The use of archaeological materials for interpreting New Testament texts poses many problems. While many archaeologists have interpreted the Hebrew Bible, this early interface of archaeology and the study of the Hebrew scriptures is due in part to the fact that the relation-ship between biblical texts and the realia from Palestine seemed more direct. Since archaeological materials tend to deal with mainstream culture and since the texts from Israel and Judah were connected to institutions that were part of that area's dominant culture, the study of archaeology has contributed much to an understanding of the Hebrew scriptures.

The last few decades of research concerning Luther have been clearly characterized by the close attention paid to his early development. Aided by some remarkable discoveries of hitherto unknown early Luther material, scholars have investigated particularly the important period from roughly 1513 to 1517/18, during which the ‘new’ religion of Luther evolved and reached its first flowering. The largely uncharted years before 1513, however, still remain in comparative darkness, despite Otto Scheel's notable work which, for all its completeness, is peripheral rather than central so far as the figure of Luther himself is concerned. While Scheel has succeeded in recreating the environment, physical as well as intellectual, in which the boy and youth lived and moved, he has been able to tell us but little of Luther's early spiritual development. The sources available to us unfortunately do not permit our going much beyond what Scheel has so competently presented. A few early letters and the marginal notes of 1509/10 constitute practically the whole body of direct Luther records before 1513. This situation is most regrettable indeed since we do not really know, aside from the general religious background in which Luther grew up, the all-important specific and personal elements characteristic of his early religion. In other words, we do not actually know the individual and intimate features of the religion from which Luther developed into the ‘new’ religion so wholly and unmistakably his own.

The importance of determining the type of text used by patristic writers in their New Testament quotations is universally understood, and the difficulties due to the tendency of copyists, especially in the lemmata of commentaries, to substitute readings familiar to themselves have often been stated.

As Matthew concludes his Gospel, he records that the resurrected Christ met with the eleven disciples on the mountain which He had appointed. There the Lord spoke to them, saying, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” In our time, these words are synonymous with the missionary movement of the Protestant Church. Yet among the first generations of Protestants there were few voices raised on behalf of missions, and more than seventy years passed before the first Reformed exegete declared that Christ's injunction “remains in full force, and perfectly binding on the Church, so long as there shall be nations ignorant of the Lord.” And nearly two more decades were to pass before a small group of Reformed pietists gave form to the earliest, continuing Protestant missionary endeavor.

The texts of Matthew 15:5 and Mark 8:12 have both been difficult passages to understand, translate, and interpret. Mt. 15:5 seems to be a minced oath or vow taken by the sacred object, קךבז; whereas Mk. 8:12 resembles an oath administered by another and accepted by the oath-taker. Mt. 15:5 is the more difficult of the two and will here be examined first in comparison with Rabbinic and Old Testament literary forms. The insights gained from this study will then be transferred to Mk. 8:12.

For all practical purposes, the lengthy and comprehensive essay of Leopold Cohn published in 1898 introduced Pseudo-Philo's Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum to modern scholars. To demonstrate that the existing Latin text was a translation from the Greek, Cohn listed individual words presumably transliterated from the Greek (metra, holocaustomata, epomis, cataracte, eremus, etc.), noted that many biblical names were written according to their Greek forms (Abel, Enoc, Noe, Jesus, etc.), and pointed out a few LXX readings implying, as he thought, the use of the Greek Bible. However, on the basis of other names, the frequent use of et to join sentences, as well as the occurrence of idioms as et factum est, responderunt dicentes, etc., Cohn concluded that the work must have been originally written in Hebrew. While these considerations may have some indicative force, they do not really prove the point at issue. It is imperative, therefore, that we uncover more decisive proofs for determining the languages in which LAB has been transmitted.

IT is customary to divide the second chapter of the Epistle of James into two sections, verses 1–13 and 14–26. The question whether these two sections have any connection with each other was answered negatively by Martin Dibelius. Dibelius argued his case, first of all, by denying that the parable in 2: 15, 16 — with its contrast between speaking and doing (cf. 2: 12) — represents the point of 2: 14–26. Along with other commentators, Dibelius understood this section to treat faith and works and the connection between the two in the light of the Pauline theological treatment of them. Thus, e.g., he argued that the author of James employed the Abraham example in the manner of Jewish tradition, but whereas in the Jewish tradition the faith of Abraham is itself a “work,” it is not so in James: Dibelius found his solution by assuming that this discussion presupposes Paul's treatment of πίστιϛ and ἔργα. But ἔργα for Paul means “works of the law” (e.g., circumcision), which is not the meaning for James. Therefore, James must presuppose a misunderstood Paulinism. When James 2: 14–26 is approached in this way, the parable in 2: 15, 16 appears as only an example, somewhat incidental to the main thrust of the section. Thus, the connection of 2: 14–26 with the foregoing verses cannot be affirmed, even though it appears that the parable in 2: 15, 16 is similar to 2: 12, 13.

