The Aeneid of Vergil and the Psalter traditionally attributed to David so influenced Augustine's writing that one scholar has called the Confessions “a recapitulation of Vergilian epic in a Christian universe,” and another has described it as an “amplified Psalter.”1 Since both works permeate Augustine's narrative, classicists and theologians have long studied the place of the Aeneid and the Psalms in the Confessions, but never in relation to each other.2 Consequently, the dialogical quality of Augustine's text, which includes these radically divergent voices, has largely gone without comment. As paradigms of classical and biblical literature, however, the Aeneid and the Psalms contribute to the formation of the author's own voice and affections. Ancient readers, for instance, widely recognized Vergil's epic as the work of the summus poeta, a book with prophetic powers and the crown of Roman literature to be emulated by all Latin writers.3 Early Christians, in turn, regarded the Psalter as the fabric of constant prayer, a kind of compendium of all scripture pointing prophetically to Christ.4 Thus, the Confessions represent a struggle among powerful voices and emotions frequently operating at cross purposes.

Many consider the political thought of Rabbi Nissim ben Reuben of Girona (RaN, ca. 1310–1380) to be innovative and daring, especially in comparison with other political theories in medieval Jewish thought. It has been argued that in his homily no. 11 RaN recognizes a secular politico-legal system headed by the king, which parallels the halakic-religious legal system under the control of the judicial authority.

In present–day North America, with mosques and temples springing up a few streets from synagogues, cathedrals, and steepled church houses, a state of religious plurality is becoming undeniably more pronounced. In the wake of 9/11, the tensions ushered in by this shifting landscape are also increasing—not least for Christian believers who have shadowy notions of the religious “other” and are concerned about the realities of a pluralistic, post–Christian American society. Meanwhile, Christian scholars and practitioners engaged in the burgeoning field of comparative theology view this pluralistic situation not as a daunting challenge; rather, they view it in terms of its constructive potential. For them, religious pluralism is not an obstacle to be overcome but an opportunity for rich theological inquiry and practice. Thus, these comparative theologians urge their fellow Christians to take up a distinct form of conversation with the religious newcomer, guided by peaceful interreligious dialogue and the understanding that interreligious learning is a worthy aim.

The words crux interpretum are frequently invoked over the question Paul poses to his Corinthian acquaintances in 1 Cor 15:32: εἰ κατὰ ἄνθρωπον ἐθηριομάχησα ἐν Ἐφεσῳ, τί μοι τὸ ὄφελος; “If with merely human hopes I fought with beasts at Ephesus, what would I have gained by it?” Three principal questions have occupied interpreters of this enigmatic verse. First, does the verb ἐθηριομάχησα imply a literal fight with wild beasts, does it allude figuratively to a hostile conflict with human adversaries, or does it refer hypothetically to a literal event (an unreal conditional)? Second, if the verb is meant figuratively, as nearly all today conclude, whom does Paul characterize as “wild beasts”? Third, what is meant by the phrase κατὰ ἄνθρωπον?

The term Volksetymologie has frequently been applied to the etiological passages of the Hebrew Bible and occasionally to such passages in Mesopotamian literature that explain the origin of the name of a person, place, or thing. Originating in mid- nineteenth century German Sprachwissenschaft, the term generally assumes that the authors of such passages were possessed of a considerable philological ignorance and naïveté. These etymological narratives are thus regularly brushed aside as childish though charming. Alternatively, they are often understood as interesting aesthetic devices, related to paronomasia and punning.

It is becoming increasingly evident, however, that the activity of parsing a name is linked to broader interpretive methods employed by scribes in the ancient Near East. Indeed, our developing understanding of intellectual practices in Mesopotamia and among the Bible’s tradents has demonstrated that Babylonian and Judean scribes could employ rather sophisticated hermeneutics. This fact has significance for our evaluation of biblical etymological passages in many ways including, for example, the methods employed by ancient authors to interpret names within narratives and their motivation for doing so.

It is generally held by systematic theologians that Augustine more or less radically shifts the understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity found in his Greek sources, and that, at least in part, this shift is a consequence of his failure fully to understand these sources. His own testimony of puzzlement provides some strong prima facie evidence in favor of such readings.

