This volume deals with the topics of friendship, flattery, and frankness of speech in the Greco-Roman world. The three topics were often related, with candor or frank criticism viewed as the trait that distinguished the true friend from the flatterer. The book's eleven essays are divided into three parts. The first part introduces the volume and discusses the three topics in the thought of Philodemus and Plutarch. Part two deals with Paul's use of friendship language in his correspondence with the Church at Philippi. Part three examines the concept of frankness (parrhesia) in Paul, Luke-Acts, Hebrews, and the Johannine corpus. The volume will be particularly useful to NT Scholars, classicists, and modern theologians and ethicists who are interested in the theory and practice of friendship in antiquity.

The fifteen essays in this volume, rooted in the work of the Hellenistic Moral Philosophy and Early Christianity Section of the SBL, examine the works of Philodemus and how they illuminate the cultural context of early Christianity. Born in Gadara in Syria, Philodemus (ca. 110-40 BCE) was active in Italy as an Epicurean philosopher and poet. This volume comprises three parts; the first deals with Philodemus' works in their own terms, the second situates his thought within its larger Greco-Roman context, and the third explores the implications of his work for understanding the earliest Christians, especially Paul. It will be useful to all readers interested in Hellenistic philosophy and rhetoric as well as Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity.

Almost all scholars look to Acts 6:1-8:3 as providing the bedrock of early Christian tradition. The incident between the Hebrews and the Hellenists are understood to reflect real historical and theological problems in the early Jerusalem community, demonstrating the Hellenist role as a historical bridge between Jesus and Paul. Penner's study challenges the fundamental assumptions of this approach. Penner emphasizes the rhetorical and moral dimensions of ancient historiographical theory, especially the centrality of narrative and plot, the use of vivid description, the application of comparison using various type-scenes, and the role of speeches in terms of characterization and the presentation of narrative style. Todd Penner is the Assistant Professor of Religion at Austin College and the co-editor with Caroline Vander Stichele of Contextualizing Acts: Lukan Narrative and Greco-Roman Discourse.

Now available from SBL Press Employing social description, social scientific models, and rhetorical analysis, Alicia J. Batten argues that the letter of James is conversant with the topic of friendship within Greek and Roman literature, as well as within various texts of early Christianity. She illustrates how James drew upon some of the language and concepts related to friendship with an intriguing density to advocate resistance to wealth, avoidance of rich patrons, and reliance upon God. Features: Use of friendship, benefaction, and patronage as lenses through which James and related texts can be viewed A strong case for how the letter appels to the language and ideas of friendship with regard to God's relationships with humans Exploration of the relationship between the book of James and the teachings of Jesus

In the ancient Greek-speaking world, writing about the past meant balancing the reporting of facts with shaping and guiding the political interests and behaviours of the present. Ancient Historiography on War and Empire shows the ways in which the literary genre of writing history developed to guide empires through their wars. Taking key events from the Achaemenid Persian, Athenian, Macedonian and Roman ‘empires’, the 17 essays collected here analyse the way events and the accounts of those events interact. Subjects include: how Greek historians assign nearly divine honours to the Persian King; the role of the tomb cult of Cyrus the Founder in historical narratives of conquest and empire from Herodotus to the Alexander historians; warfare and financial innovation in the age of Philip II and his son, Alexander the Great; the murders of Philip II, his last and seventh wife Kleopatra, and her guardian, Attalos; Alexander the Great’s combat use of eagle symbolism and divination; Plutarch’s juxtaposition of character in the Alexander-Caesar pairing as a commentary on political legitimacy and military prowess, and Roman Imperial historians using historical examples of good and bad rule to make meaningful challenges to current Roman authority. In some cases, the balance shifts more towards the ‘literary’ and in others more towards the ‘historical’, but what all of the essays have in common is both a critical attention to the genre and context of history-writing in the ancient world and its focus on war and empire.

A major reinterpretation of Horace's famous literary manual For two millennia, the Ars Poetica (Art of Poetry), the 476-line literary treatise in verse with which Horace closed his career, has served as a paradigmatic manual for writers. Rarely has it been considered as a poem in its own right, or else it has been disparaged as a great poet's baffling outlier. Here, Jennifer Ferriss-Hill for the first time fully reintegrates the Ars Poetica into Horace's oeuvre, reading the poem as a coherent, complete, and exceptional literary artifact intimately linked with the larger themes pervading his work. Arguing that the poem can be interpreted as a manual on how to live masquerading as a handbook on poetry, Ferriss-Hill traces its key themes to show that they extend beyond poetry to encompass friendship, laughter, intergenerational relationships, and human endeavor. If the poem is read for how it expresses itself, moreover, it emerges as an exemplum of art in which judicious repetitions of words and ideas join disparate parts into a seamless whole that nevertheless lends itself to being remade upon every reading. Establishing the Ars Poetica as a logical evolution of Horace's work, this book promises to inspire a long overdue reconsideration of a hugely influential yet misunderstood poem.

Many observers of Western democracies - from Thomas Piketty in Capital in the Twenty-first Century to proponents of compagn finance reform in the United States - have lamented the rise of plutocracy, claiming that putatively democratic, capitalist societies are moving ever closer to rule by and for the wealthy. These critics' common understanding seems to be that the movement toward plutocracy is not only a pernicious and growing phenomenon, but also one that might have been prevented. In this sequel to his prize-winning book, The Eyes of the People, Jeffrey Edward Green advances the polemical argument that plutocracy is a permanent feature of any liberal-democratic regime. Green draws on philosophy, history, social science, and literature to ask what democracy can mean in a world where it is understood that socioeconomic status to some degree will always determine opportunities for civic engagment and career advancenent. Under this shadow of unfairness, Green argues that the most advantaged are rightly subjected to compulsory public burdens. And just as provocatively, he urges ordinary citizens living in politics permanently darkened by plutocracy to acknowlege their second-class status and the uncomfortable civic ethics that come with it - specifically an ethics whereby the pursuit of egalitarianism is informed, at least in part, by indignation, envy, uncivil modes of discourse, and even the occassional suspension of politcal care. The Shadow of Unfairness is likely to unsettle all sides of the political and educational systems will always be tainted by socioeconomic inquality. - from dust jacket.

"Was Paul's relationship with the Philippians an economic partnership? Julien M. Ogereau explores the socio-economic dimension of Paul's koinonia with the Philippians from a Graeco-Roman perspective and argues that Paul maintained this partnership to provide financially for his mission."--Page 4 of printed paper wrapper.

"In this work, Lyn M. Kidson moves away from the traditional interpretation of 1 Timothy as a church manual and argues that the coordinating purpose of the letter is to command 'certain men (and women)' not to teach an educational program that is being promoted by factional leaders Hymenaeus and Alexander."--