Books in the The Library of New Testament Studies series

In his letters, the apostle Paul commonly refers to his fellow believers as "adelfoi", as his "brothers and sisters". Here, Reidar Aasgaard offers the first in-depth, and by far the most profound, analysis of this sibling vocabulary in the Pauline epistles.Aasgaard researches family and sibling relationships in the Graeco-Roman and Jewish context and discusses the relevant texts on siblingship in Paul''s letters. He argues that sibling terminology is both central and charged with meaning for Paul. When the apostle speaks of the Christians as siblings, he employs contemporary notions of what sibling and family relations should be about: emotional closeness, love, tolerance and forgiveness, defense of family honor, and familial harmony. Paul utilizes these ideals rhetorically in various contexts in order to influence the attitudes and behavior of the Christians, both internally and in relation to outsiders.

This is a study of biblical reading from a woman-centred perspective. Its specific focus is the prologue of John's Gospel and its interpretation in Christian tradition. In this book, Jasper takes the prologue of John's Gospel as a case-study in feminist biblical analysis.

This historical and exegetical strongly challenges the widely held view that Paul regarded idol food as a matter of indifference. Instead, it proposes that Paul considers conscious consumption of idol food a denial of one's allegiance to Christ.

This large-scale work is the application of modern theories of discourse analysis to questions of Greek grammar, especially with respect to the debate over the literary integrity of Philippians. Chapter 1 introduces the linguistic theory of discourse analysis, defining key terms, sketching its historical evolution and outlining its major tenets. Chapter 2 sets forth a model of discourse analysis primarily based on the systemic functional theories of M.A.K. Halliday. Chapter 3 outlines the historical-critical debate over the literary integrity of Philippians. Chapter 4 inspects the genre of Philippians, challenging rhetorical approaches to the text and proposing instead an epistolary classification, viz. ''personal, hortatory letter''. Chapter 5 focuses on the discourse structure of the letter, investigating its use of ideational, interpersonal and textual functions of Hellenistic Greek. In chapter 6, relevant issues of biblical hermeneutics are addressed.

Was Jesus a prophet of the eschatological Kingdom or a teacher of wisdom? These two characterizations of Jesus appear to be incompatible and, since the last century, the former has dominated our understanding of the Gospels at the expense of the latter. Proverbial sayings in the Synoptics have either been pressed into the service of eschatology-and have thus lost their character as wisdom-or have been disregarded as ''inauthentic'', representing a later stage in the tradition. This book offers a critique of the method of historical reconstruction which leads to such conclusions. It also suggests an approach to the rhetoric or function of proverbial sayings, based on pragmatics, which develops the distinction between sense and force and offers some account of the rhetorical strategies involved in the use of proverbs in speech. A final chapter attempts to show how proverbial sayings might be given more significance in our understanding of Jesus'' message through a reconsideration of the relationship between wisdom, eschatology and the Kingdom of God.

This collection of essays attempts to display through theoretical discussion and practical application a number of the most prominent approaches to New Testament study being practised in the guild today. The contributors and their topics include: C.A. Evans on source, form and redation criticism, T.R. Hatina on Jewish religious backgrounds, S.E. Porter on literary approaches, D.L. Stamps on rhetorical criticism, K.D. Clarke on canonical scientific criticism, D. Tombs on the hermeneutics of liberation, and B. Clack on feminist hermeneutics. The goal of the volume is to provide workable models for those interested in expanding or deepening their knowledge of the various approaches to New Testament study.