The search for the presumed “sources” of Muhammad's religious ideas, as these are expressed in the Qur'an, has inspired a considerablerange of studies, varying in tone from tentative to polemical. Most writers on the topic seek to demonstrate either a predominantly Jewish or a predominantly Christian “influence.” It is relatively easy, of course, to compile a catena of passages from the Qur'an which can be paralleled by Scriptural texts or by haggadic or apocryphal materials or compared with the practices of Jewish or Christian communities. The argument tends to become inconclusive on the whole; Jewish scholars who argue for a Jewish source or sources are apt to forgetthat the Old Testament was as much a part of Christian as of Jewish Scripture and that even haggadic supplements had long since been taken up into Christian writings; Christian scholars who argue for a Christian source or sources are somewhat embarrassed by Muhammad's decisive rejection of Christological doctrine;and each side can produce valid arguments against the other.

By the time the Fathers of the Church began to offer negation as a solution of the problem of divine attributes, the theory of negative attributes had already been dealt with by Philo, Albinus, and Plotinus. All three of them, starting with the assumption that God is ineffable, found that one way of describing God was by means of negative attributes. In their treatment of this type of attributes, however, there is a difference between Philo on the one hand and Albinus and Plotinus on the other.

The history of the Church in North Africa, so far at least as the sources are concerned, begins for us in the year 180, and it begins with martyrdoms. At Carthage on July 17, Namphano of Madaura, called “Protomartyr” by Augustine, Miggin, Sanam, and six other Christians from Scili in Numidia were sentenced to death by the proconsul Saturninus and beheaded. The official record of their trial has been preserved to us in Greek and Latin and constitutes the oldest document in Africa's Church History.

I. The Crisis of the Historical and Theological Criteria.

Already Walter Bauer, well known as a lexicographer, but unfortunately little known as a historian of the Ancient Church, in his ingenious monograph Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum (1934), had demonstrated convincingly that such Christian groups which were later labelled “heretical,” actually dominated in the first two or three centuries, both geographically and theologically. Recent discoveries, especially those of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt, have made it definitely clear that Walter Bauer was essentially right and that a thorough and extensive re-evaluation of early Christian history is called for.

The fascinating legend of Solomon's magical wisdom was widespread in Late Antiquity, and new evidence for it has surfaced in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi texts. Yet the key literary text for understanding the legend remains the miracle story of Eleazar in Josephus's Antiquitates Judaicae 8.42–49. In this article, I would like to examine the story's form, content, and function. First, it is necessary to clarify the story by a formal analysis and by relating its form to other miracles within the corpus of Josephus, and to similar accounts of miracles in Late Antiquity. Next, I shall examine the way in which this miracle functions in the Antiquitates from the perspective of Josephus's overall apologetic purpose, his view of miracle and magic, his portrait of Solomon, his knowledge of the Jewish legend of Solomon's magical wisdom, and his immediate context for the story. Finally, I shall propose a modest hypothesis about Josephus's treatment of the Eleazar miracle in relation to his social location as a Jewish apologist to educated Greco-Roman readers in the first century CE.

I have chosen this subject for my contribution to the memorial volume to Paul Lapp since I feel he would have been interested in it. I would have enjoyed discussing it with him. His methods might in detail have differed, and we could have had plenty of arguments, but he would have taken the points. We shared a knowledge of the problems of excavating a Palestinian tell. It is in part because of this that I have a special personal sense of loss at his untimely death. I should have very much valued his appreciation and criticism of the publications of the tell of Jericho and of Jerusalem when they in due course appear.

Several years before his death the Irish novelist and playwright, George Moore, wrote his “one joyous book,” A Story Teller's Holiday Combining “oddments of folklore” and the “rich Anglo-Irish idiom,” Moore traced in Boccaccian fashion the ancient Christian practice of syneisactism in early Celtic Christianity. In his work Moore was admittedly stimulated by the great Celticist, Kuno Meyer, and by the then burgeoning translations of ancient Irish manuscripts describing syneisactism.

The admonition to ransom captives has a long paraenetic and social tradition that is documented in a variety of genres in early Christian literature. It is a tradition which, like many of its companion pieces in paraenetic literature, springs from roots in the Hebrew Scriptures which were consciously adopted by Christians as an important base upon which to build their own theology. The development of this particular tradition in early Christianity is an interesting example and test case of how a theological and moral conviction was not limited to verbal expression but was effectively translated into practice and creatively adapted to changing situations.

