The T & T Clark Blog

Author Interview: Nicholas Elder on The Media Matrix of Early Jewish and Christian Narrative

 

 

 

Professor Nicholas Elder explains his research into media and modes of composition in antiquity, found in The Media Matrix of Early Jewish and Christian Narrative, one of the latest publications in The Library of New Testament Studies.

1. How do you think your book could be described – in just one sentence?

This book is a comparison of two narratives, the Gospel of Mark and Joseph and Aseneth, that are dissimilar by many counts but, as I argue, were of a similar antique media form.

2. What drew you to researching early Jewish and Christian Narrative?

I was drawn in by the rhetorical power that narrative generally, and early Jewish and Christian narrative particularly, possesses. As humans we think narratively. There is nothing like a good story, and both the Gospel of Mark and Joseph and Aseneth are great stories.

Editor Interview - Matthew R. Crawford and Nicholas J. Zola on The Gospel of Tatian: Exploring the Nature and Text of the Diatessaron

 

Professor Matthew R. Crawford and Professor Nicholas J. Zola discuss the exploration of whether Tatian’s Diatessaron was merely a “gospel harmony,” mechanically compiling canonical texts, or a gospel in its own right, designed to supplant its sources; in the edited collection The Gospel of Tatian, one of the latest volumes in The Reception of Jesus in the First Three Centuries.

1. How would you describe this book in one or two sentences?

Christians were still writing Gospels in the second century when Tatian composed what we call the Diatessaron. This book situates Tatian’s “Gospel” within the broader context of Gospel writing and reception, specifically exploring its sources, its witnesses, and its relationship to the emerging fourfold Gospel.

Author Interview - Tucker Ferda on Jesus, the Gospels, and the Galilean Crisis

Dr. Tucker Ferda takes us through the discoveries he made during the creation of one of our most recently published Library of New Testament Studies works: Jesus, The Gospels and the Galilean Crisis.

 

1. How would you describe this book in one sentence?

This book explores how Jesus, his early followers, and later interpreters, made sense of the rejection of the Gospel, and it suggests that contemporary scholarship continues to repeat the conclusions of 19^th-century and earlier research in important and overlooked ways.

2. What drew you to this subject?

I am fascinated by both the reception history of the Gospels and the attempt to reconstruct Jesus as a figure in history. I am firmly convinced that these two projects go hand in hand such that, as Ricoeur once said, we cannot talk about the past until we talk about ourselves as beings shaped by the past. I also have interests in how Christian theology works in the valleys of disappointment, despair, and trauma. So I guess this book was a melding of all these things.

Author Interview: The Hasmoneans and Their Neighbors: New Historical Reconstructions from the Dead Sea Scrolls and Classical Sources

For one of our recent publications, The Hasmoneans and Their Neighbors: New Historical Reconstructions from the Dead Sea Scrolls and Classical Sources, Dr. Kenneth Atkinson reveals the inspiration and research behind his latest book.

1. How would you describe your book in one sentence?

 My book offers a bold new reconstruction of the vital historical period in Palestine from 152 to 63 B.C.E., when the Hasmonean family of Jewish rulers changed the fates of their neighbors, the Roman Republic, the religion of Judaism, and created the foundation for the development of the nascent Christian faith.

2.What drew to you writing about this subject?

I discovered the remarkable story of the family of Jewish rulers known as the Hasmoneans (a.k.a. Maccabees) when I first read the writings of the Jewish-Roman historian Josephus (37 B.C.E.-ca. 98 C.E.). His accounts of how the Hasmoneans forged an independent state, maintained power, fought numerous enemies, and lost their independence to the Romans, is a gripping narrative with many Shakespearian qualities. Josephus’s chronicle of King Judah Aristobulus is perhaps the best example. It is reminiscent of Macbeth with its tales of matricide, sibling strife, and madness. Although Josephus’s descriptions of him and his ruthless brother, Alexander Jannaeus, make compelling reading, I was astonished at his sections about Queen Shelamzion Alexandra. The only legitimate female ruler in Jewish history and the sole woman named in the Dead Sea Scrolls, she emerged during a time of chaos to preserve her family’s kingdom and change her religion. Her reign is one of history’s most fascinating and least known stories. After reading Josephus’s books, I became so interested in the Hasmonean family that I decided someday to document their history in an academic publication accessible to scholars in a variety of disciplines, students, and interested laypersons. It ended up being a much greater project than I had anticipated.

