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Abstract

This response to Willis, Sumney, and MacDonald highlights and develops their key points. Reinforcing Willis’ reading of gift-reciprocity in Philippians, seen even in the self-giving (non-“taking”) of Christ (Phil 2.6-11), it is argued that Paul views gifts in Christ as operative simultaneously at two levels—gifts circulate among believers, but also come from God and are offered to God. Sumney’s reading of 2 Thessalonians is nuanced by connecting the language of “worth” to 1 Thess 2.12: the congruity between believers and the Kingdom of God is based on the agency of God and the prior gift of new life. Further reflection is offered on the perfection of “efficacy” and its possible range of meanings. Finally, MacDonald’s reading of Ephesians is affirmed with emphasis on the Christ-gift as the key to the cosmos; the Psalm-interpretation in Ephesians 4.7-10 clarifies how this gift permeates (“fills”) all reality, as manifested first in gifts within Christ’s body.

In: Horizons in Biblical Theology
This volume contains a fresh English translation of Josephus’ apologetic treatise Against Apion, based on the new textual research conducted by the Münster Josephus project. It also provides the first English commentary on this treatise, with comprehensive treatment of the historical, literary, and rhetorical features of Josephus’ most engaging literary product.
Against Apion contains the most important evidence for hostility to Judeans in antiquity, as Josephus responds to both Egyptian and Hellenistic slurs on the Judean people, their origins and character. Josephus’ robust defense of his people, with his striking account of the Judean constitution (“theocracy”), also constitutes the finest example of Judean apologetics from antiquity.
The commentary will provide a richly-documented resource for the many readers of this treatise – those who study and teach early Judaism, early Christianity, and the cultural politics of antiquity. It also offers the first “postcolonial” reading of Josephus, in his attempt to present his Judean tradition under the cultural hegemony of the Greek intellectual tradition and the political power of Rome.
Against Apion is also available in paperback (ISBN 978-90-04-24631-7) https://brill.com/view/title/23552?rskey=63tPVI&result=2.

Abstract

This study focuses on Barth’s interpretation of Romans 13:11–14, as a case-study in his ground-breaking interpretation of Paul’s eschatology. Through close analysis of his reading in the 1922 Römerbrief, it highlights the importance of his use of the dialectic between time and eternity, and his insistence that eschatology concerns the limits of time, not a final period of time, nor events that take place after the end of time. Barth proves to be a very close reader of Paul’s text, and is more attentive to its dynamics than many of his critics have acknowledged. In a context where New Testament scholars were emphasizing the early Christian expectation of an imminent end, Barth’s interpretation enabled a theological reading of this feature of the New Testament at a critical point; by taking eschatology seriously, he laid an important foundation for Bultmann and for twentieth century New Testament Theology as a whole, even if he disapproved of the direction Bultmann would go. The weakness of his reading lies in denuding Paul’s text, and early Christian eschatology, of their inescapably chronological elements, and in the difficulty of connecting the time-eternity dialectic to our embodied experience of the duration of time.

In: The Finality of the Gospel
Translation and Commentary
This volume contains a fresh English translation of Josephus’ apologetic treatise Against Apion, based on the new textual research conducted by the Münster Josephus project. It also provides the first English commentary on this treatise, with comprehensive treatment of the historical, literary, and rhetorical features of Josephus’ most engaging literary product.
Against Apion contains the most important evidence for hostility to Judeans in antiquity, as Josephus responds to both Egyptian and Hellenistic slurs on the Judean people, their origins and character. Josephus’ robust defense of his people, with his striking account of the Judean constitution (“theocracy”), also constitutes the finest example of Judean apologetics from antiquity.
The commentary will provide a richly-documented resource for the many readers of this treatise – those who study and teach early Judaism, early Christianity, and the cultural politics of antiquity. It also offers the first “postcolonial” reading of Josephus, in his attempt to present his Judean tradition under the cultural hegemony of the Greek intellectual tradition and the political power of Rome.