Despite scholars’ ongoing historical and sociological investigations into the ancient family, the right and the status of the firstborn son have been rarely explored by NT scholars, and this topic has not attracted the careful attention that it deserves. This work offers a study of the meaning of the firstborn son in the New Testament paying specific attention to the concept of primogeniture in the Old Testament and Jewish literature. This study argues that primogeniture was a unique institution in Jewish society, and that the title of the firstborn son indicates his access to the promise of Israel, and is associated with the right of the inheritance (i.e., primogeniture) including the Land and the special status of Israel.

"The near sacrifice and miraculous restoration of a beloved son is a central but largely overlooked theme in both Judaism and Christianity. This book explores how this notion of child sacrifice constitutes an overlooked bond between the two religions."--

Among the many religious acts condemned in the Hebrew Bible, child sacrifice stands out as particularly horrifying. The idea that any group of people would willingly sacrifice their own children to their god(s) is so contrary to modern moral sensibilities that it is difficult to imagine that such a practice could have ever existed. Nonetheless, the existence of biblical condemnation of these rites attests to the fact that some ancient Israelites in fact did sacrifice their children. Indeed, a close reading of the evidence—biblical, archaeological, epigraphic, etc.—indicates that there are at least three different types of Israelite child sacrifice, each with its own history, purpose, and function. In addition to examining the historical reality of Israelite child sacrifice, Dewrell’s study also explores the biblical rhetoric condemning the practice. While nearly every tradition preserved in the Hebrew Bible rejects child sacrifice as abominable to Yahweh, the rhetorical strategies employed by the biblical writers vary to a surprising degree. Thus, even in arguing against the practice of child sacrifice, the biblical writers themselves often disagreed concerning why Yahweh condemned the rites and why they came to exist in the first place.

"In this book Peter Schäfer casts light on the common assumption that Judaism from its earliest formulations was strictly monotheistic. Over and over again in the Hebrew Bible the biblical writers insist upon the idea that there is one and only one God. But the biblical text is multifarious and contains many sources that subvert from within the strong monotheistic thesis. Old Canaanite deities such as Baal and El, although pushed to the edges, prove stubbornly persistent. They come to the forefront in, for example, the famous "Son of Man" of chapter 7 of the Book of Daniel. In sum, Schäfer argues that monotheism was an ideal in ancient Judaism that was consistently aspired to, but never fully achieved. Through close textual analysis of the Bible and certain key post-biblical sources, Schäfer tracks the long history of a second, younger, subordinate God next to the senior Jewish God YHWH. One might expect that with early Christianity's embrace of this idea (in the form of Jesus Christ), Judaism would have abandoned it utterly. But the opposite was the case. Even after Christianity usurps the original Jewish notion of a second, younger God, certain post-biblical Jewish circles-in particular early Jewish mystical circles-maintained and revived it with the archangel "Metatron," a controversial figure whose very existence is questioned and fiercely debated by the rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud. This book was originally published in Germany by C.H. Beck Verlag in 2016"--

Ancient peoples regarded names as indicative of character and destiny. The Jews were no exception. This is a critical study of ancient exegesis of the title `Israel' and the meanings attributed to it among Jews down to Talmudic times, along with some early Christian materials. C. T. R. Hayward explores ancient etymologies of `Israel', and the utilization of these very varied explanations of the name in sustained works of exegesis like Jubilees; the writings of Ben Sira, Philo, andJosephus; and selected Rabbinic texts including Aramaic Targumim. He also examines translational works like the Septuagint, to illuminate those writings' sense of what it meant to be a Jew.

In this thoroughly revised and updated edition of a classic reference work, topics like Christology, justification, and hermeneutics receive careful treatment by trusted specialists. New topics like politics, patronage, and different cultural perspectives expand the volume's breadth and usefulness for scholars, pastors, and students today.

Brings a new approach to the interpretation of the sources used to study the Early Christian era - reading history backwards. This book will interest teachers and students of New Testament studies from around the world of any denomination, and readers of early Christianity and Patristics.

Cyprus was a crossroads in the ancient eastern Mediterranean, a key location between east and west, in which Judaism, Greco-Roman religions, and Christianity intersected, and where Christianity came to flourish. Bringing together scholars of religion and archaeology to study Cyprus in antiquity, this volume's contributions cover a myriad of topics, including the mosaics of Cyprus, its silver treasures, religious tensions between Christians and others, the role of Epiphanius, the story of St. Barnabas, the powerful position of Cyprus as autocephalous within emerging orthodoxy in antiquity, those who used so-called magical texts, those who worked in a harbor, those involved with the transport of building materials, and early representations of Cyprian saints. By drawing on literary, archaeological, and art historical evidence from the first century CE to the medieval period, the volume elucidates the diversity of Christianity in late antique Cyprus, while also discussing relations between Christians, Jews, and members of Greco-Roman religions.

A “Community of Peoples” draws together a diverse community of scholars to honor the career of Daniel E. Fleming. Through a diversity of methods and disciplines, each contributor attempts to touch a sliver of ancient Middle Eastern history.

The material culture of Colossae is here for the first time given as full a collation as possible to the present day. 38 inscriptions, 88 coins and 49 testimonia are brought together in the context of a thorough overview of the site of Colossae. These include evidence that has been thought lost or has been overlooked or misinterpreted or has only recently been discovered. New readings, insights and analyses of the material evidence are brought into a highly creative exchange with the two letters of the Second Testament connected with the site. The texts thereby become additional evidence for an appreciation of the life of a city in the first two centuries of the Common Era. The fullest collation of evidence for the ancient Phrygian city in the Greco-Roman period was the coin catalogue assembled by Hans von Aulock (1987). The most recent catalogue of the inscriptions of Colossae was published by William Calder and William Buckler in 1939. There has never been a full inventory of ancient writings that bear witness to the site. Alan H. Cadwallader in his volume not only updates this material by subjecting it to thorough, critical analysis in the light of comparative evidence from across the Roman province of Asia and the Mediterranean world. New discoveries from the site and from museums and collections in the United Kingdom, Europe, Russia, Australia and the United States are introduced. Into this assemblage and interpretation are brought the letters to the Colossians and Philemon in the Second Testament writings of the Christian Church. For the first time, the letters are released to be players in the highly competitive environment of a city negotiating its way in the new realities of imperial Rome. Here the letters and their recipients become participants in the society of the day, contributing, critiquing and struggling to forge an identity for the Christ followers within that world. Echoes of the gymnasium, gladiatorial spectacles, cosmological speculations, religious devotion and sanction, family structures, commerce and industry, struggles for justice, intercity competition and legal negotiations are found in the letters, echoes that witness to their participation in the life of Colossae. This is a radical new approach, incorporating the turn to material culture as the embedding of literature and its consumers rather than an embellishing backdrop.