This project examines the depiction of Jewish and Christian identity in Acts of the Apostles by placing the writer’s ethnic claims within a broader material and epigraphic context. Scholarship on Jewish identity in Acts has often emphasized Jewish and Christian religious difference, an emphasis that has tended to mask the intersections of civic, ethnic, and religious identifications in antiquity. Such identity categories did not exist as distinct, stable entities. Rather, as discussions of identity in antiquity demonstrate, they were contested, negotiable, and ambiguous. Bringing Acts into conversation with recent scholarly insights regarding identity as represented in Roman era material and epigraphic remains shows that Acts presents Jews and Jewish identity in multiple, complex ways, rather than as a simple foil for “Christianity.” The dissertation argues that when the modern distinctions between ethnic, religious, and civic identities are suspended, the innovative ethnic rhetoric of the author of Acts comes into focus. The underlying connection between ethnic, religious, and civic identities provided him with space to present non-Jewish Christians as converted Jews and therefore to identify all Christians as Jews. On the basis of this identification, he marked Christians as a unified Jewish community that enhanced the stability of the city, contrasting them with other Jewish communities. By creating an internal distinction between Christians and other Jews, he privileged Christians as the members of an ideal, unified Jewish community and contrasted them with what he identified as factious, local Jewish associations.

This dissertation addresses the question: how might the Sufi master, Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn al-ʿArabī (1165-1240 CE), have read the Gospel of John? Although the Gospel of John belongs originally to the Christian tradition, this dissertation is a contribution to Islamic Studies, endeavoring to illuminate Ibn al-ʿArabī’s distinctive manner of reading religious texts and to highlight features of his negotiation of a dual heritage from Jesus and Muḥammad. To set Ibn al-ʿArabī’s thought against an Islamic backdrop and situate it in an Islamic context, this dissertation adopts the device of constructing a commentary, guided by seminal passages in Ibn al-ʿArabī’s written corpus, on an Arabic translation of the Gospel of John: the Alexandrian Vulgate, widely circulated in the Arab world during Ibn al-ʿArabī’s time. This amounts not only to a comparison between Johannine doctrines and Ibn al-ʿArabī’s doctrines, but also a comparison between the latter and historical Muslim commentaries on the Christian scriptures—particularly the Biblical commentary (in circulation by the thirteenth century) attributed to the famed Sufi theologian Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, and the fourteenth-century Muslim Biblical commentary by Najm al-Dīn al-Ṭūfī (d. 1316 CE). Part I of the dissertation establishes a foundation for the commentary, inquiring into Ibn al-ʿArabī’s general attitudes towards non-Islamic religions, then considering autobiographical accounts of his relationship to Christianity, the question of his familiarity with the New Testament, and illustrations of his creative engagement with Christian doctrines. Part II of the dissertation constitutes the commentary, considering Ibn al-ʿArabī’s possible views on a number of Johannine doctrines: Jesus’ claim to have been the son of God; Jesus’ claim to have been one with God; the doctrine that Jesus was the embodied Word; the expiatory and epistemic functions of the embodied Word (paralleled by a dialectic relationship between two divergent kinds of witnessing); and the rumor, at the end of the Gospel of John, that the Beloved Disciple would never die.