My previous book, The History of the Hasmonean State: Josephus and Beyond (T and T Clark Jewish and Christian Texts in Contexts and Related Studies, 23 [London: Bloomsbury T and T Clark, 2016]), used all extant data to reconstruct the history of the Hasmonean State as documented in Josephus’s works. This was the only book I had planned to publish about the Hasmoneans. However, while writing it, I discovered a vast quantity of unused literary, archaeological, and numismatic sources that document relations between the Hasmoneans and their neighbors, as well as how the family affected the Dead Sea Scrolls community. I also found that these ancient manuscripts discovered along the Dead Sea help us to understand Greek and Latin classical writings about this period. These works, moreover, contain a wealth of untapped resources for reconstructing previously unknown events in Hasmonean history. The Hasmoneans and their Neighbors uses this evidence to reveal how the Hasmonean family changed the fates of their neighbors, the Roman Republic, the religion of Judaism, and created the foundation for the development of the nascent Christian faith. I am confident readers will find it a fascinating book.

3. How long have you been researching it? How did you come to study it?

This book has a rather long history that precedes my academic career. I first encountered the Hasmoneans during the Cold War when I spent four years as a soldier in the U.S. Army (1983-1987). Assigned to the former West Berlin, I transported classified documents through the Berlin Wall across the former East Germany and the Iron Curtain. Because of my military status, I was able to cross through Check Point Charlie—the border between East and West Berlin and the infamous “Berlin Wall”—to see the great historical and archaeological museums in the former Communist sector. I was particularly fascinated with the biblical artifacts there, which led me to visit many of the countries where archaeologists found them. My experiences in the army, coupled with my independent study and travels, stimulated my desire to pursue a career in academia specializing in the period of the Hasmonean state. Before I began my academic training, I wanted to see more in my quest to learn about the Hasmoneans and the ancient world first-hand.

After my military discharge (honorable I am happy to say!), I spent nearly three years traveling full-time to historical and archaeological sites in several Middle Eastern and European countries. Equipped only with a backpack, I retraced portions of Jesus’ travels, Paul’s journeys, Xenophon’s march of the ten thousand, Lucullus’ Armenian campaign, and Crusader routes—a good portion of them by foot! My journeys shaped nearly every chapter of The Hasmoneans and Their Neighbors, especially my reconstructions of historical events based on my visits to numerous archaeological sites. This is perhaps most evident in chapter three, where I use my trip to the ancient kingdom of Commagene and neighboring regions to uncover new information about a possible Hasmonean campaign there. Upon my return home and throughout my graduate school education, I continued my studies of the Hasmoneans. Readers will find much new information throughout The Hasmoneans and Their Neighbors that my varied life experiences allowed me to uncover. Like my previous book, it contains many original historical reconstructions not available anywhere else.

4. What does your book focus on that hasn’t been explored elsewhere?

The Hasmoneans and Their Neighbors shows that Jewish sectarianism and messianism played greater roles in the Hasmonean state than indicated in the writings of Josephus. It also proposes that we cannot understand the history and theological beliefs of Jews during the period of the Hasmonean state without a close investigation of the histories of the Egyptian Ptolemaic and the Syrian Seleucid Empires, as well as the Roman Republic. By bringing together evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls and classical sources, I offer a new reconstruction of this vital historical period when the Hasmoneans not only shaped Middle Eastern history, but transformed the classical world as well. The Hasmoneans and Their Neighbors also contains many new reconstructions of classical history, including the most detailed examination of Pompey the Great’s assassination in light of Jewish sources. This section on his death reveals new information that explains the discrepancies in the classical accounts of this pivotal event that shaped Middle Eastern and Roman history, and which ended the Roman Republic. The Hasmoneans and Their Neighbors is a truly exciting story that will interest scholars from many fields, as well as anyone interested in learning about one of history’s most amazing, influential, and dysfunctional families.