Sometimes it is said that it would not have mattered much whether Christianity had won or not, the result would have been much the same, for the spiritual background of the time was the same. I leave this opinion to be judged on its own merits and turn to a side of religion in which the difference between Paganism and Christianity is thought to be thoroughgoing, the cult. That is to say, the cult of the gods, for the similarities between the cult of the Saints and martyrs and that of the dead and heroes are striking and well known through the work of Lucius. Shrines were built for the Saints, votive offerings brought, and even animals slaughtered just as for the heroes, food was placed and drink poured out on their graves and banquets held on them just as on the graves of the pagan dead. This is mentioned in the epigrams attributed to Gregory of Nazianzen and was more frequent in the Western part of the Empire, but it must have been common in the East too, for the custom of holding meals in churchyards on the Psychosabbaton, the Saturday before Whitsunday, is widespread in the Greek Church to this day.

Les morceaux des rouleaux de peau appartenant aux écrits hénochiques qui proviennent de la Grotte 4 de Qumrân se répartissent en onze manuscrits, dont sept portent les sigles 4QHena,b,c,d,e,f,g et les quatre autres, représentant l'ouvrage astronomique attribué à Hénoch, sont marqués par 4QHenastra,b,c,d. Aucun fragment manuscrit qui puisse correspondre d'une façon quelconque à la deuxième section de l'Hénoch éthiopien, à savoir les chapitres 37 à 71, ou “livre des Paraboles,” n'a été identifié dans la masse innombrable des fragments de 4Q (restes de la bibliothèque centrale du monastère essénien du Ḫirbet Qumrân) ni non plus dans les lots plus réduits de manuscrits retrouvés dans dix autres grottes de la région qumranienne. Cet indice négatif, mais assez éloquent aux termes du calcul des probabilités, en faveur de la date post-qumranienne de ce livre se laissera facilement renforcer par des considérations d'ordre littéraire.J'ai pu, par contre, identifier tout récemment une composition hénochique fort importante qui, au IIIe siècle de notre ère, a été admise dans le canon des livres saints manichéens sous le titre de “livre des Géants.” J'en ai répéré une dizaine, sinon une quinzaine, de manuscrits très fragmentaires parmi les lots des grottes de Qumrân publiés ou inédits. Les onze manuscrits mentionnés, de même que 4QHen-Géantsa, seront édités intégralement par moi, avec la collaboration de Matthew Black, dans la monographie The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4.

In his 1989 article entitled “Apologetic Literature and Ambassadorial Activities,” William R. Schoedel considers “aspects of the form of apologetic literature in the early church and Judaism.” More specifically, he attempts to discover possible models for the literary character of the Christian apologies, and in particular the Embassy of Athenagoras, in the various kinds of addresses that ambassadors delivered before the emperor when presenting appeals and requests. Examples of such addresses include the ambassadorial speech discussed by the third-century rhetorician Menander Rhetor, the legal oration as exemplified by Philostratus in his treatment of the trial of Apollonius of Tyana, and the imperial libellus or petition. Schoedel draws two clear conclusions from this investigation. The first is that the literary form of Athenagoras's Embassy is an “apologetically grounded petition,” that is, a “mixed form that as such appears to have no real precedent in the Greco-Roman literary tradition.” The second is that “there is good reason to think that [it] was written to be presented to the emperor or delivered before him.” The present article will explore the ideas and arguments that led Schoedel to each of his conclusions and will offer an alternative interpretation of the evidence in each case.

Since the resurgence of interest in the Augustan period, the myriad of sixteenth- seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literary attacks on the Puritans have been enumerated, catalogued, analyzed, and elucidated. Although the Puritans were accused of a seemingly endless series of malefactions, most of the anti-sectarian assaults, we have been told, charged them with ignorance — the inability to see the value of the established church — or hypocrisy — the desire to use religion to advance political ambitions, secure riches, or satisfy libidinous interests. By mid-seventeenth century, however, a change occurred in the nature of the attacks which has not been adequately discussed. Instead of questioning the sincerity of the Puritans' religious countenance or ascribing the usual peccadillos to them, Puritan traducers charged the sectaries with insanity. Although societies in all ages have protected themselves from unpopular and dissenting opinions by declaring them products of a deranged mind, anti-sectarians in the Restoration and eighteenth century established a rationale for their charges of madness by employing contemporary medical theory to demonstrate that the Puritans suffered from mental and emotional disorders as a result of natural physical causes. Enthusiasts were seen as splenetic sufferers, and their erratic behavior and religious delusions were explained as the inevitable consequence of melancholic vapors.

