Winner of the Outstanding Theological Research Book Award 2024 Scott Ying Lam Yip presents the first specialized narrative study devoted to the identity formation processes in Philippians, based on Paul Ricoeur's narrative theory. Yip demonstrates that the “Christian identity” of the Philippian community is shaped amidst competing narratives with divergent comprehensions, and suggests that it is within an intra-Jewish contestation of testimonies that Paul updates his understanding of God and contends with a group of Jewish Christian leaders regarding the meaning of his suffering. Yip argues that Paul faces a double contestation of narrative in which both the political authorities and a group of Jewish Christian leaders see his imprisonment as futile and unnecessary; alerting him to an emerging crisis in which the Philippian community's conviction in suffering with him has begun to decline. It is thus essential for Paul to synthesise and install a new paradigmatic story of Christ so that his suffering can be discerned as the defining mark of God's renewed manifestation in an era of Christ's eschatological Lordship. Yip explores the means by which Paul - in a contestation of authority for the re-appropriation of God's past work - contrasts the future-oriented temporality of his testimony with the past-oriented one of the Jewish Christian leaders. He concludes that Paul affirms the value of his present suffering in truthfulness and installs his testimony to be the exemplary story for the Philippian community.

With his writings on phenomenology, psychoanalysis, Marxism, ideology, and religion, Paul Ricoeur has single-handedly redefined and revitalized the hermeneutic tradition. From Text to Action is an essential companion to the now classic The Conflict of Interpretations. Here, Ricoeur continues and extends his project of constructing a general theory of interpretation, positioning his work in relation to its own philosophical background: Hegel, Husserl, Gadamer, and Weber. He also responds to contemporary figures like K.O. Apel and Jürgen Habermas, connecting his own theorization of ideology to their version of ideology critique.

In this revision of a long-enduring classic, Kraft draws upon faith experience and the social sciences to make pastors, preachers, missionaries, and religious educators aware of the mystery of human communication in the service of God who calls all into communion. The question is how to communicate with these other cultures so that the message is effectively transmitted and received? How to we recognize the gaps--of language, tradition, life experience--that separate us and build bridges over them.

This investigation builds upon recent developments in the study of Paul's use of Scripture that center around the concept of "intertextuality." Abasciano uses an exegetical method that incorporates into a thorough traditional exegesis a comprehensive analysis of Paul's use of Scripture against the background of interpretive traditions surrounding the texts alluded to, with great emphasis placed on analyzing the original contexts of Paul's citations and allusions. Such an intertextual exegesis is conducted in Romans 9:1-9 with an awareness of the broader unit of chapters 9-11 especially, and also the epistle as a whole. The study finds that many of the themes Paul deals with in Romans 9-11 are also present in ancient Jewish and Christian interpretive traditions surrounding the passages he invokes, and more importantly, that Paul's scriptural quotations and allusions function as pointers to their broad original contexts, from which he developed much of the form, content, and direction of his argument, holding significance for a number of exegetical details as well as broader themes and rhetorical movements. The final chapter seeks to draw conclusions concerning the significance of Paul's use of the Old Testament in Romans 9:1-9 for the exegesis and theology of Romans and for Pauline intertextuality. The identity of the true people of God is central to Romans 9-11 and the epistle. And Paul's use of Scripture is contextual and referential, calling for attention to Pauline intertextuality in standard exegetical procedure. JSNTS 301>