 

Author Interview - Understanding Affections in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards: “The High Exercises of Divine Love”

In anticipation of Understanding Affections in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards: “The High Exercises of Divine Love”, Dr Ryan J. Martin goes into further detail on the creation of his monograph.

 

How would you describe your book in one sentence?

My book is a focused look at how Jonathan Edwards defined affections and other movements of the human soul, and how his understanding of human anthropology was incorporated into his theology as a whole. 

               

What drew to you writing about this subject?

I was already interested in affections as a category, and especially in the ways older Christians thought about them as a psychological phenomenon. It seems--even on the surface--that Christian thought on the soul's movements have shifted and morphed in recent times. I wanted to understand better some of the older models of thought on their own terms, rather than looking at them through the prism of contemporary categories and assumptions. Finally, the opportunity to study a master theological mind like that of Edwards was itself immensely appealing. 

 

How long have you been researching Jonathan Edwards? How did you come to study him?

During my Master of Divinity at Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Minnesota, U.S.A., I started reading Jonathan Edwards's Religious Affections, a classic work on Christian affection and devotion. I read just a couple of pages per day, early each morning before starting the day. I really didn't start studying Edwards's thought in earnest until after I began my Ph.D., however. I assumed that everything that could be written on Edwards had already been written, so I looked at my making any worthwhile contribution to Edwards's thought to be a fool's errand. Nevertheless, my doktorvater and friend, Kevin T. Bauder, pushed me to explore more deeply this area of Edwards's thought through the work of the scholar Thomas Dixon. Ken Minkema also encouraged me to continue my work in Edwards's affective thought. 

 

What does your book focus on that hasn’t been explored elsewhere?

I'd highlight especially three areas of development. My book emphasizes both the way Edwards thought about affections, especially in contrast with other movements of the soul. I pay special attention to Edwards's distinction between "affections" and "passions," showing how he maintained this distinction throughout his career as a pastor and theologian. A second focus is the way I tie those ideas throughout Edwards's greater theological endeavors. I try to show that affections were a perennial concern for Edwards, from his early days at New Haven, to his later writings against the theological progressives of his day. Finally, I make the case that the way Edwards thought about affections has little in common with more recent emphases on emotions found in popular Christian religious thought. 

 

What do you hope readers will gain from the book?

I hope they'll gain an appreciation of Christian theology, the remarkable genius of Jonathan Edwards, and the necessity of gracious affections for the Triune God. 

Understanding Affections in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards: “The High Exercises of Divine Love” is available for pre-order now, and is due for release on 15th November 2018!

 

 

Ten Books for Easter

As a tribute to this Holy Week of 2018, we have created a list of previous, current and future releases, that we feel particularly reflect the importance of the days before us!

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Our Guides for the Perplexed explain key themes for scholars and general readers, providing an accessible introduction to challenging thinkers, writers and subjects.

 

T&T Clark Companion to Atonement

Focusing on dogmatic location, analysis of the Old and New Testaments, major theologians and contemporary developments on atonement, every essay in this companion seeks to both appropriate and stimulate the church's understanding of the manifold nature of Christ's death and resurrection.

 

The Resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of Peter: A Tradition-Historical Study of the Akhmîm Gospel Fragment

An investigation of the significance of the discovery of the Akhmim fragment, and the consequences of understanding it as an eye-witness testimony of the resurrection of Jesus.

God as Sacrificial Love

Examines the Christian theologies of sacrificial love, this book breaks new ground on the significance of Jesus' life, sacrifice and death, and what it means both for the contemporary reader and the modern world. 

Judas Iscariot: Damned or Redeemed: A Critical Examination of the Portrayal of Judas in Jesus Films (1902-2014)

An original analysis of 23 filmic representations of Judas Iscariot, tracing their changing portrayals, the reasons for these changes, and how they impact on theology.

 

Space, Time and Resurrection

This classic of modern theology demonstrates the life affirming and cataclysmic significance of the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, by focusing on the redemptive, life from death, operation of the Historical and Eschatological Jesus. This upcoming reissue, to be published in November of this year in the Cornerstones Series, features a preface by Paul D. Molnar.

T&T Clark Companion to the Bible and Film

Coming in June this year, this companion provides a comprehensive overview of the Bible and film, looking at context, theory and key 'texts' both biblical and cinematic.

