Download or read book The topos of Divine Testimony in Luke Acts written by James R. McConnell and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2014-07-21 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this study James McConnell addresses the concept of authoritative testimony in Luke-Acts. Specifically, he argues that particular elements in the narrative of Luke-Acts can be understood as instances of the topos of divine testimony through utterances and deeds, considered in some ancient rhetorical handbooks to be the most authoritative form of testimony when seeking to persuade an audience. McConnell claims the gods' testimony was used in ancient law courts and political speeches to persuade a judge of a defendant's guilt or innocence, and in attempts in public forums to convince others of a particular course of action. Similarly, the topos is used in ancient narratives and biographies to legitimate certain characters and discredit others. The instances of the topos of God's speech (both oral and through OT citations) and deeds in Luke-Acts are functioning in the same way.

Download or read book The Topos of Divine Testimony in Luke Acts written by James McConnell and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Topos of Divine Testimony in Luke Acts written by James Russell McConnell and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation addresses the concept of authoritative testimony in Luke-Acts. Specifically, the dissertation argues that ancient audiences would have understood particular elements in the narrative of Luke-Acts to be instances of the topos of divine testimony, considered by ancient rhetoricians to be the most authoritative form of testimony when seeking to persuade an audience. This argument is made first through an investigation of the term topos/locus in the ancient rhetorical handbooks, an analysis which demonstrates that a possible definition for topos is a source of proofs from which an orator can draw in order to bring evidence in a forensic or deliberative speech. Also from this analysis, one sees that divine testimony is a type of external topos, and is considered authoritative due to the outstanding virtue of the gods. According to the rhetorical handbooks, the gods testify through various means, including utterances (both direct speech and through oracles), other sounds and/or visible emanations from the heavens (such as fire), the presence and flight of birds, portents on the earth, and dreams and visions. A survey of ancient speeches and treatises demonstrates that all of these elements were used in trials to both demonstrate the piety of one's client and to disparage an opponent, in an effort to be rhetorically persuasive. These forms of divine testimony are found in Hellenistic histories and biographies, including narratives from Greco-Roman, Jewish, and early Christian authors. Divine testimony in these works also serves the same function as in speeches and treatises, namely to demonstrate the virtue or piety of the protagonists and the lack of these qualities in the antagonists. This is also the case in Luke-Acts. All of the forms of divine testimony found in the extra-biblical literature are found in Luke-Acts as well, with the exception of divine testimony through the examination of entrails and through oracles. In the case of oracles, this dissertation argues that first-century audiences would have understood references to the OT in Luke-Acts in the same way as references to and citations of oracles in Hellenistic histories and biographies.

Download or read book The Trinitarian Testimony of the Spirit written by Kyle Hughes and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-05-29 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Trinitarian Testimony of the Spirit, Kyle R. Hughes offers a new approach to the development of early Christian pneumatology by focusing on how Justin, Irenaeus, and Tertullian linked the Holy Spirit with testimony to the deity and lordship of the Father and the Son. Drawing extensively on recent studies of prosopological exegesis and divine testimony in the ancient world, Hughes demonstrates how these three pre-Nicene Christian writers utilized Scripture and the conventions of ancient rhetoric and exegesis to formulate a highly innovative approach to the Holy Spirit that would contribute to the identification of the Spirit as the third person of the Trinity.

Download or read book The Divine in Acts and in Ancient Historiography written by Scott Shauf and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2015-03-01 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scott Shauf compares the portrayal of the divine in Acts with portrayals of the divine in other ancient historiographical writings, the latter including Jewish and wider Greco-Roman historiographical traditions. The divine may be represented as a single deity (in Judaism) or many (in Greek and Roman traditions) and also includes representations of angels, God’s spirit, Jesus as a divine figure, or forces with divine status such as fate, chance, and providence. Shauf’s particular interest is in how the divine is represented as involved in history, through themes including the nature of divine retribution, the partiality or impartiality of the divine toward different sets of people, and the portrayal of divine control over seemingly purely natural and human events. Acts is shown to be engaging historiographical traditions of the author’s own day but also contributing unique historiographical perspectives. The way history is written in Acts and in the other writings is shown to be intimately tied to the understanding of the role of the divine in history.

Download or read book God in Acts written by Christine H. Aarflot and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2020-06-26 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Acts of the Apostles reveals a God at work. However, what do God’s actions reveal about God’s character? This question drives the present study, whose ultimate goal is to discover what portrayal Acts constructs of God through God’s actions. Aarflot demonstrates how Jesus’s ascension and the development of the gentile mission prove key to Acts’ distinctive portrayal of God. The study explores what happens to the characterization of God when Jesus’s character comes to resemble God through the ascension, noting in particular the effect of ambiguous language that might refer to either God or Jesus on the portrayal of God. It also considers how Acts depicts God through actions in Israel’s past in relation to the narrative present. This is done by looking at how God is characterized at decisive moments of Acts’ plot. The resulting observations are ultimately synthesized in a final chapter presenting the portrayal of God in Acts. The results of the study have implications for the discussion of the impact of Christology on theology, and furthers the discussion of “God” in the New Testament by delineating a constant, yet developing image of God, and solidifies previous research’s observations on the centrality of God’s actions to Acts’ narrative.

