This book introduces sociolinguistic criticism to New Testament studies. It utilizes a wide range of sociolinguistic theories, principles, and concepts in treating the language and sociolinguistic contexts of the New Testament, social memory, orality and literacy, and the oral traditions of the Gospels, and various texts and genres in the New Testament.

In The Multilingual Jesus and the Sociolinguistic World of the New Testament, Hughson Ong provides a study of the multifarious social and linguistic dynamics that compose the speech community of ancient Palestine, which include its historical linguistic shifts under different military regimes, its geographical linguistic landscape, the social functions of the languages in its linguistic repertoire, and the specific types of social contexts where those languages were used. Using a sociolinguistic model, his study attempts to paint a portrait of the sociolinguistic situation of ancient Palestine. This book is arguably the most comprehensive treatment of the subject matter to date in terms of its survey of the secondary literature and of its analysis of the sociolinguistic environment of first-century Palestine.

Text, Context and the Johannine Community adopts a new approach to the social context of the Johannine writings by drawing on modern sociolinguistic theory. Sociolinguistics emphasizes language as a social phenomenon, which can be analysed with reference not only to its broad context of culture, but also, through the use of register analysis, to its narrower context of situation. The Johannine writings have increasingly been seen as the product of a distinct Johannine Community, depicted by some scholars as a sectarian group, opposed both to wider Jewish society and to other Christian groups. This model has largely been constructed on historical-critical grounds, yet given our lack of reliable external information about the origin of the Johannine writings, a more fruitful approach may be to examine their lexico-grammatical and discourse features to determine what these imply about interpersonal relationships. This study compares selected 'narrative asides' from the Gospel of John with a passage section from 1 John and with the two shorter Johannine Epistles. It concludes that register analysis of these texts does not support the idea of a close-knit sectarian group.

This third volume, like its predecessors, adds to the growing body of literature concerned with the history of biblical interpretation. With eighteen essays on nineteen biblical interpreters, volume 3 expands the scope of scholars, both traditional and modern, covered in this now multivolume series. Each chapter provides a biographical sketch of its respective scholar(s), an overview of their major contributions to the field, explanations of their theoretical and methodological approaches to interpretation, and evaluations and applications of their methods. By focusing on the contexts in which these scholars lived and worked, these essays show what defining features qualify these scholars as “pillars” in the history of biblical interpretation. While identifying a scholar as a “pillar” is somewhat subjective, this volume defines a pillar as one who has made a distinctive contribution by using and exemplifying a clear method that has pushed the discipline forward, at least within a given context and time period. This volume is ideal for any class on the history of biblical interpretation and for those who want a greater understanding of how the field of biblical studies has developed and how certain interpreters have played a formative role in that development.

The Epistle of James is a collection of essays that applies to the book of James linguistic methods of analysis that are based on the same theoretical framework, namely Systemic-Functional Linguistics. This volume is unique in that it provides a theoretically consistent and unified approach to a single New Testament book, which makes the whole volume useful for researchers and students of James. Each essay makes its own creative use of this linguistic perspective to engage important critical questions and to pave new ground for Jacobean scholarship based on linguistic analysis. Various topics in this volume include the textual structure and cohesion of the letter, intertextuality, rhetorical strategies, ideological struggle, interpersonal relations, and other topics related to the letter's social context and language use.

David Alan Black has been one of the leading voices in New Testament studies over the last forty years. His contributions to Greek grammar, textual criticism, the Synoptic problem, the authorship of Hebrews, and many more have challenged scholars and students to get into the text of the New Testament like never before and to rethink the status quo based on all the evidence. The present volume consists of thirteen studies, written by some of Black's colleagues, friends, and former students, on a number of New Testament topics in honor of his successful research and teaching career. Not only do they address issues that have garnered his attention over the years, they also extend the scholarly discussion with up-to-date research and fresh evaluations of the evidence, making this book a valuable contribution in itself to the field that Black has devoted himself to since he began his career.

In The Language and Literature of the New Testament, a team of international scholars assembles to honour the academic career of New Testament scholar Stanley E. Porter. Over the years Porter has distinguished himself in a wide range of sub-disciplines within New Testament Studies. The contents of this book represent these diverse scholarly interests, ranging from canon and textual criticism to linguistics, other interpretive methodologies, Jesus and the Gospels, and Pauline studies.

The beginning of the Roman Catholic/Orthodox Theological dialogue during the 20th century raised to some high hopes for an imminent canonical unity between the two Denominations, and this, though premature, is not of course to be blamed; it is impossible for any contemporary Christian theologian not to suffer from the division within this very womb of the ontological unification of all things, which is the Church of Christ—precisely because this division gives to many the impression of a fragmentation of the Church’s very being and subsequently weakens her witness. Contents: 1. Manifesting Persons: A Church in Tension, ANDREW T.J. KAETHLER; 2. Ab astris ad castra: An Ignatian-MacIntyrean Proposal for Overcoming Historical and Political-Theological Difficulties in Ecumenical Dialogue, JARED SCHUMACHER; 3. Simon Peter in the Gospel according to John:His Historical Significance according to the Johannine Community’s Narrative, CHRISTOS KARAKOLIS; 4. The Scythian Monks’ Latin-cum-Eastern Approach to Tradition: A Paradigm for Reunifying Doctrines and Overcoming Schism, ANNA ZHYRKOVA; 5. Beauty is the Church’s Unity:Supernatural Finality, Aesthetics, and Catholic-Orthodox Dialogue, NORM KLASSEN; 6. Ecumenism and Trust: A Pope on Mount Athos, ANDREAS ANDREOPOULOS; 7. God’s Silence and Its Icons: A Catholic’s Experiences at Mount Athos and Mount Jamna, MARCIN PODBIELSKI; 8. Councils and Canons: A Lutheran Perspective on the Great Schism and the So-Called Eighth Ecumenical Council, JOHANNES BÖRJESSON; 9. Christological Or Analogical Primacy. Ecclesial Unity And Universal Primacy In The Orthodox Church, NIKOLAOS LOUDOVIKOS; 10. Ecumenism, Geopolitics, and Crisis, JOHN MILBANK; 11. Concluding Reflections on Mapping the Una Sancta. An Orthodox-Catholic Ecclesiology Today, MARCELLO LA MATINA;

Few scholarly constructs have proven as influential or as durable as the Johannine community. A product of the era in New Testament studies dominated by redaction criticism, the Johannine community construct as articulated first by J. Louis Martyn and later by Raymond E. Brown emerged with an explanatory power that proved persuasive to scholars deliberating on the provenance and emergence of the Johannine literature for the next 50 years. Recent years, however, have seen this once dominant paradigm questioned by many of those working with the Gospel and Letters of John. The Johannine Community in Contemporary Debate is dedicated to exploring the current state of the question while shining a light on new and constructive proposals for understanding the emergence of the Johannine literature. Some contributions accept the idea of a Johannine Community but suggest different ways we might know about the nature of that community. Others reject the existence of a Johannine Community, suggesting alternate models for understanding the emergence of these texts. These proposals are themselves set in perspective by responses from senior scholars.

This exegetical, linguistic commentary on the New Testament epistles of Colossians and Philemon brings discourse analysis into connection with exegesis of the Greek text. It aims to connect theoretical approaches to the ancient Greek with current interests such as biblical interpretation, appreciation of the original circumstances behind its composition, and relevance of these early epistles to modern readers