[PDF] The Writings Of Luke And The Jewish Roots Of The Christian Way An Examination Of The Aims Of The First Christian Historian In The Light Of Ancient Politics Ethnography And Historiography eBook

Author : J. Andrew Cowan
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 232 pages
File Size : 50,40 MB
Release : 2019-02-21
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0567684040

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J. Andrew Cowan challenges the popular theory that Luke sought to boost the cultural status of the early Christian movement by emphasising its Jewish roots – associating the new church with an ancient and therefore respected heritage. Cowan instead argues that Luke draws upon the traditions of the Old Testament and its supporting texts as a reassurance to Christians, promising that Jesus' life, his works and the church that follow legitimately provide fulfilment of God's salvific plan. Cowan's argument compares Luke's writings to two near-contemporaries, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and T. Flavius Josephus, both of whom emphasized the ancient heritage of a people with cultural or political aims in view, exploring how the writings of Luke do not reflect the same cultural values or pursue the same ends. Challenging assumptions on Luke's supposed attempts to assuage political concerns, capitalize on antiquity, and present Christianity as an inner-Jewish sect, Cowan counters with arguments for Luke being critical of over-valuing tradition and defining the Jewish people as resistant to God and His messages. Cowan concludes with the argument that the apostle does not strive for legitimisation of the new church by previous cultural standards, but instead provides theological reassurance to Christians that God's plan has been fulfilled, with implications for broader debate.

Author : J. Andrew Cowan
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 232 pages
File Size : 14,82 MB
Release : 2019-02-21
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0567684016

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J. Andrew Cowan challenges the popular theory that Luke sought to boost the cultural status of the early Christian movement by emphasising its Jewish roots – associating the new church with an ancient and therefore respected heritage. Cowan instead argues that Luke draws upon the traditions of the Old Testament and its supporting texts as a reassurance to Christians, promising that Jesus' life, his works and the church that follow legitimately provide fulfilment of God's salvific plan. Cowan's argument compares Luke's writings to two near-contemporaries, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and T. Flavius Josephus, both of whom emphasized the ancient heritage of a people with cultural or political aims in view, exploring how the writings of Luke do not reflect the same cultural values or pursue the same ends. Challenging assumptions on Luke's supposed attempts to assuage political concerns, capitalize on antiquity, and present Christianity as an inner-Jewish sect, Cowan counters with arguments for Luke being critical of over-valuing tradition and defining the Jewish people as resistant to God and His messages. Cowan concludes with the argument that the apostle does not strive for legitimisation of the new church by previous cultural standards, but instead provides theological reassurance to Christians that God's plan has been fulfilled, with implications for broader debate.

Author : Simon J. Joseph
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 249 pages
File Size : 43,95 MB
Release : 2022-12-30
Category : History
ISBN : 1000822125

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A Social History of Christian Origins explores how the theme of the Jewish rejection of Jesus – embedded in Paul’s letters and the New Testament Gospels – represents the ethnic, social, cultural, and theological conflicts that facilitated the construction of Christian identity. Readers of this book will gain a thorough understanding of how a central theme of early Christianity – the Jewish rejection of Jesus – facilitated the emergence of Christian anti-Judaism as well as the complex and multi-faceted representations of Jesus in the Gospels of the New Testament. This study systematically analyses the theme of social rejection in the Jesus tradition by surveying its historical and chronological development. Employing the social-psychological study of social rejection, social identity theory, and social memory theory, Joseph sheds new light on the inter-relationships between myth, history, and memory in the study of Christian origins and the contemporary (re)construction of the historical Jesus. A Social History of Christian Origins is primarily intended for academic specialists and students in ancient history, biblical studies, New Testament studies, Religious Studies, Classics, as well as the general reader interested in the beginnings of Christianity.

Author : Jason F. Moraff
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 209 pages
File Size : 22,92 MB
Release : 2024-01-25
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0567712478

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Jason F. Moraff challenges the contention that Acts' sharp rhetoric and portrayal of “the Jews” reflects anti-Judaism and supersessionism. He argues that, rather than constructing Christian identity in contrast to Judaism, Acts binds the Way, Paul, and “the Jews” together into a shared identity as Israel, and that together they embark on a journey of repentance with common Jewishness providing the foundation. Acts leverages Jewish kinship, language, cult, and custom to portray the Way, Paul, and “the Jews” as one family debating the direction of their ancestral tradition. Using a historically situated narrative approach, Moraff frames Acts' portrayal of the Way and Paul in relation to the Jewish people as participating in internecine conflict regarding the Jewish tradition-in-crisis, after the destruction of the temple. By exploring ancient ethnicity, Jewish identity and Lukan characterization, images of the Jews, the Way, and Paul, violence in Acts and the theme of blindness in Luke's gospel, the Pauline writings and Acts, Moraff stresses that Acts speaks from “among my own nation,” meaning “the Jews”, and makes it possible to understand Acts' critical characterization of “the Jews” within Second Temple Judaism.