In an anonymous Jewish anti-Christian polemical tractate from the thirteenth century we find the Hebrew formulation of what seems to be a common sneer by Christians at their Jewish neighbors: “Why do you not seek the aid of the great the way we do? (for they seek the aid of their saints).”1 The assumption behind this question is that medieval Jews indeed refrained from visiting the shrines of Christian saints and from beseeching them to heal the sick or mediate between the human and divine realms. In this paper I wish to question this assumption and suggest the possibility that some Jews did approach the shrines of the saints and seek their assistance, especially in healing physical disabilities. Given the strong appeal of the cults of healing saints in medieval European societies, it seems likely that Jews not only were well aware of this practice and displayed a measure of curiosity toward it, but possibly participated in the rituals as well.2

One of the most fruitful branches of recent patristic study has been the effort to determine the relation between early Christian theology and Greek philosophy. Starting from the assumption that the affinities between the two were many and close, scholars have found themselves able to draw detailed inferences of literary and intellectual dependence, and in the case of many Christian authors to discover the exact sources from which they drew their philosophic ideas, or at least to assign these to some contemporary school. Without such work an accurate estimate of the fathers' views and ways of thinking is impossible, but it must be remembered that an author is not explained, or even fairly represented, by showing how much he may have derived from others, for in the last analysis his finished thought is his own, however extensive the foreign material employed in its construction. It is not, therefore, at the end but at the beginning of his work that the historian of thought can expect most help from the investigation of sources, since even an author who differs from his contemporaries in his answers to current problems must usually begin by seeing them as they do. The background of an author's thought must have supplied the starting point for many of his ideas.

By the late fourth century, prominent Christian leaders no longer remained content to advocate religious separatism from their polytheistic social environment. Instead they started making more strenuous efforts in law and in the streets to prohibit Greek and other pagan religious practices in the Roman Empire. This change in policy and practice was the outcome of historical factors that need better explanation than that of the unavoidable destiny of Christianity. One important aspect of this change, I argue here, is a problematic innovation in the tradition of Hellenistic Jewish and early Christian polemic against polytheism. The innovation derives from Paul's letter to the Ro-mans and develops through patristic endorsements of Paul's argument. In Rom 1:18–32 Paul fully reworks the Hellenistic Jewish polemical tradition, even though his argument is not yet recognized today as the distinctive proclamation that it is. Nonetheless, the polemic he wages in Rom 1:18–32 is anomalous in the tradition before, during, and for a century after he lived.

Recent archaeological discoveries have contributed in many ways to enrich our knowledge of the early periods of Christian history. It cannot be denied that the results of these investigations as a whole have given testimony in favor of the conservative historical tradition, rather than of the aggressive criticism of the last century. In many cases archaeological evidence has verified or confirmed traditions to which historical criticism had denied any positive value, and solved what had been regarded as insoluble problems. Where literary evidence was lacking or inconclusive, archaeology and ancient liturgy have furnished the historians of the early centuries of the Church new sources of knowledge of inestimable value.

In the recent critical edition of Eusebius' Prœparatio Evangelica lines 180–186 of Ezekiel the Tragedian's Exagōgē, as Eusebius (Pr. Ev. IX 20, 13 [443d] Mras I, 53325–5346) quotes them from Alexander Polyhistor, run;

The Old Testament has always been something of an embarrassment to the Christian church. The book was Scripture and its heroes were to be taken as examples. Nevertheless there was much in their conduct which ran counter to the prevailing Christian ethics. A problem thus arose both in exegesis and in ethics. Were the patriarchs to be justified? Should they be imitated? Marcion evaded the difficulty by simply rejecting the Old Testament, pointing out the complete antithesis, for example, between the precept, “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath,” and the conduct of Joshua, who kept the sun up till his wrath went down. In the main the fathers resolved such difficulties by allegory, but even this key did not suffice. There was no denying that Moses really slew the Egyptian, that the Israelites robbed them, that Abraham lied, that Jacob was polygamous, and that Samson committed suicide, not to mention the deeds which made it appropriate to attribute to David the penitential psalms. Origen, the prince of allegorists, admitted that the incest of Lot and the polygamy of Abraham and Jacob were “mysteries not understood by us.”

The literature on the history of biblical criticism is voluminous, but remarkably consistent in its postulation of the Reformation and the Enlightenment as the two mainsprings of modern biblical criticism. That this history is written almost exclusively by heirs of the liberal Protestant tradition ought to sound a warning bell, especially since the extremely rare dissenting accounts of biblical criticism come from the Roman Catholic camp.

It is sometimes said that what matters in history is not so much the fact as what people think is the fact. This is perhaps especially true of those commanding personalities whose names are household words. Popular ideas of them are usually only roughly correct. The names become symbols to denote qualities dear to a succeeding age but often foreign to the persons they designate. To every generation Christ has become something different, this or that side of his character being emphasized to fill the ever changing need of living men. How many philosophies and passions have been read into Shakespeare's plays! So to every generation Luther has meant something different; in each succeeding century he has been both loved and hated, but for different reasons. No country save his own has given him such attention as England. It is the aim of the present paper to give a very broad idea of the general trend of British opinion throughout four hundred years.