Conversations concerning the missional posture of 1 Peter have been dictated largely by the now (in)famous debate between David Balch’s assimilationist position over and against John Elliott’s more sectarian position. More recent work has sought to bridge the gap between Balch and Elliott with a variety of more nuanced positions such as Miroslav Volf’s “Soft Difference”. Most of the discussion revolves around the practicalities of cultural engagement and what it might mean for church members to interact with the world as “Christians” in an increasingly hostile environment. The present thesis takes a step back from the coal face of missional engagement to focus on how that mission is shaped. More particularly, I am concerned with how 1 Peter utilises the language of divine calling (καλέω) that appears in five specific instances (1:13–21; 2:4–10; 2:18–25; 3:8–17; 5:6–14), alongside central events and motifs from the Old Testament, to cultivate a narrative that forges a distinct Christian identity and mission, that has its basis in Israel’s history and the life of Christ. Our concern with narrative and cultural interaction leads us to consider the relevant Petrine texts, through the dual lenses of Social Identity and Narrative Transportation theories which reveal how various groups interact, and how narratives shape actions and beliefs respectively. I argue that through the language of calling, and with the assistance of key OT motifs, 1 Peter seeks to develop a Christian identity that might be best described as “elect sojourners”; that believers are those who are elect of God and yet rejected by the world. This identity manifests itself in a life of “resident-alien-ness”—in the world, yet no longer of the world—that consequently leads to various forms of suffering. Amid such suffering, 1 Peter calls the church to a priestly ministry—representing God to the people, and the people to God—through a life geared towards blessing, even when such a life leads to suffering. This is the life to which the Anatolian believers have been called: a life of holiness as a priestly community, committed to the gracious endurance of suffering, and of blessing those who would oppose them.

This thesis uses a model of honour to make sense of Paul's response to the situation in Galatians as he describes it in Galatians 6.12-15. We argue that the use of εὐpieροsigmaωpieέω at 6.12, and its close proximity to kappaalphaυχάομalphaι in the following verses, highlights that honour concern is present in this situation. We assess this by considering face, a term used by social theorists to describe the 'self as it appears to others', and facework, the strategies for maintaining and managing such - this is considered both as a social-scientific model and as a concept within ancient Mediterranean culture. This argument holds that Paul contradicts the opponents' seeking of 'good face' (εὐpieροsigmaωpieέω) as it is in direct contrast to what we term God's 'prosopagnosia' - pieρόsigmaωpieον [ὁ] θεὸς ἀνθρώpieου οὐ Gammaalphaμβάνει (2.6), and to his own position, which is to 'boast in the cross' (6.14). We read the idea of the boast in the cross as Paul's attempt to reconfigure honour within the Christian assemblies of Galatia, a reconfiguring that centralises Christ's disregard for common perceptions of honour, exemplified in his crucifixion. This approach then makes sense of Paul's autobiographical data as his own attempt to model Christ's 'prosopagnosia' and similarly reads the data in 5.13-6.10 as Paul's exhortation that the community live in this manner.

The book of Revelation is perhaps the least understood and most controversial text of the Christian Scriptures. Among the mainstream churches, Revelation has been put into the 'too-hard basket.' Among the more fundamentalist churches, it has been used to construct lurid timetables of the 'end-of-the-world.' The reading of Revelation through modern eyes has tended to sever the text's connections to its original first century audience. In particular, the modern understanding of heaven and earth, the modern conceptualization of time, and the modern demarcation between politics and religion produce interpretations of apocalyptic that are alien to the ideology and worldview of its original author and audience. In this thesis I interpret the book of Revelation as looking not to the end of world history, but as an unmasking of the world dominated by the Roman Empire. In other words, Revelation exposes the claims of empire as illusory, and envisions an alternative reality that claims to be revealed and authorized by God. While this understanding runs counter to the modern 'apocalyptic paradigm,' I believe it is in keeping with the 'total conception of reality' in antiquity.

