In spite of some scholars’ inclination to include the book of Jubilees as another witness to “Enochic Judaism,” the relationship of Jubilees to the apocalyptic writings and events surrounding the Maccabean revolt has never been adequately clarified. This book builds on scholarship on genre to establish a clear pattern among the ways Jubilees resembles and differs from other apocalypses. Jubilees matches the apocalypses of its day in overall structure and literary morphology. Jubilees also uses the literary genre to raise the issues typical of the apocalypses—including revelation, angels and demons, judgment, and eschatology—but rejects what the apocalypses typically say about those issues, subverting reader expectations with a corrected view. In addition to the main argument concerning Jubilees, this volume’s survey of what is fundamentally apocalyptic about apocalyptic literature advances the understanding of early Jewish apocalyptic literature and, in turn, of later apocalypses and comparable perspectives, including those of Paul and the Qumran sectarians.

Reading Revelation in Context brings together short, accessible essays that compare and contrast the visions and apocalyptic imagery of the book of Revelation with various texts from Second Temple Jewish literature. Going beyond an introduction that merely surveys historical events and theological themes, Reading Revelation in Context examines individual passages in Second Temple Jewish literature in order to illuminate the context of Revelation's theology and the meaning and potency of John's visions. Following the narrative progression of Revelation, each chapter (1) pairs a major unit of the Apocalypse with one or more sections of a thematically related Jewish text, (2) introduces and explores the historical and theological nuances of the comparator text, and (3) shows how the ideas in the comparator text illuminate those expressed in Revelation. In addition to the focused comparison provided in the essays, the book contains other student-friendly features that will help them engage broader discussions, including an introductory chapter that familiarizes students with the world and texts of Second Temple Judaism, a glossary of important terms, and a brief appendix suggesting what tools students might use to undertake their own comparative studies. At the end of each chapter there a list of other thematically relevant Second Temple Jewish texts recommended for additional study and a focused bibliography pointing students to critical editions and higher-level discussions in scholarly literature. Reading Revelation in Context brings together an international team of over 20 New Testament experts including Jamie Davies, David A. deSilva, Michael J. Gorman, Dana M. Harris, Ronald Herms, Edith M. Humphrey, Jonathan A. Moo, Elizabeth E. Shively, Cynthia Long Westfall, Archie T. Wright, and more.

A highly regarded expert on the Jewish apocalyptic tradition, John J. Collins has written extensively on the subject. Nineteen of his essays written over the last fifteen years, including previously unpublished contributions, are brought together for the first time in this volume. Its thematic essays organized in five sections, Apocalypse, Prophecy, and Pseudepigraphy complements and enriches Collins's well-known book The Apocalyptic Imagination.

John among the Apocalypses explains John's distinctive narrative of Jesus's life by comparing it to Jewish apocalypses and highlighting the central place of revelation in the Gospel. By engaging with modern genre theory, Reynolds reveals surprising similarities of form, content, and function between John's Gospel and Jewish apocalypses.

Arguing with Aseneth shows how the ancient Jewish romance known as Joseph and Aseneth moves a minor character in Genesis from obscurity to renown, weaving a new story whose main purpose was to intervene in ancient Jewish debates surrounding gentile access to Israel's God. Written in Greco-Roman Egypt around the turn of the era, Joseph and Aseneth combines the genre of the ancient Greek novel with scriptural characters from the story of Joseph as it retells Israel's mythic past to negotiate communal boundaries in its own present. With attention to the ways in which Aseneth's tale "remixes" Genesis, wrestles with Deuteronomic theology, and adopts prophetic visions of the future, Arguing with Aseneth demonstrates that this ancient novel inscribes into Israel's sacred narrative a precedent for gentile inclusion in the people belonging to Israel's God. Aseneth is transformed from material mother of the sons of Joseph to a mediator of God's mercy and life to future penitents, Jew and gentile alike. Yet not all Jewish thinkers in antiquity drew boundary lines the same way or in the same place. Arguing with Aseneth traces, then, not only the way in which Joseph and Aseneth affirms the possibility of gentile incorporation but also ways in which other ancient Jewish thinkers, including the apostle Paul, would have argued back, contesting Joseph and Aseneth's very conclusions or offering alternative, competing strategies of inclusion. With its use of a female protagonist, Joseph and Aseneth offers a distinctive model of gentile incorporation--one that eschews lines of patrilineal descent and undermines ethnicity and genealogy as necessary markers of belonging. Such a reading of this narrative shows us that we need to rethink our accounts of how ancient Jewish thinkers, including our earliest example from the Jesus Movement, negotiated who was in and who was out when it came to the people of Israel's God.

This book contains a collection of poetry inspired by the award-winning canvas art of Zeal Artistry. The author prays that the words within bring readers peace, comfort, and joy in each season of growing.

By applying a linguistic stylistic analysis, this study argues that Luke's construal of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 and its related passages attempt to subvert a tradition within Second Temple Jewish literature that threatened the unity of multi-ethnic churches.

This collection presents new research in angelology, giving special attention to the otherworldly beings known as the Watchers who are able to move between heaven and earth. According to the pseudepigraphic Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1-36), these angels descend to mate with women. The collection begins by examining Watchers traditions in biblical and non-biblical writings (e.g., Gen 6:1-4, the Qumran Hodayot, Book of Jubilees, and Book of Revelation). The collection also surveys Watchers traditions among late antique writings, including the Apocryphon of John, Manichean and Islamic writings, testamentary literature, the Pseudo-Clementines, and medieval Scholastic texts.

Terence L. Donaldson's scholarship in the field of New Testament studies is vital, as he has pressed scholars to pay closer attention to the complex relations between early Christ-followers-who were mostly non-Jews-and the Jewish matrix from which the narrative of the Christian proclamation comes from. This volume allows prominent New Testament scholars to engage Donaldson's contributions, both to sharpen some of his conclusions and to honour him for his work. These essays are located at the intersections of three bodies of literature-Matthew, Paul and Second Temple Jewish Literature-and themes and questions that have been central to Donaldson's work: Christian Judaism and the Parting of the Ways; Gentiles in Judaism and early Christianity; Anti-Judaism in early Christianity. With contributions ranging from remapping Paul within Jewish ideologies, and Paul among friends and enemies, to socio-cultural readings of Matthew, and construction of Christian Identity through stereotypes of the Scribes and Pharisees, this book provides a multi-scholar tribute to Donaldson's accomplishments.

At the origin of the Watchers tradition is the single enigmatic reference in Genesis 6 to the sons of God who had intercourse with human women, producing a race of giants upon the earth. That verse sparked a wealth of cosmological and theological speculation in early Judaism. Here leading scholars explore the contours of the Watchers traditions through history, tracing their development through the Enoch literature, Jubilees, and other early Jewish and Christian writings. This volume provides a lucid survey of current knowledge and interpretation of one of the most intriguing theological motifs of the Second Temple period.