Author : Gregory E. Sterling
Publisher : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Page : 244 pages
File Size : 10,48 MB
Release : 2023-03-28
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1467465887

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Uncovering ancient texts and rethinking early Christian identity with the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles Shaping the Past to Define the Present comprises both new and revised essays by esteemed New Testament scholar Gregory E. Sterling on Jewish and early Christian historiography. A sequel to his seminal work, Historiography and Self-Definition, this volume expands on Sterling’s reading of Luke-Acts in the context of contemporary Jewish and Greek historiography. These systematically arranged essays comprise his new and revised contributions to the field of biblical studies, exploring: the genre of apologetic historiography exemplified by Josephus and Eusebius the context of Josephus’s work within a larger tradition of Eastern historiography the initial composition and circulation of Luke and Acts the relationship of Luke-Acts to the Septuagint the interpretation of the Diaspora in Luke-Acts the structure of salvation history as it is manifested in Luke-Acts Socratic influences on Luke’s portrayal of Jesus’s death the early Jerusalem Christian community as depicted in Acts compared with other Hellenized Eastern traditions such as Egyptian priests and Indian sages the establishment of Christianity’s “socially respectability” as a guiding purpose in Luke-Acts Engaging with current critical frameworks, Sterling offers readers a comprehensive analysis of early Christian self-definition through Judeo-Christian historiography.

Author : Michael Bird
Publisher : InterVarsity Press
Page : 232 pages
File Size : 40,94 MB
Release : 2023-11-21
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1514008106

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This accessible and compelling introduction draws us into the wide-ranging narrative of Luke-Acts to discover how Luke frames the life of Jesus and of the first disciples. These two books, when read together, tell a cohesive narrative about Jesus, the Church, and the mission of God–with implications for the whole our lives today.

Author : Radka Fialová
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 252 pages
File Size : 27,11 MB
Release : 2022-11-07
Category : Religion
ISBN : 3110796287

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Papers collected in this volume try to illuminate various aspects of philosophical theology dealt with by different Jewish and early Christian authors and texts (e.g. the Acts of the Apostles, Philo, Origen, Gregory of Nazianzus), rooted in and influenced by the Hellenistic religious, cultural, and philosophical context, and they also focus on the literary and cultural traditions of Hellenized Judaism and its reception (e.g. Sibylline Oracles, Prayer of Manasseh), including material culture ("Elephant Mosaic Panel" from Huqoq synagogue). By studying the Hellenistic influences on early Christianity, both in response to and in reaction against early Hellenized Judaism, the volume intends not only to better understand Christianity, as a religious and historical phenomenon with a profound impact on the development of European civilization, but also to better comprehend Hellenism and its consequences which have often been relegated to the realm of political history.

Author : Joshua Paul Smith
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 358 pages
File Size : 34,14 MB
Release : 2023-12-18
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9004684727

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In this volume Joshua Paul Smith challenges the long-held assumption that Luke and Acts were written by a gentile, arguing instead that the author of these texts was educated and enculturated within a Second-Temple Jewish context. Advancing from a consciously interdisciplinary perspective, Smith considers the question of Lukan authorship from multiple fronts, including reception history and social memory theory, literary criticism, and the emerging discipline of cognitive sociolinguistics. The result is an alternative portrait of Luke the Evangelist, one who sees the mission to the gentiles not as a supersession of Jewish law and tradition, but rather as a fulfillment and expansion of Israel’s own salvation history.

Author : Yung Suk Kim
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 293 pages
File Size : 38,69 MB
Release : 2024-05-29
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1538186098

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This accessible introduction to the Gospels examines the distinctive messages offered by the texts, giving students a better understanding of methods and interpretations. It explores a close reading of each Gospel and encourages students to approach texts from their own perspectives, from postcolonialism to environmentalism. The discussion questions included will help students focus their reflections on the gospel narrative, its theology, and methods of reading it. How to Read the Gospels is an ideal textbook for undergraduate and seminary classrooms. The book aims to reach seminary and graduate students who study the Gospels critically and comprehensively. It provides user-friendly summaries such as the basics of each Gospel—authorship, history, important parables, etc. —the Jesus of each Gospel, and notable interpretation and translation issues. Without reading the entire story, readers often focus on only specific passages. This book aims to foster close reading of each entire text, sensitizing students to historical and literary issues that commonly arise—and helping them better understand various ways to interpret these formative stories. What makes this book unique is that it also engages various readings of the Gospels from traditional to deconstruction approaches, including womanist interpretation, disability interpretation, ecological interpretation, and many more. For example, how can readers understand the story of Jesus’ surprising conversation with the Samaritan woman in John 4 through the lens of feminism? Or postcolonial criticism? By providing alternative ways to think about these stories and various methods of approaching texts that may be new to the student, the book opens up how such passages can be interpreted and appreciated.