Engaging resources for understanding the importance of bodies and spaces in producing and interpreting persuasive language This volume collects essays that represent intellectual milestones that are informing sociorhetorical interpretation during the twenty-first century. The essays are arranged into five parts: (1) Topos; (2) Cultural Geography and Critical Spatiality; (3) Rhetorolects and Conceptual Blending; (4) Rhetography; and (5) Rhetorical Force. Features: Tools for integrating multiple approaches to biblical interpretation Resources that emphasize the importance of language that prompts mental pictures in effective rhetoric Essays from classicists, rhetoricians, and biblical scholars

Explore Romans 4 from a sociorhetorical perspective Andrew Kimseng Tan examines Romans using sociorhetorical interpretation to determine how Paul attempted to alleviate dissension between Judean (or “Jewish”) and non-Judean (or “gentile”) Christians. Through his analysis of Paul’s rhetoric, Tan reveals that Paul used Abraham’s faith in Genesis to demonstrate that the both groups were equally children and heirs of Abraham whose acceptance by God was through the same kind of faith that Abraham possessed, not through the Mosaic law, which Judean Christians claimed gave them a special honored status with God. Features A model for the application of sociorhetorical interpretation for analyzing close readings of biblical texts A demonstration of the persuasive power of Romans 4 through the use of sociorhetorical interpretation Exploration of the relationships between important theological topics such as resurrection, the Mosaic law, the Holy Spirit, righteousness, ethical living, and eschatological salvation

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.

In scholarly study of the New Testament and early Christian rhetoric, one key element is often overlooked: the sublime. To address this omission, contributors to this volume explore how the awe-inspiring, dislocating, and sometimes horrifying language that characterizes sublime rhetoric exerts cognitive, emotional, and physiological force on its audiences, transporting them to new realities as they go along. The essays lay a foundation for scholars and students to identify and interpret sublime rhetoric in biblical literature. Contributors include Murray J. Evans, Alan P. R. Gregory, Christopher T. Holmes, Roy R. Jeal, Harry O. Maier, Erika Mae Olbricht, Thomas H. Olbricht†, Vernon K. Robbins, and Jonathan Thiessen.

This contextual biblical reading of Luke 18:18–30 (the encounter between Jesus and the rich ruler) foregrounds the political and economic context of the Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs). The reading carefully explores the biblical text’s context, an exploration that includes looking at specific intertextual sources and engaging scholars from Asian and African contexts. The reading is then applied to a contextual biblical approach to poverty in Samoan society. The contextual biblical reading resituates the ruler in the Lukan narrative within the context of the household and the institutional constraints of its ecological environment. The theoretical framework for the contextual biblical reading is guided by the Samoan proverb seu le manu ae taga’i ile galu (catch the bird and watch the wave), symbolizing responsibility and restraint in biblical interpretation. At the end of the contextual biblical reading, a new way of reading Luke is presented, and three broad propositions are suggested for further consideration. The main argument of this deep contextual reading of the Lukan passage is that the rich ruler offers a different form of “following,” which is possible by “living responsibly with wealth.”

This volume argues that Titus’s invocation of Crete affected the ways early readers developed their identities. Using archaeological data, classical writings, and early Christian documents, he describes multiple traditions that circulated on Crete and throughout the Roman Empire concerning Cretan Zeus, Cretan social structure, and Cretan Judaism. He then uses these traditions to interpret Titus and explain how the letter would intersect with and affect readers’ identities. Because readers had differing conceptions of Crete based on their location and access to and evaluation of Cretan traditions, readers would have developed their identities in multiple, conflictual, even contradictory ways.

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.