William Paley is best remembered for his formulation of the watch analogy in his classic Natural Theology (1802). What is less widely known is that in the same work, Paley, in response to Erasmus Darwin, anticipates the argument from perfection. The present discussion traces the argument from perfection tradition from its probable inception in Natural Theology through important moments in its subsequent history. The discussion will address its contemporary wide-ranging impact upon such thinkers as philosopher of religion Alvin Plantinga, as well as scholars standing outside the tradition, such as geneticist Richard Goldschmidt and paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. The article concludes with a discussion of the theological significance of this research in terms of its impact upon the issue of the relationship between God and the world.

The subject of this study is, perhaps, the most commonly known of the manuscript sources of early church history. Beginners in the subject, who are apt to take for granted the text of their sources, nevertheless presently learn that they owe the beginning of the story of the Meletian schism in Egypt and much of the later history of Athanasius to their discovery, early in the eighteenth century, by the Marchése Maffei, in a volume belonging to the Chapter library of Verona. But the fact is that this codex as a whole possesses great interest and presents the student with many fascinating problems. These have been attacked, and in part solved, by a succession of scholars, beginning with Maffei himself and two other Veronese savants, the Ballerini brothers, continuing later with Maassen and Batiffol, and in our own times with Professors C. H. Turner and E. Schwartz. The work of these and others, on this subject, is scattered through many books and periodicals, and the time is ripe for a résumé in English of the whole story. It is even possible to carry the work forward in one or two respects.

Among the significant questions perennially raised by Miltonic criticism, the two most important are the two most variously answered: What is Paradise Lost, and why did Milton write it? If the evidence which follows may be regarded as sufficiently exhaustive, I suggest that Paradise Lost was designed as a non-sectarian epic and more or less deliberately modelled as well as based upon conservative religious literature. The second conclusion is that Milton wrote his greatest poem to justify the ways of the Christian God, and to give artistic-prophetic expression to beliefs which were both vital and sacred to him.

It is a fact which is not justly appreciated that the Sun and the Moon had almost no cult in the early and classical age of Greece except for the Sun at Rhodes, a cult which is reasonably suspected to be of foreign origin. Helios and Selene were, of course, considered to be gods, but in mythology. Those scholars who have eagerly tried to find evidence for their cult ought to remember the statements of Aristophanes and Plato that Helios and Selene were barbarous gods. These two certainly knew the cults of their compatriots better than we do. On the other hand, the Sun cult was very popular and wide-spread in Roman times and became finally the last State religion of the Empire. It came from the Orient, and the mediator and the reason of its popularity was astrology. So the question arises: why did the Greeks accept the astrology which they rejected in an earlier age, and why did they begin to pay a cult to Helios to whom they had shown no veneration in earlier times? Did they simply succumb to a foreign religion or were there intrinsic reasons which contributed to this result?

Several recent publications have presented collections of various types of evidence for the Egyptian cults in the Greco-Roman World. Although valuable, they do not give sufficient critical analysis of the evidence through detailed study of particular sites. The present article attempts to provide for Corinth a more substantial picture of the Egyptian cults than has previously been available.

In The Gospel according to St. Luke the late Professor Creed accepted the view of Welhausen and Meyer that the original version of Mark was intended to close with the words ἐϕοβοῦντο γάρ. The view avoids the difficulty of explaining the fact that neither Matthew nor Luke knows any other ending; it is certainly hard to see how a document could have gained so wide a circulation that the authors of these two Gospels knew it, and yet had at some previous date been so little known that the only surviving copy had lost its original ending.

The interaction between early Christianity and the Judaism from which it emerged took many and diverse forms, and Christians’ attitudes toward their Jewish heritage varied considerably. The Epistle to the Hebrews represents a particularly complex case of both the appropriation and the rejection of that heritage. This ambivalent attitude reaches its climax in the central expository section of the text, where the significance of the death of Christ is explored using primarily the analogy of the Yom Kippur sacrifice. This portion of Hebrews is replete with exegetical difficulties which cannot be resolved here. What this essay will attempt is an analysis of the literary techniques through which the model of the Yom Kippur ritual is appropriated.

Many gods lived in the Roman Empire. All ancient peoples, including Jews and, eventually, Christians, knew this to be the case. Exploring the ways that members of these groups thought about and dealt with other gods while remaining loyal to their own god, this essay focuses particularly on the writings and activities of three late Second Temple Jews who highly identified as Jews: Philo of Alexandria, Herod the Great, and the apostle Paul. Their loyalty to Israel’s god notwithstanding, they also acknowledged the presence, the agency, and the power of foreign deities. Reliance on “monotheism” as a term of historical description inhibits our appreciation of the many different social relationships, human and divine, that all ancient Jews had to navigate. Worse, “monotheism” fundamentally misdescribes the religious sensibility of antiquity.