Download or read book Hearing Kyriotic Sonship written by Michael R. Whitenton and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-09-27 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Hearing Kyriotic Sonship Michael Whitenton explores first-century audience impressions of Mark’s Jesus in light of ancient rhetoric and modern cognitive science. Commonly understood as neither divine nor Davidic, Mark’s Jesus appears here as the functional equivalent to both Israel’s god and her Davidic king. The dynamics of ancient performance and the implicit rhetoric of the narrative combine to subtly alter listeners’ perspectives of Jesus. Previous approaches have routinely viewed Mark’s Jesus as neither divine nor Davidic largely on the basis of a lack of explicit affirmations. Drawing our attention to the mechanics of inference generation and narrative persuasion, Whitenton shows us that ancient listeners probably inferred much about Mark’s Jesus that is not made explicit in the narrative.

Download or read book The Revelation of the Messiah written by Caleb Friedeman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-12-31 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first two chapters of Luke, characters acknowledge Jesus as Messiah, Son of God, and Lord. Lukan characters also speak of John going before the Lord God, suggesting that Jesus might be the Lord in view, and connect Jesus with Old Testament YHWH passages. These features have made Luke 1-2 a key locus for discussions of Lukan Christology, generating speculation as to whether Luke presents Jesus as divine. However, they also create an apparent incongruity with the body of the Gospel. In Luke 3 and elsewhere, human characters are initially ignorant that Jesus is Messiah, Son of God, and Lord. Moreover, Jesus' divinity – if Luke affirms it – does not seem to be recognized until after the resurrection. In this study, Caleb Friedeman advances a new model for understanding the Christological relationship between Luke 1-2 and the rest of Luke-Acts, in which Luke presents these opening chapters as a Christological mystery.

Download or read book The Embodied God written by Brittany E. Wilson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As inheritors of Platonic traditions, many Jews and Christians today do not believe that God has a body. God is instead invisible and incorporeal, and even though Christians believe that God can be seen in Jesus, God otherwise remains veiled from human sight. In this ground-breaking work, Brittany E. Wilson challenges this prevalent view by arguing that early Jews and Christians often envisioned God as having a visible form. Within the New Testament, Luke-Acts in particular emerges as an important example of a text that portrays God in visually tangible ways. According to Luke, God is a perceptible, concrete being who can take on a variety of different forms, as well as a being who is intimately intertwined with human fleshliness in the form of Jesus. In this way, the God of Israel does not adhere to the incorporeal deity of Platonic philosophy, especially as read through post-Enlightenment eyes. Given the corporeal connections between God and Jesus, Luke's depiction of Jesus's body also points ahead to future controversies concerning his divinity and humanity in the early church. Indeed, questions concerning God's body are inextricably linked with Christology and shed light on how we are to understand Jesus's own visible embodiment in relation to God. In The Embodied God, Wilson reframes approaches to early Christology within New Testament scholarship and calls for a new way of thinking about divine-and human-bodies and embodied experience.

Download or read book Vox Petri written by Gene L. Green and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2019-11-12 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Peter stands at the beginning of Christian theology. Christianity's central confessions regarding the person of Jesus, the cross, salvation, the inclusive nature of the people of God, and the end of all things come to us through the apostle who was not only the church's leader but also its first theologian. Peter is the apostle for the whole church and the whole church resonates with his theology. We sing his song, though we may not have glanced at the bottom of the page in the hymnbook to see who wrote the words and composed the tune. Peter is the "lost boy" of Christian theology, a person overlooked as a theological innovator and pillar, but his rightful place is at the head of the table. If we look closely, however, we may recognize that he has been seated there all along.

Download or read book Acts Paideia Commentaries on the New Testament written by Mikeal C. Parsons and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 2008-12-01 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Acts, the third of eighteen volumes in the Paideia commentary series, leading biblical scholar Mikeal Parsons gleans fresh theological insight into Acts by attending carefully to the cultural and educational context from which it emerges. Parsons see Acts as a charter document explaining and legitimating Christian identity for a general audience of early Christians living in the ancient Mediterranean world. Pastors, graduate and seminary students, and professors will benefit from this readable commentary, as will theological libraries. The Paideia commentaries are designed to be read through and used, not shelved and referenced. The main text is supplemented with maps, sidebars, and photographs. Indexes and reference lists help readers locate discussions in the commentary and in other secondary literature.

