintings and images Tools for integrating multiple approaches both to biblical and artistic interpretation Sixty images and fifteen illustrations

Download or read book Exploring Colossians Living the New Reality written by Roy R. Jeal and published by SBL Press. This book was released on 2024-11-22 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this comprehensive, sociorhetorical interpretation of Colossians, Roy R. Jeal explores the letter’s portrayal of the grand vision that extends from the realm of God before the creation of the cosmos to the new reality and new culture of the life of fullness in Christ. The commentary analyzes the pictures the text evokes in the human visual imagination, identifies the persuasive modes of discourse in the letter, and evaluates the range of textures that interweave to produce the dynamic rhetorical argument of Colossians. Demands to conform to “empty deceitful philosophy, human tradition, and the elements of the world” rather than to Christ are irrelevant for believers who have been transferred from darkness to the light of the Son of God’s kingdom. The rhetoric of the letter moves believers to ideologies of living in the body of Christ where orderly behavior guided by love contrasts with the chaotic, self-indulgent, divisive uncertainties of Mediterranean existence.

Download or read book The Sermon on the Mount and the Ewes of Ghana written by Frederick Mawusi Amevenku and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2023-11-07 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using socio-rhetorical interpretation to study Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, the book explores the contextual interpretation of the sermon among the Ghana-Ewe. The book argues that the Sermon on the Mount can be viewed as Jesus' new kingdom gospel and a reinterpretation of the Mosaic law, teaching not only ethics but also kingdom-appropriate righteousness for theological and ethical renewal. Kingdom-appropriate righteousness is nurtured through daily exchanges with God, leading to habitual forgiveness and subsequent divine perfection of love for God and one's enemies. In the contemporary context, kingdom-appropriate righteousness challenges the deficient, "compulsory-wealth" (prosperity gospel) Christianity that is promoted in contemporary Ghana and elsewhere.

Download or read book Cast Out of the Covenant written by Adele Reinhartz and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-07-07 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Gospel of John presents its readers, listeners, and interpreters with a serious problem: how can we reconcile the Gospel’s exalted spirituality and deep knowledge of Judaism with its portrayal of the Jews as the children of the devil (John 8:44) who persecuted Christ and his followers? One widespread solution to this problem is the so-called “expulsion hypothesis.” According to this view, the Fourth Gospel was addressed to a Jewish group of believers in Christ that had been expelled from the synagogue due to their faith. The anti-Jewish elements express their natural resentment of how they had been treated; the Jewish elements of the Gospel, on the other hand, reflect the Jewishness of this group and also soften the force of the Gospel’s anti-Jewish comments. In Cast out of the Covenant, this book, Adele Reinhartz presents a detailed critique of the expulsion hypothesis on literary and historical grounds. She argues that, far from softening the Gospel’s anti-Jewishness, the Gospel’s Jewish elements in fact contribute to it. Focusing on the Gospel’s persuasive language and intentions, Reinhartz shows that the Gospel’s anti-Jewishness is evident not only in the Gospel’s hostile comments about the Jews but also in its appropriation of Torah, Temple, and Covenant that were so central to first-century Jewish identity. Through its skillful use of rhetoric, the Gospel attempts to convince its audience that God’s favor had turned away from the Jews to the Gentiles; that there is a deep rift between the synagogue and those who confess Christ as Messiah; and that, in the Gospel’s view, this rift was initiated in Jesus’ own lifetime. The Fourth Gospel, Reinhartz argues, appropriates Jewishness at the same time as it repudiates Jews. In doing so, it also promotes a “parting of the ways” between those who believe that Jesus is the messiah, the Son of God, and those who do not, that is, the Jews. This rhetorical program, she suggests, may have been used to promote outreach or even an organized mission to the Gentiles, following in the footsteps of Paul and his mid-first-century contemporaries.