If the book of Wisdom (Wisdom of Solomon) was written in Alexandria in the Late Ptolemaic or early Imperial period, as seems most probable, it is a priori likely that its author and intended audience were familiar with the Egyptian goddess Isis, at least in her hellenized form. This is all the more likely since, as many critics have acknowledged, the author of Wisdom was cognizant of other aspects of Hellenism and was able to adopt some of these in his presentation of Jewish theology. Thus, for example, there are reminiscences of Homer and Hesiod, allusions to Egyptian religious practices, and Greek philosophical vocabulary. That the author was aware of Isis and her mythology need not mean, of course, that this influenced his representation of Sophia to any significant degree. But given the popularity of the goddess, this possibility can scarcely be excluded. It will be the purpose of this article to examine the evidence for the influence of Isis upon Sophia and to inquire into the function of the reshaping of Jewish wisdom speculation as it is encountered in the Wisdom of Solomon.

Although it was discovered in 1962 and its excavation was completed by the mid-1970s, the synagogue of ancient Sardis in western Asia Minor, with its nearly eighty Greek inscriptions, remains the single most important archaeological source for our knowledge of western diasporan Judaism and its relationship to the wider Greco-Roman world. Despite its historical importance, however, scholars have rarely questioned the assumptions and conclusions of its original interpreters, Andrew Seager and Thomas Kraabel. Yet, for example, on the crucial question of dating (that is, when the building actually became a synagogue) these authors clearly disagreed among themselves, as is evident from a careful reading of their jointly written analysis, published in 1983. Their long-awaited report on the Sardis synagogue may clarify this question as well as other important issues. At present, however, confusion abounds in the secondary literature, because in general this literature continues to accept uncritically Kraabel's selection and interpretation of the relevant evidence. Although I have reexamined the major aspects of the question of dating in a previous article, as has Helga Botermann independently and in more detail, the analysis of the building history reflected in this present article is also indebted to John H. Kroll's excellent but still unpublished manuscript of the Greek inscriptions.

Unlike Christianity, which regards the word “Pharisee” as synonymous with “hypocrite,” “legalist,” and “petty-bourgeois,” Jews have always understood Pharisaism as the correct and trustworthy side of Judaism. Since the eighteenth century, all disputants who participated in the great controversies and schisms within Judaism have claimed to represent the true heirs of the Pharisees. For example, adherents of the strong anti-Hasidic movement initiated by R. Eliyahu of Vilna in the second half of the eighteenth century, who are usually referred to in literature by the negative appellation “opposers” (םירננחמ), referred to themselves by the positive title “Pharisees” (םישורפ). When the Reform movement was founded in Germany in the first half of the nineteenth century, with the goal of reforming the Jewish religion to make it more “modern” and acceptable to its neighbors, the reformers perceived themselves as the true heirs of the Pharisees. In his important study of the Pharisees and Sadducees, Abraham Geiger, one of the founders, of Wissenschaft des Judentums and an important spokesman for the radical wing of the Reform movement, formulated the view of the flexible open-minded Pharisees, who reformed Judaism to the point of contradicting the laws set out in the Pentateuch, in order to accommodate them to their changing needs. Geiger's opponents easily produced evidence that negated his findings and proved beyond doubt that they, in their conservative strain, were the real heirs of Pharisaism. To his opponents, Geiger was a representative of the detestable Sadducees or their later counterparts, the Karaites.

The concept, “act of God,” is central to the biblical understanding of God and his relation to the world. Repeatedly we are told of the great works performed by God in behalf of his people and in execution of his own purposes in history. From the “song of Moses,” which celebrates the “glorious deeds” (Ex. 15:11) through which Yahweh secured the release of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, to the letters of Paul, which proclaim God's great act delivering us “from the dominion of darkness” (Col. 1:13) and reconciling us with himself, we are confronted with a “God who acts.” The “mighty acts” (Ps. 145:4), the “wondrous deeds” (Ps. 40:5), the “wonderful works” (Ps. 107:21) of God are the fundamental subject-matter of biblical history, and the object of biblical faith is clearly the One who has acted repeatedly and with power in the past and may be expected to do so in the future.

Form criticism has enjoyed great success in providing tangible insights into the social life and liturgical practices of Hellenistic Judaism and early Christianity, but until now there has not been forthcoming a clear idea of what Jewish and Christian preaching was like before the middle of the second century CE Scholars are generally agreed that we have little, if any, direct evidence of sermons from this period. The sermons in Acts would seem to be excellent sources, but as Alexander Mac-Donald has pointed out, these are almost all missionary sermons or speeches to outsiders, and are therefore of little use in determining the nature of sermons addressed to coreligionists in the synagogue or church. Morton Smith attempted to isolate sermons in the synoptic gospels, but there he admits that the passages adduced—largely collections of sayings—may not constitute the actual form of oral preaching, but instead reflect a consistent pattern of literary sermon reports. As for Jewish sermons, the midrashic collections were edited later than the period in question, and it is generally unwise to extrapolate backward from these texts. Recent attempts to compare rabbinic homiletical forms with NT texts have been strongly criticized.