Download or read book Behold Your House Is Left to You written by Peter H. Rice and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2016-10-07 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the place of Jerusalem and its Temple in Luke's Gospel, paying attention both to the Third Gospel's narrative and theological dynamics and to the historical and rhetorical milieu in which Luke composed his narrative. It argues for a portrait of the Jerusalem Temple in Luke's Gospel that is complex, multifold, and coherent, one comprised of interwoven strands constituting an engaging and intertextual response to the pressing theological concerns of the Evangelist's day.

Download or read book Interweaving Innocence written by Heather M. Gorman and published by James Clarke & Company. This book was released on 2016-12-29 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this study Heather Gorman analyses Luke's portrayal of Jesus' death in light of the ancient rhetorical tradition, particularly the progymnasmata and the rhetorical handbooks. In addition to providing a detailed, up-to-date exegetical study of Luke 22:66-23:49, she argues three things. First, through the strategic placement of rhetorical figures and the use of common topics associated with refutation and confi rmation, Luke structures his passion narrative as a debate about Jesus' innocence, which suggests that one of Luke's primary concerns is to portray Jesus as politically innocent. Second, ancient examples of synkrisis suggest that part of the purpose of Luke's characterisation of Jesus in the passion narrative, especially when set in parallel to Paul and Stephen in Acts, was to set up Jesus as a model for his followers lest they face similar persecution or death. Finally, Luke's special material and his variations from Mark are explicable in terms of ancient compositional techniques, especially paraphrase and narration, and thus recourse to a special Passion Source is unnecessary.

Download or read book How the Spirit Became God written by Kyle R. Hughes and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2020-04-16 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In How the Spirit Became God, Kyle Hughes tells the often-neglected story of how and why the early church came to recognize that the Holy Spirit was a distinct divine person. While the subject of Christ’s divinity is a popular topic in church and academy alike, the notion of the Spirit’s divinity remains a mysterious yet intriguing question for many Christians today. Focusing on major pneumatological innovations from Pentecost through the Council of Constantinople in 381, Hughes examines how biblical interpretation and the lived experience of the Spirit contributed to the development of this important, and yet often overlooked, aspect of trinitarian theology. This important contribution not only explains, from a historical yet accessible perspective, the development of early Christian pneumatology but also challenges readers to apply these insights from the church fathers to engaging with the person of the Holy Spirit today.

Download or read book Revelation 21 22 in Light of Jewish and Greco Roman Utopianism written by Eric J. Gilchrest and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2013-05-01 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Revelation 21-22 in Light of Jewish and Greco-Roman Utopianism, Eric J. Gilchrest offers a creative and compelling reading of Revelation 21-22 as understood through the lens of ancient utopianism. The work is in two parts beginning with a detailed portrait of ancient utopianism based on Greco-Roman and Jewish traditions. The portrait sketches the “topography” of the utopian landscape, which includes a thorough account of various traditions using fourteen utopian topoi or motifs. The author then moves to a description of Revelation’s new Jerusalem in light of these two utopian traditions. With sensitivity to how this text would have been read by each utopian perspective, the author constructs a unique reading of a classic passage that highlights the variety of ways the text originally may have been heard.

Download or read book How John Works written by Douglas Estes and published by SBL Press. This book was released on 2016-10-07 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essential classroom resource for New Testament courses In this book, a group of international scholars go in detail to explain how the author of the Gospel of John uses a variety of narrative strategies to best tell his story. More than a commentary, this book offers a glimpse at the way an ancient author created and used narrative features such as genre, character, style, persuasion, and even time and space to shape a dramatic story of the life of Jesus. Features: An introduction to the Fourth Gospel through its narrative features and dynamics Fifteen features of story design that comprise the Gospel of John Short, targeted essays about how John works that can be used as starting points for the study of other Gospels/texts

Download or read book Reading in These Times written by Tat-siong Benny Liew and published by SBL Press. This book was released on 2024-03-22 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this follow-up to They Were All Together in One Place? (2009) and Reading Biblical Texts Together (2022), biblical scholars from different racial/ethnic minoritized communities move beyond defining and pursing cross-cultural interpretation to investigating how spatial-geographical and temporal-historical locations affect the purposes and practices of minoritized biblical criticism today. Through an examination of a range of contemporary issues from HIV/AIDS to US immigration policy, contributors establish that how and why they engage the Bible are the result of the intersection of social and cultural factors. Contributors Cheryl B. Anderson, Hector Avalos†, Jacqueline M. Hidalgo, Tat-siong Benny Liew, Yii-Jan Lin, Vanessa Lovelace, Francisco Lozada Jr., Roger S. Nam, Aliou Cissé Niang, Hugh R. Page Jr., Jean-Pierre Ruiz, Fernando F. Segovia, Abraham Smith, and Vincent L. Wimbush demonstrate that interpretations carry broader implications for society and that scholars have ethical and political responsibilities to their communities and to the world.