Download or read book Paul and Matthew Among Jews and Gentiles written by Ronald Charles and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-12-10 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Terence L. Donaldson's scholarship in the field of New Testament studies is vital, as he has pressed scholars to pay closer attention to the complex relations between early Christ-followers-who were mostly non-Jews-and the Jewish matrix from which the narrative of the Christian proclamation comes from. This volume allows prominent New Testament scholars to engage Donaldson's contributions, both to sharpen some of his conclusions and to honour him for his work. These essays are located at the intersections of three bodies of literature-Matthew, Paul and Second Temple Jewish Literature-and themes and questions that have been central to Donaldson's work: Christian Judaism and the Parting of the Ways; Gentiles in Judaism and early Christianity; Anti-Judaism in early Christianity. With contributions ranging from remapping Paul within Jewish ideologies, and Paul among friends and enemies, to socio-cultural readings of Matthew, and construction of Christian Identity through stereotypes of the Scribes and Pharisees, this book provides a multi-scholar tribute to Donaldson's accomplishments.

Download or read book Reading the Letter to Titus in Light of Crete written by Michael Robertson and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-11-20 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume argues that Titus’s invocation of Crete affected the ways early readers developed their identities. Using archaeological data, classical writings, and early Christian documents, he describes multiple traditions that circulated on Crete and throughout the Roman Empire concerning Cretan Zeus, Cretan social structure, and Cretan Judaism. He then uses these traditions to interpret Titus and explain how the letter would intersect with and affect readers’ identities. Because readers had differing conceptions of Crete based on their location and access to and evaluation of Cretan traditions, readers would have developed their identities in multiple, conflictual, even contradictory ways.

Download or read book Apocalyptic Sheep and Goats in Matthew and 1 Enoch written by Elekosi F. Lafitaga and published by SBL Press. This book was released on 2022-03-25 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An alternative understanding of apocalyptic eschatology in the Gospel of Matthew Matthew’s eschatological imageries of judgment are often identified as apocalyptic and referred to as Matthew’s apocalyptic discourses. In this volume Elekosi F. Lafitaga reexamines Matthew’s vision of the sheep and goats in the judgment of the nations, which are often interpreted as metaphors for the saved and the condemned. Lafitaga views these images in the wider context of the rhetoric of apocalyptic communication stretching back to Matthew 3. This broader context reveals that the vision of Matthew 25 serves to exhort Israel in the here and now according to the torah, with salvation for Israel involving an indispensable responsibility to love and serve humanity. Central to Lafitaga’s analysis is the highly probable scenario that the material in Matthew is dependent on the Book of Dreams (1 Enoch 83–90).

Download or read book James among the Classicists written by Sigurvin Lárus Jónsson and published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. This book was released on 2021-06-07 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book gives attention to the language and style of the letter of James, with a hypothesis about its rhetorical purpose in mind. It focuses on what we can learn about the author of James, by reading the text in light of a guiding research question: How does the author establish and assert authority? The letter builds literary authority for a number of purposes, one of which is to address socioeconomic disparity, a major concern for the author. The author of James presents a speech-in-character in the shape of a letter to establish his ethos (Ch. 2), employing vocabulary and style to signal his education implicitly (Ch. 3 & 4) and includes himself in the categories of sage, teacher and exegete explicitly (Ch. 5). From this standpoint, the author can address the rich as equals, rebuke them and admonish both rich and poor to receive God's wisdom (Ch. 6). The comparison with ancient literary criticism shows that the categories at play are the same. The insight that language and ethos are inseparable categories in antiquity provides us with renewed ways to interpret the literary production of early Christianity. Both James and 'the Classicists' present a competing epic in the context of the early imperium, the former with an Israelite piety that is superior to contemporary economic and moral categories and the latter with the supremacy of Greek culture as a foundation for Rome. The letter of James emerges as a document that builds educational ethos as a balance against the rich and powerful, a strategy that calls for a revision of both its rhetoric and socio-economic situation.

