Study of the Gospel according to Philip, an important gnostic Christian text, has been hampered by unresolved questions about the unity, genre, and sectarian contexts of the work. This book argues that terms of self-designation, use of controversial vocabulary, style, hermeneutic strategies, and theological commitments together present persuasive evidence of derivation from multiple sectarian milieux. The document's organizing principles are found to be in accord with the excerpting and collection practices of Late Antiquity. The coherence of the text lies in its compiler's distinctive interests and choices, not in the uniformity of its materials. The persuasive case made by this book will help to advance research on this significant document of early Christianity.

Josephus's thirty volumes (more consulted than read) are considered the ultimate reference work for Judaism in the Graeco-Roman period. Even the more sceptical, who would wish to read between the lines, must often resort to arbitrary techniques because it is not apparent where the 'lines' are. This volume of essays by seven prominent scholars-John Barclay, Per Bilde, Steve Mason, Tessa Rajak, Joseph Sievers, Paul Spilsbury and Gregory E. Sterling-is another step in the effort to change the way we look at this most famous/notorious ancient Jewish historian. It introduces him as a rational being, a first-century author, and a thinker, with his own literary and social contexts-on the premise that he is worth trying to understand. Three essays deal with his Jewish Antiquities, two with Against Apion, and two with the larger themes of afterlife and apocalyptic in his writings. An up-to-date assessment of Josephus and his modern scholarly interpreters, for expert and non-expert alike.

Timo Eskola presents a new way of understanding Paul's soteriology as a theology of predestination: God has cosigned all people to sin and condemnation. There is no basic dualism between the good and the bad. Since everybody needs salvation, the atonement of Christ is proof of God's ultimate faithfulness.

This is a sequel to the immensely useful "Nag Hammadi Bibliography 1948-1969," which was the first volume to appear in the Nag Hammadi Studies series. The volume provides a complete integration of Supplements I-XXIV to the "Bibliography" as published in "Novum Testamentum" 1971-1997, with additions and corrections. In total the update contains over 6092 entries. Nag Hammadi and Gnostic studies continue to be of critical importance for the study of ancient religions in the Graeco-Roman world and for the study of the world of early Christianity, and the present bibliography provides an indispensable reference tool for work in these fields.

This volume contains a bibliography of the research on the Dead Sea Scrolls published during the last 25 years. All entries are alphabetically listed, provided with an identification number, and systematically classified by topics and key words as well as by manuscripts numbers and title of the compositions.

"The study deals with all those passages in the Palestinian Targums, the Aramaic translations of the Pentateuch, that refer to the Resurrection of the Dead. Of central interest in it is the question to what extent the targumic traditions on a future resurrection of the body or on the fate of the soul after death agree with or differ from corresponding traditions in rabbinic sources." "With a few exceptions, the relation between targumic traditions and rabbinic sources has been neglected in targumic studies of the last decades." "This may have been caused by the questionable assumptions that (a) the Aramaic of the Palestinian Targums represents the spoken Aramaic of Palestine in the New Testament period, (b) the Palestinian Targums contain an important number of early pre-Christian traditions, and (c) the Palestinian Targums are popular in origin, being written in the vernacular, in contrast with the scholastic, authoritative expositions in the learned rabbinic sources." "Harry Sysling first offers a survey of these and other important issues in targumic research of the past and of recent opinions on character, origin and interrelationship of the Palestinian Targums. In the following chapters, the author makes a careful analysis of those passages in the Palestinian Targums that directly by the use of specific terminology, or indirectly by the use of metaphors, refer to the resurrection of the body and to the fate of the body and/or soul after death."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved