This authoritative volume brings together a team of world-class scholars to cover the full range of New Testament backgrounds studies in a concise, up-to-date, and comprehensive manner. Drawing on the expertise of specialists in the areas of archaeological, historical, and biblical studies, this book provides concise treatments of a wide breadth of topics related to the world of the early Christ followers. The book offers compact overviews of key historical issues, facilitating enriched understandings of the significance and force of the texts of the New Testament in their original contexts. Meant to be used alongside traditional literature-based canonical surveys, this one-stop introduction to New Testament backgrounds fills a gap in typical introduction to the Bible courses and is ideal for undergraduate or seminary classes. It is beautifully designed and includes photographs, line drawings, maps, charts, and tables, which will facilitate its use in the classroom.

An introduction to the writings of the New Testament, written by a prominent scholar who is able to communicate the main ideas and results with a clear and simple style. This third edition, although leaving intact the structure of the book, has been rewritten extensively, updating the information and adding the results of new biblical approaches and research. Includes new maps and illustrations.

The contributions in this volume are focused on the historical origins, religious provenance, and social function of ancient Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature, including so-called ‘Gnostic’ writings. Although it is disputed whether there was a genre of ‘apocalyptic literature,’ it is obvious that numerous texts from ancient Judaism, early Christianity, and other religious milieus share a specific view of history and the world to come. Many of these writings are presented in form of a heavenly (divine) revelation, mediated through an otherworldly figure (like an angel) to an elected human being who discloses this revelation to his recipients in written form. In different strands of early Judaism, ancient Christianity as well as in Gnosticism, Manichaeism, and Islam, apocalyptic writings played an important role from early on and were produced also in later centuries. One of the most characteristic features of these texts is their specific interpretation of history, based on the knowledge about the upper, divine realm and the world to come. Against this background the volume deals with a wide range of apocalyptic texts from different periods and various religious backgrounds.

"In Ancient Judaism: New Visions and Views Michael Stone examines a broad range of basic issues in the study of Second Temple Judaism and calls for a radical rethinking of approaches to Jewish history. Stone challenges scholars and students to question theologically conditioned histories of ancient Judaism devised by later orthodoxies, whether Jewish or Christian, and to acknowledge religious experience as a major factor in the composition and transmission of ancient religious documents. He urges readers to look above and beyond the spectacles of tradition and cultural memory that too often distort their understanding of the ancient past. Addressing an assortment of topics regarding the authorship, transmission, and interpretation of the canonical Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, apocryphal and pseudepigraphic literature, and more, Stone's Ancient Judaism underscores the stunning complexity of both the raw data and the resulting picture of Judaism in antiquity."--Publisher description.

Resurrection of the dead represents one of the more enigmatic beliefs of Western religions to many modern readers. In this volume, C. D. Elledge offers an interpretation of some of the earliest literature within Judaism that exhibits a confident hope in resurrection. He not only aids the study of early Jewish literature itself, but expands contemporary knowledge of some of the earliest expressions of a hope that would become increasingly meaningful in later Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Elledge focuses on resurrection in the latest writings of the Hebrew Bible, the Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as the writings of other Hellenistic Jewish authors. He also incorporates later rabbinic writings, early Christian sources, and inscriptions, as they shed additional light upon select features of the evidence in question. This allows for a deeper look into how particular literary works utilized the discourse of resurrection, while also retaining larger comparative insights into what these materials may teach us about the gradual flourishing of resurrection within its early Jewish environment. Individual chapters balance a more categorical/comparative approach to the problems raised by resurrection (definitions, diverse conceptions, historical origins, strategies of legitimation) with a more specific focus on particular pieces of the early Jewish evidence (1 Enoch, Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus). Resurrection of the Dead in Early Judaism, 200 BCE-CE 200 provides a treatment of resurrection that informs the study of early Jewish theologies, as well as their later reinterpretations within Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity.

Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all feature ideas about heaven, hell, and afterlife, and these concepts have evolved over time within these religions. This work supplies a detailed and coherent understanding of the broad scope of spiritual thinking in the last 3,000 years within the Abrahamic traditions. Heaven, Hell, and the Afterlife: Eternity in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam provides an all-encompassing examination of historic and contemporary perspectives on afterlife in Western religions. In these three volumes, Judaic, Christian, and Muslim scholars join forces, providing an unprecedented review of their individual faith's traditions. Every significant issue and major theme is discussed; no controversial topic is avoided. From ancient doctrines to modern-day outlooks of conservatives, progressives, and liberals in all three religions, all are analyzed and presented here. The framework of the volumes underscores how the ethics and concepts of eternity in the Western "action" religions contrast with Eastern religions that tend to be characterized as "passive" or "withdrawal" religions in their ethics and their notions of afterlife as absorption within universal spirit, Nirvana, or nonexistence. This work is well-suited for undergraduate and graduate students, general readers interested in religion, and professional scholars, particularly those in fields corollary to religious study.

Throughout Jewish history, revolutionary events and subversive ideas have burst forth, repeatedly transforming Jewish experience. Re-forming Judaism seeks to explore these ideas---and the individuals behind them---by delving into historical disruptions that led to lasting change in Jewish thought. A distinguished array of scholars take us on a journey from the disruptive prophets of ancient times, through rational, mystical, and extremist medievalists, to the impact of Haskalah and early Reform thought in modernity. Contemporary innovations such as changes in liturgy and music, feminism, and post-Holocaust theology are included, as are insights into Sephardic and North African experiences. By showing how Judaism forms---then re-forms, and re-forms again---the contributors demonstrate that tensions between continuity and change have always been part of Jewish life, helping us to both understand the past and contemplate the future. The excellent chapters in this exciting and provocative book provide an illuminating journey through the grand sweep of Jewish history, seen through the lens of crises that generated radical transformations. The volume is perfect for all who seek to explore the resilience that undergirds Jewish survival and to benefit from first-rate scholarship and engaging style. -- Rabbi Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, PhD, Effie Wise Ochs Professor of Biblical Literature and History, Hebrew Union College--Jewish Institute of Religion An accessible introduction to the long history of disruption in Jewish life from antiquity to the present. To paraphrase a famous slogan, "You don't need to be Reform to enjoy Re-Forming Judaism." You just need to be curious as to how change happens. -- Jonathan D. Sarna, PhD, University Professor and Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis University There is a piece of every Jew that relishes thinking of oneself as standing at Sinai and being part of a people and tradition that extends from then to now. The Jewish tradition, though, is ours now only because it had the wisdom to change over the centuries. This book graphically demonstrates how tradition and change together have kept Judaism instructive and relevant over time so that Jews now can enjoy and benefit from both its continuity and its ever-refreshing and challenging nature. -- Rabbi Elliot Dorff, PhD, Rector and Sol & Anne Dorff Distinguished Service Professor of Philosophy, American Jewish University

This book is the first study to focus on the reception of Paul's link between resurrection and salvation, revealing its profound effect on early Christian theology - not only eschatology, but also anthropology, pneumatology, ethics, and soteriology. Thomas D. McGlothlin traces the roots of the strong tension on the matter in ancient Judaism and then offers deep readings of the topic by key theologians of pre-Nicene Christianity, who argued on both sides of the issue of the fleshliness of the resurrected body. McGlothlin unravels the surprising continuities that emerge between Irenaeus, Origen, and the Valentinians, as well as deep disagreements between allies like Irenaeus and Tertullian.

How may a 17th century theory about the Fifth Empire and the succession of empires be so similar to the 2nd century BCE theory introduced by the Book of Daniel? How was this possible in the works of António Vieira, S.J., (1608-1697), and particularly in his famous manuscript, the Clavis Prophetarum - De Regno Christi In Terris Consummato? This book analyzes the history of the interpretation of concepts such as Fifth Empire and succession of ages from as early as the 2nd century B.C. until the 17th century. Influenced by the main intellectual and religious tendencies of the 17th century, Vieira’s interpretation has revealed itself to be original in the way that it introduces a new reading/interpretation of the succession of historical periods. The Jesuit also identifies the antichrist and the Last Emperor with historical characters of his time.