Download or read book Matthew s Parable of the Royal Wedding Feast written by Ruth Christa Mathieson and published by SBL Press. This book was released on 2023-06-02 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ruth Christa Mathieson’s unique reading of Matthew’s parable of the royal wedding feast (Matt 22:1–14), which concludes with the king’s demand that one of the guests be bound and cast out into the outer darkness, focuses on the means of the underdressed guest’s expulsion. Using sociorhetorical interpretation, Mathieson draws the parable into conversation with early Jewish narratives of the angel Raphael binding hands and feet (1 Enoch; Tobit) and the protocol for expelling individuals from the community in Matt 18. She asserts that readers are invited to consider if the person who is bound and cast out is a danger to the little ones of the community of faith unless removed and restrained.

Download or read book Linguistic Descriptions of the Greek New Testament written by Stanley E. Porter and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-08-10 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stanley E. Porter provides descriptions of various important topics in Greek linguistics from a Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) perspective; an approach that has been foundational to Porter's long and influential career in the field of New Testament Greek. Deep insights into Porter's understanding of SFL are displayed throughout, based either upon how he positions SFL in relation to other linguistic models, or how he utilizes it to describe topics within Greek and New Testament studies. Porter reflects on his core approach to the Greek New Testament by exploring subjects such as metaphor, rhetoric, cognition, orality and textuality, as well as studies on linguistic schools of thought and traditional grammar.

Download or read book Vivid Rhetoric and Visual Persuasion written by Meghan Henning and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2024-02-22 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major scholarly collaboration exploring vivid visual rhetoric in the New Testament From Jesus’s miraculous walk on water to the graphic horrors of hell, New Testament authors make vivid and unforgettable images appear before their audience’s eyes. In the past decade, scholarship on early Christian use of ancient rhetorical techniques has flourished. One focus of rhetorical criticism of the New Testament has been the function of ekphrasis, or vivid visual description. In this landmark collection, leading New Testament scholars come together to probe the purpose and import of ekphrasis in early Christian literature. The research in this collection explores the relationship between vivid rhetoric and genre, taking into account technical features, authorial intent, and audience response. Specific topics include: • The New Testament’s rhetoric compared against Greco-Roman rhetorical handbooks • Juxtaposition between vivid and non-vivid rhetoric • The use of energeia in John’s Gospel to draw upon the reader’s multiple senses • Aesthetics and the grotesque in Revelation • The use of travelogue to create a virtual journey for the audience • Vivid rhetoric in early martyr literature Vivid Rhetoric and Visual Persuasion is a must-read for scholars of early Christianity and rhetorical criticism. Readers will find this collection indispensable in understanding a complex feature of the New Testament in its historical context. Contributors Contributors Bart B. Bruehler, Diane Fruchtman, Meghan Henning, Martina Kepper, Susanne Luther, Harry O. Maier, Gudrun Nassauer, Nils Neumann, Vernon K. Robbins, Gary S. Selby, Aldo Tagliabue, Sunny Kuan-Hui Wang, Annette Weissenrieder, Robyn J. Whitaker

Download or read book New Studies in Textual Interplay written by B. J. Oropeza and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-15 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume features a body of work selected by Craig A. Evans, B. J. Oropeza, and Paul T. Sloan, designed to examine just what is meant by “intertextuality,” including metalepsis and the controversial and exciting approach known as “mimesis.” Beginning with an introduction from Oropeza that orients readers in a complex and evolving field, the contributors first establish the growing research surrounding the discipline before examining important texts and themes in the New Testament Gospels and epistles. Throughout, these essays critically evaluate new proposals relating to intertextuality and the function of ancient Scripture in the writings that eventually came to comprise the New Testament. With points of analysis ranging from multidimensional recontextualization and ancient Midrash in the age of intertextuality to Luke's Christology and multivalent biblical images, this volume amasses cutting-edge research on intertexuality and biblical exegesis.