This thesis is an exploration of the extent to which Paul�s terminology of Inheritance [(...)] in Romans, and its associated imagery, logic and arguments, functioned to evoke socio-political expectations that were alternative to those which prevailed in contemporary Roman imperial discourse. There are two parts to this study. The first is to take seriously the context of Empire and the claims being made by the Roman Empire in the first century. In particular, what were some of the messages conveyed by the Roman Empire with regard to the structure and purpose, the hopes and expectations, of first-century society? The Christians in Rome were daily exposed to the images and message of Caesar and his successors and there is therefore a need to consider how Paul�s language of Inheritance would have sounded within this environment. Second, this study gives attention to the content of Paul�s use of the word "inheritance" as it occurs in Romans. In order to address this question, three interrelated ideas are explored. First, for Paul, what does the inheritance consist of? The traditional understanding is that the concept is an entirely spiritualised or transcendent reality. This study proposes a more this-worldly, geographical nature to the word. Second, there is the closely related question of the political nature of inheritance. If it is the case that the language of inheritance has to do with the renewal of the land, then who inherits this land? These two questions raise a third issue-how will the inheritance transpire? Paul�s inheritance language contributes to notions of lordship, authority and universal sovereignty for the people of God. Conceivably, the path to this dominion could mirror the hegemonic intentions of imperial Rome which envisages the triumph of one group of people (the strong) over another (the weak). Is this the case with Paul�s inheritance language, or does it somehow undermine all claims to power and control? There are five undisputed uses of [...] and its cognates in Romans-Rom 4:13, 14; Rom 8:17 (three times) and there is one textual variant in Rom 11:1 where the word [...] is used in place of [...]. This study finds that, to varying degrees in each of these texts, the inheritance concept is not only a direct confrontation to other claims to rule, it is also simultaneously a reversal of all other paths to lordship and rule. This study then considers the use of the concept in the two other undisputed Pauline letters where it occurs (Galatians and 1 Corinthians) and also in the disputed letter to the Colossians. The overriding impression is that there is nothing in Galatians, 1 Corinthians or Colossians which significantly challenges the this-worldly, political nature of the language of inheritance in Romans. In these epistles and in Romans Paul employs the language and politics of inheritance in order to subvert the message of Empire.

This thesis seeks to explore the implications of a parenetic reading of the Book of Revelation as a whole, rather than merely of the seven messages in which this is more commonly regarded as the primary purpose of the text. It examines the validity of this approach in relation to the book�s claims about its purpose in the original communication event of which its text is a witness and its effectiveness in addressing hermeneutical issues in key passages of the book and argues that attention to the function of parenesis facilitates readings of Revelation which connect more directly with the intention of the book free from the need to decipher obscure coded references to past or future history. Drawing from the text of the Apocalypse a twofold hermeneutical strategy is developed and exemplified by application to key passages of the book. The first aspect of this reading strategy is focussed on the proposed parenetic nature of the book. In an examination of Revelation�s introductory and concluding passages it is argued that as a coherent unity they form a frame around the book. This frame serves to establish the perspective from which the whole book may be read. It does so by giving rise to the expectation that the whole book contains parenetic exhortation to faithfulness in light of the imminent parousia. Consequently this thesis proceeds to interpret the Book of Revelation by focussing primarily on how the various images in the book�s body (4:1-22:9) as well as the explicit parenesis in the seven messages serve to communicate this parenetic exhortation to the original addressees. The second aspect of interpretation seeks to facilitate scholarly analysis of the parenesis expected to be contained in Revelation�s body with systematic regard for the individual situation of each of the addressees of the book, as documented in the comparatively accessible seven messages. To this end an intra-textual hermeneutic is employed. It builds on an examination of the links between the various parts of Revelation which is part of the examination of both the book�s frame and the seven messages. This intra-textual reading utilizes the many links between the seven messages and Revelation�s body by allowing them to play a determinative role in the investigation of an image�s parenetic implications. In order to further explore the validity of a parentic reading, the intra-textual principle is applied to two central parts of Revelation�s body, the Babylon vision (Rev 17-19:3) and the seal, trumpet and bowl visions (Rev 6, 8, 9, 11:15-19, 15, 16). In this reading, the Babylon vision is read not as a general critique of the church�s pagan environment but as a divine commentary on the concrete threats and temptations with which the churches of the seven messages were confronted. In God�s judgment of Babylon those who suffer under her violence against Christians are promised vindication and are thus encouraged to maintain their faithful witness as citizens of the New Jerusalem. The citizens of Babylon however are exhorted to repent and leave her behind, becoming citizens of the New Jerusalem and thus escaping Babylon�s demise. The seal, trumpet and bowl visions are interpreted as illustrating the dividing line between what constitutes faithful witness to Christ on the one hand and heed to satanic deception on the other. Faithfulness even to the point of death is expected of the followers of the Lamb; the inhabitants of the earth are exhorted to repent from their affiliation with the beast and give glory to God. Thus such an intra-textual reading of Revelation as parenesis offers a strategy for reading the book in a way that is relevant for the Christian church beyond the limits of end-time phantasms on the one hand and mere historic interest on the other hand and so might facilitate the emergence of the message of the book from the obscurity in which it appears to be hidden to a significant proportion of its contemporary readers.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University, 2007. / Title from dissertation title page (viewed Dec. 11, 2007). Includes abstract. "Dissertation presented to the Faculty of the Brite Divinity School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Biblical interpretation." Includes bibliographical references.