Although the relationship between the Biblical figures Abraham and Adam underlies episodes in Books V, VIII, XI, and XII of Paradise Lost, only the significance of the parallels in the last two books has been explored fully. Barbara Kiefer Lewalski finds that the transition from vision to narration in Michael's presentation of history, coinciding with the story of Abraham, symbolizes Adam's initial revelation through faith of a covenantal relationship with God. Stressing the similarities between Abraham's departure from Ur and Adam's from Eden, Mother Mary Christopher Pecheux believes that this association “enriches and universalizes Milton's theme, helps to emphasize the virtues of the Christian hero, and reinforces the paradox of the fortunate fall.” Moreover, the topic of Abraham's departure from his homeland affords Milton the opportunity of incorporating the epic-journey motif into his poem.

This paper contains some thoughts about words. It is a modest undertaking and is meant to do no more than elaborate upon and set forth the reasoning underlying a proposal that I advanced some years ago regarding the meaning of Akkadian alaktu and its relation to the Jewish terms Hebrew hălāḵā and Aramaic hilḵĕṯā. In preparing this paper, I have had before me two distinct goals and have, accordingly, divided the paper into two separate sections. First, I try to establish an additional (and thus far unnoticed) set of meanings for alaktu (= Sumerian a.rá) and to track this meaning especially when alaktu appears in combination with the verb lamādu. Then, turning to halakhah, I set out some of the implications of our inner Assyriological examination for the origin of the Hebrew and Aramaic terms hălāḵā and hilḵĕṯā. In doing so, I register my dissent from a previous proposal of a particular Akkadian term (ilku) as the source of the word halakhah, and present a set of alternative hypotheses as to the derivation of the Jewish terms. The opinions expressed about even alaktu are tentative and in need of further refinement, and our thoughts on the relation of alaktu and halakhah remain perforce in the realm of conjecture.

Im Sommer 1968 hatte ich erstmals Gelegenheit, eine Reihe von antiken Ortslagen im westlichen Untergaliläa und in der Šefēlāh, dem westlichen Hügelland von Juda, aufzusuchen, die für die Lokalisierungsprobleme von Jos. 19, 24–31 und Jos. 15, 33–36 von Interesse sind.

The Holy Bible represents the literary deposit of the Hebrew people's faith in God's intervention within human history to liberate them and mankind from physical and spiritual bondage. Even though this divine revelation was given to a specific people at a specific time within history, its power and hoped-for fulfillment continues to be the basis of religious faith for Jew and Christian alike. Consequently, the most potent aspect of the Scriptures for the Black community in Africa and the Americas is its present meaning and revelation for us in our struggle today for physical and spiritual liberation. The particularity of the mode of biblical revelation — the witness of a specific people at a particular point in history — suggests that the medium is also the message, namely, that God's word is intended for identifiable situations rather than to be taken as amorphous, generalized truth having little to do with the specifics of the human condition. The American Association of Theological Schools' journal, Theology Today, Vol. 6, No. 3 (Spring, 1970) plus Supplement, turns its attention to this question of the divine revelation and a specific human situation under the title of “The Black Religious Experience and Theological Education.” James Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation (New York: Lippincott, 1970), offers a forceful argument for the biblical basis of the present black social and spiritual revolution. See also, J. Deotis Roberts, Liberation and Reconciliation: A Black Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971). However, while the hermeneutical task of proclaiming God's word to contemporary ears is of the greater importance — it is ontologically prior, there is also the necessity — chronologically prior — of adequately describing the Biblical word on the basis of its own setting. Dean Krister Stendahl has given classic statement to the fundamental role of the descriptive process, of what the Bible “meant,” before we take up what it “means,” in his article on “Contemporary Biblical Theology,” Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. I (New York: Abingdon, 1962). Black consciousness is ultimately informed and inspired by the biblical message, but it also has some questions which it would address to Holy Scripture. Among these questions are those concerning the African presence in the Bible and the role of Africa in the period of biblical revelation.

Three recent discussions of Irenaeus by Reynders, Audet, and Enslin have examined the thought of Irenaeus almost exclusively in relation to the Christian tradition. This attitude toward his writings is natural, since Irenaeus lives so largely within the tradition; but he lived in the philosophical-rhetorical world of his day as well as in the church. It is the purpose of this paper to examine some of the ideas which he shares with non-Christians of the second century. First we shall consider his use of doxographical materials for the opinions of philosophers, and then we shall turn to his knowledge of other authors and of rhetoric.

Dietary laws, as well as problems in regard to their observance, are prevalent in religious groups even today and were fairly common in antiquity. Outsiders and insiders as well often wondered what the point of the laws was, and in three significant communities—Pythagoreans, Jews, and Christians—the regulations were interpreted, or interpreted away, with the help of philosophical or even historical analysis.