What did Jesus Look Like?

And finally, a theorization of the man behind the iconography and the scripture - a book that has caused a stir both in the academic and journalistic world, garnering reviews from The Sun, Times Higher Education, The Irish Times, The Telegraph and The Independent!

 

 

 

 

T&T Cornerstone: Jesus: Miriam's Child, Sophia's Prophet, by Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza

Our last Cornerstone to cover out of this batch. Expect more wonderful titles in 2016. Do come and find the books at SBLAAR at booth 600. They look *stunning* and they are also available in EPDF and EPUB for the first time ever.

In Jesus: Miriam's Child, Sophia's Prophet Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza makes a unique contribution to two quite different discussions of Jesus the Christ. On the one hand, she looks at biblical Christology from a critical feminist perspective in the tradition of liberation theology. On the other, she examines the feasibility of a feminine Christology by considering such problems as Christian anti-Judaism, ideological justification of domination, religious exclusivism and the formation of patriarchal identity. Re-imagining the Jesus movement in a feminist key transcends the boundaries set by history, gender and doctrine. By assessing various Jesus traditions and interpretations in terms of whether they can engender liberating visions for today, Schüssler Fiorenza seeks to challenge and transform a Christianity dominated by masculinity and exclusivist theological frameworks so that it offers a vision of justice and well-being for all, the central image in which is the reign, the coming world, of God. This Cornerstones edition features a new extended introduction which takes into account the developments in the field since the work was originally published in 1994.

 Reviews of the new edition:

“This is a most welcome reissue of Schüssler Fiorenza's groundbreaking work. With analysis of women's experience as the starting point, Schüssler Fiorenza uses vivid images such as "into the hill country," and "the open road to Galilee," to invite readers into new spaces where images of Christ in the Scriptures can be explored from a different perspective and christological discourses can be reconceptualized toward liberating practice. For those willing to embark on the journey with her, the destination is no less than global well-being.” –  Barbara E. Reid, Catholic Theological Union, USA

“In this new edition of her deep and influential book, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza continues her singuar retrieval of the bibilcal figure of Sophia for contemporary theology. As this book demonstrates, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza has for many of us herself become a Sophia figure of our period continuously contributing her wisdom over and over again.” –  David Tracey, The University of Chicago Divinity School, USA

T&T Cornerstone: Messianism Among Jews and Christians

It is wonderful to have this volume from the great William Horbury in Cornerstones, especially as Horbury’s new introduction provides a sweeping overview of the material and draws the reader’s attention to his close observation of sources and texts. Here’s the blurb:

William Horbury considers the issue of messianism as it arises in Jewish and Christian tradition. Whilst Horbury's primary focus is the Herodian period and the New Testament, he presents a broader historical trajectory, looking back to the Apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, and onward to Judaism and Christianity in the Roman empire. Within this framework Horbury treats such central themes as messianism in the Apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, the Son of man and Pauline hopes for a new Jerusalem, and Jewish and Christian messianism in the second century.

Neglected topics are also given due consideration, including suffering and messianism in synagogue poetry, and the relation of Christian and Jewish messianism with conceptions of the church and of antichrist and with the cult of Christ and of the saints. Throughout, Horbury sets messianism in a broader religious and political context and explores its setting in religion and in the conflict of political theories.

 

Reviews:

“These studies form a substantial and impressive body [...] Examining a wide range of material some of it relatively obscure or little known, Horbury deftly demonstrates underlying messianic themes and undertones that would normally be hidden from a casual or less focussed reading.” –  Susan Pierce, Journal of Beiefs and Values, Vol. 25

“There is very much that is valuable in the essays. Horbury is a keen reader of texts, and he has read from an assortment of literatures that for most of us are separated by the boundaries of academic disciplines or linguistic competence.” –  W. A. Meeks, Jewish Quarterly Review

William Horbury considers the issue of messianism as it arises in Jewish and Christian tradition. Whilst Horbury's primary focus is the Herodian period and the New Testament, he presents a broader historical trajectory, looking back to the Apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, and onward to Judaism and Christianity in the Roman empire. Within this framework Horbury treats such central themes as messianism in the Apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, the Son of man and Pauline hopes for a new Jerusalem, and Jewish and Christian messianism in the second century.