Janette H. Ok argues that 1 Peter characterizes Christian identity as an ethnic identity, as it holds the potential to engender a powerful sense of solidarity for readers who are experiencing social alienation as a result of their conversion. The epistle describes and delineates a communal identity based on Jewish traditions, and in response to the hostility its largely Gentile Anatolian addressees are experiencing as religious minorities in the Roman empire. In order to help construct a collective understanding of what it means to be a Christian in contrast to non-Christians, Ok argues that the author of the epistle employs “ethnic reasoning” or logic. Consequently, the writer of 1 Peter makes use of various literary and rhetorical strategies, including establishing a sense of shared history and ancestry, delineating boundaries, stereotyping and negatively characterizing “the other,” emphasizing distinct conduct or a common culture, and applying ethnic categories to his addressees. Ok further highlights how these strategies bear striking resemblances to what modern anthropologists and sociologists describe as the characteristics of ethnic groups. In depicting Christian identity as an ethnic identity akin to the unique religious-ethnic identity of the Jews, Ok concludes that 1 Peter seeks to foster internal cohesion among the community of believers who are struggling to forge a distinctive and durable group identity, resist external pressures to revert to a way of life unbefitting the people of God, and live as those born anew to a living hope.

From two perspectives; one philosophical, one cultural, these two essays explore the religious significance of atheism.

There has been consistent apathy in recent years with regard to the long-standing debate surrounding the date of Acts. While the so-called majority of scholars over the past century have been lulled into thinking that Acts was written between 70 and 90 CE, the vast majority of recent scholarship is unanimously adamant that this middle-range date is a convenient, political compromise. Karl Armstrong argues that a large part of the problem relates to a remarkable neglect of historical, textual, and source-critical matters. Compounding the problem further are the methodological flaws among the approaches to the middle and late date of Acts. Armstrong thus demonstrates that a historiographical approach to the debate offers a strong framework for evaluating primary and secondary sources relating to the book of Acts. By using a historiographical approach, along with the support of modern principles of textual criticism and linguistics, the historical context of Acts is determined to be concurrent with a date of 62–63 CE.

John C. Poirier examines the “theopneustic” nature of the Scripture, as a response to the view that “inspiration” lies at the heart of most contemporary Christian theology. In contrast to the traditional rendering of the Greek word theopneustos as “God-inspired” in 2 Tim 3:16, Poirier argues that a close look at first- and second-century uses of theopneustos reveals that the traditional inspirationist understanding of the term did not arise until the time of Origen in the early third century CE, and that in every pre-Origen use of theopneustos the word instead means “life-giving.” Poirier thus conducts a detailed investigation of theopneustos as it appears in the fifth Sibylline Oracle, the Testament of Abraham, Vettius Valens, Pseudo-Plutarch (Placita Philosophorum), and Pseudo-Phocylides, all of whom understand the word to mean “life-giving.” He also studies the use of the cognate term theopnous in Numenius, the Corpus Hermeticum, on an inscription at the Great Sphinx of Giza, and on an inscription at a nymphaeum at Laodicea on the Lycus. Poirier argues that a rendering of “life-giving” also fits better within the context of 2 Tim 3:16, and that this meaning survived late enough to figure in a fifth-century work by Nonnus of Panopolis. He further traces the pre-Origen use of theopneustos among the Church Fathers. Poirier concludes by addressing the implication of rethinking the traditional understanding of Scripture, stressing that the lack of “God-inspired” scripture ultimately does not affect the truth status of the gospel as preached by the apostles.

Enrique Ambrosini Dussel is and has been one of the most prolific Latin American philosophers of the last 100 years. He has written over fifty books, and over three hundred articles ranging over the history of the Latin American philosophy, political philosophy, church history, theology, ethics, and occasional pieces on the state of Latin American countries. Dussel is first and foremost a moral philosopher, a philosopher of liberation. But for him, philosophy must be liberated so that it may contribute to social liberation. In one sense, "beyond philosophy" means to go beyond contemporary, academicized, professionalized, and "civilized" philosophy by turning to all that demystifies the autonomy of philosophy and turns our attention to its sources. "Beyond philosophy," also means to go beyond philosophy in the Marxian sense of abolishing philosophy by realizing it. This is the definitive English language collection of Dussel's enormous body of work. It will allow the reader to get a good sense of the breath and depth of Dussel's opus, covering four major areas: ethics, economics, history, and liberation theology.