<p>I och med debatten om huruvida äktenskap för homosexuella ska bli en verklighet i dagens samhälle har frågan om sexuell läggning kommit att bli central. Ofta handlar det om människor med en religiös grunduppfattning som debatterar om rätt och fel, naturlig och onaturlig sexualitet. Ofta används nytestamentliga citat hämtade speciellt från aposteln Paulus, men frågan är om hans syn på sexualiteten är densamma som vår? När vi närmar oss dessa texter måste vi vara medvetna om den tidens syn på sexualiteten. Detta för att vi inte ska applicera vår förförståelse av sexualitet på en text som skrivits i en annan tid. I den här uppsatsen vill jag försöka ge en glimt av hur man i den dåtida grekisk-romerska kulturen kan ha sett på sexualiteten i dess kroppsliga och sociala uttrycksformer och funktioner. Detta för att lyfta fram vikten av att placera antika texter som till exempel de skrivna av Paulus i sin rätta kontext, innan vi tolkar in dem i vår tids kontext. Det är så lätt att vi i vår iver att hävda vad som är rätt och fel glömmer texternas ursprungsmiljö och på så sätt enligt min mening tolkar dem på ett ofullkomligt sätt. Jag menar att det är viktigt att se texten i sin ursprungsmiljö för att kunna förstå till vilka den riktar sig och med vilket syfte och på så sätt nå en bredare tolkning.</p><p>Jag vill med denna uppsats göra ett försök att placera in Paulus kritik mot homoerotiska relationer i Romarbrevet 1:26-27 samt 1 Korintierbrevet 6:9-10 i sin tids kontext. Frågan blir då vilka traditioner som var rådande i den hellenistisk-romerska miljön? Hur beskrev man kroppens funktion med fokus på den sexuella funktionen? Hur uppfattade man sexuella relationer mellan två personer av samma kön? Betraktades sexuella relationer mellan kvinnor på ett särskilt sätt? Hur bedömde den grekiska alternativt den romerska traditionen sexuella relationer, vilka ansågs naturliga och vilka ansågs onaturliga?</p><p>Hur kan man tolka de ovan nämnda bibelcitaten?</p>

In spite of a lively debate during the last century, there is still no scholarly consensus about the identity of the opponents in Colossians. The aim of this essay is not to put forward yet another attempt to solve this complex historical problem, but rather to examine how boundaries are drawn between the author and the opponents in Colossians and how similar boundaries are maintained, developed or even created in scholarly historiography. In what Jonathan Z. Smith refers to as the “Protestant Historiographic Myth”, nineteenth and early twentieth century scholars of biblical studies often understood early Christian developments in terms of an original purity that was lost at a later stage. According to this historiographic construction, the essence of Christianity was distorted through interaction with the cultural and religious environment of the Roman Empire and through the incorporation of pagan elements. Throughout this essay, I argue that this essentialist conception of early Christianity has shaped the construction of the opponents of Colossians in scholarly literature. In studies of Colossians, many modern scholars have, problematically, recreated the dichotomy between an original apostolic Christianity and later Hellenized deviations. This legacy of the “Protestant Historiographic myth” is mainly expressed in two ways, either as an opposition between the author’s pure apostolic Christianity and the opponents, who are understood as a syncretistic group, composed of a mixture of various Hellenistic elements, or as a dichotomy between Christianity, as represented by the author, and “religion”, as represented by the opponents.