Neglected topics are also given due consideration, including suffering and messianism in synagogue poetry, and the relation of Christian and Jewish messianism with conceptions of the church and of antichrist and with the cult of Christ and of the saints. Throughout, Horbury sets messianism in a broader religious and political context and explores its setting in religion and in the conflict of political theories. This new edition features a new extended introduction which updates and resituates the volume within the context of current scholarship. - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/messianism-among-jews-and-christians-9780567662750/#sthash.p6d68ml5.dpuf

T&T Cornerstone: Neither Jew Nor Greek by Judith Lieu

A ground-breaking study in the formation of early Christian identity, by one of the world's leading scholars. In Neither Jew Nor Greek, Judith Lieu explores the formation and shaping of early Christian identity within Judaism and within the wider Graeco-Roman world in the period before 200 C.E.

Lieu particularly examines the way that literary texts presented early Christianity. She combines this with interdisciplinary historical investigation and interaction with scholarship on Judaism in late Antiquity and on the Graeco-Roman world.The result is a highly significant contribution to four of the key questions in current New Testament scholarship: how did early Christian identity come to be formed? How should we best describe and understand the processes by which the Christian movement became separate from its Jewish origins? Was there anything special or different about the way women entered Judaism and early Christianity? How did martyrdom contribute to the construction of early Christian identity?

The chapters in this volume have become classics in the study of the New Testament and for this Cornerstones edition Lieu provides a new introduction placing them within the academic debate as it is now. –

 

Reviews:

“[A] wonderfully learned volume, Judith Lieu's capacity to hold together biblical, Jewish and patrisitc material commands respect, and she is an authority on the borderland between early Christianity and Judaism” –  Stuart G. Hall, Former Professor of Ecclesiastical History at King's College, London, UK

“Anyone interested in early Christian origins would be well advised to read this text. Lieu is a very careful biblical historian, marshaling a range of evidence while also able to acknowledge the limitations and ambiguity of some of this evidence.” –  Mary Coloe, Australian Catholic University, Australia

 

 

T&T Cornerstone: Solidarity and Difference by David G. Horrell

It’s great to have David Horrell’s Solidarity and Difference in Cornerstones. It’s seminal work that was really ahead of its time in terms of study of NT ethics and identity and it’s wonderful to be able to present it again with Horrell’s reflective introduction and a substantial foreword by N.T. Wright. Indeed, Wright has described the book as; “One of the most creative and innovative books about Paul I have ever read.” –  N. T. Wright, Paul and His Recent Interpreters, 2015

In the book Horrell presents a study of Pauline ethics, examining how Paul's moral discourse envisages and constructs communities in which there is a strong sense of solidarity but also legitimate difference in various aspects of ethical practice. Horrell reads New Testament texts with an explicit awareness of contemporary ethical theory, and assesses Paul's contribution as a moral thinker in the context of modern debate.

Using a framework indebted to the social sciences, as well as to contemporary ethical theory, Horrell examines the construction of community in Paul's letters, the notions of purity, boundaries and identity, Paul's attempts to deal with diversity in his churches, the role of imitating Christ in Paul's ethics, and the ethic Paul develops for interaction with 'outsiders'. This Cornerstones edition includes an extended reflective introduction and a substantial foreword from N.T. Wright.

Here are two more wonderful endorsements:

“In a global, pluralist, fractured world, may Christians hope to find a healing and hopeful word in - of all places - the letters of Paul, themselves centers of controversy and division from the beginning? Horrell answers with a resounding "Yes", After a penetrating analysis and critique of the polarized conversation among ethicists in recent decades, he proposes a new, "third way" to find a model in Paul for communities that embrace the other without losing their identity.” –  Wayne A. Meeks, Yale University, USA

“This is a bold and highly stimulating intellectual experiment...Through close study of key texts and carefully reasoned debates across multiple disciplines, Horrell reconfigures the Pauline ethic and opens it up to dialogue with public morality as never before. Both New Testament scholars and ethicists will welcome this ground-breaking work.” –  John Barclay, Durham University, UK