In the middle decades of the ninth century, Charles the Bald, the West Frankish Carolingian ruler, received two treatises on the subject of the Eucharist. Paschasius Radbertus (ca. 790–ca. 865) and Ratramnus (d. after 868), both monks from the royal monastery at Corbie in Neustria, composed treatises entitled De corpore et sanguine domini.1 That these were the very first Latin Christian treatises devoted solely to the Eucharist and, further, that they came to different conclusions, has attracted well-earned scholarly scrutiny from almost immediately after their appearance. I would like to return to the question of the difference between their views. Specifically, I will show that the doctrinal differences between the two treatises have their roots in different approaches to, or—perhaps better—interests in, sacraments in general. The two authors do not take opposed positions on the topic of the sacraments, or even mutually contradicting positions on the Eucharist, rather they choose to emphasize different aspects of the sacrament, different guiding themes which suggest to each different lines of analysis. Paschasius sees sacraments primarily as instruments of unity, while Ratramnus views sacraments principally as salvific tools. This recognition yields two insights. It recalibrates analysis of the eucharistic tracts, foregrounding the contemporary concerns of the authors, while deliberately deemphasizing the subsequent theological controversies and scholarly debates into which the treatises were drawn. For both Paschasius and Ratramnus, distinctive approaches to sacraments color not only their analyses of the Eucharist, but also their approaches to larger political and social questions. This recognition also emphasizes the vibrance and creativity characteristic of the Carolingian theological milieu, too often dismissed as a supposedly derivative and unoriginal era in Christian theology. To these ends, the paper will proceed in four stages. First, I situate my question in the long historiography of the Corbie eucharistic treatises. Second, I briefly set the authors and their treatises in historical context. Third, I compare their ‘sacramental’ theologies of the Eucharist, underscoring both Paschasius's emphasis on its horizontal or communal significance and Ratramnus's stress on its vertical or salvific importance. Fourth, I trace how each author's particular sacramental interests remain consistent across their other projects with ramifications for their theological and social opinions.

Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brethren: a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles come in, and so all Israel will be saved; as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.”

Paul, Romans 11:25–26I have generally adhered to the RSV except where the wording of biblical quotations in the works of patristic or medieval authors mandates otherwise. Citations of chapter and verse in the Hebrew Bible, however, generally follow the numbering in the Masoretic Text.

This text is the basis of the common opinion that, at the end of the world, the Jews will return to the faith. However, it is so obscure that, unless one is willing to accept the judgment of the fathers who expound the apostle in this way, no one can, so it would seem, obtain a clear conviction from this text.

Luther, Lectures on RomansMartin Luther, Scholien—Epistola ad Romanos (vol. 56 of Werke; Weimar: H. Bohlaus Nachf, 1883–1983) 436–37; Martin Luther, Lectures on Romans (trans. Wilhem Pauck; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1961) 315.

Stephen C. Carlson's The Gospel Hoax sets out to validate the long-standing suspicion that Professor Morton Smith, late of Columbia University, forged his famous discovery of aletter of Clement of Alexandria, which quotes from a longer(“secret”)Gospel of Mark. This academic folklore has been passed on like an esoteric tradition since 1975, when Quentin Quesnell called on Smith to make the manuscript of this letter available for forensic testing in order to rule out the possibility of a recent hoax. Quesnell had difficulty substantiating his concerns. In his article in the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, he postulated that a modern scholar might have devised the letter as “a controlled experiment” in order to examine how scholars react to new evidence. Yet the manuscript of this letter, which Smith found in 1958, was inscribed on the last pages of a seventeenth-century book that purportedly was kept in a locked room of a monastery in the Judean desert. What modern forger would leave his creation there and gamble that someone would discover it in his lifetime? For this scenario to seem at all plausible, Quesnell needed to imply what he personally suspected, namely, that Smith forged it himself for this purpose. Accordingly, Quesnell described his hypothetical modern “mystifier” as someone who shared Smith's abilities, opportunities, resources, and interest in what people make of the document.

This essay examines Samuel Hirsch’s Religious Philosophy of the Jews as a forerunner of twentieth-century works of ethical monotheism in modern Jewish thought. In particular, it explores Hirsch’s use of the dichotomy between monotheism and idolatry as a way to resist Hegel’s attempts to incorporate Judaism into his developmental history of religion. Hirsch frames his opposition to the Hegelian account of religion by means of providing a rival interpretation of Genesis 3 to that offered by Hegel in the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. After juxtaposing Hegel’s and Hirsch’s respective interpretations of Genesis 3, I explore Hirsch’s account of religion, which, unlike Hegel’s, is presented in terms of the dichotomy of true and false religion. Finally, I will briefly highlight how Hirsch’s basic strategy for understanding Judaism vis-à-vis other religions—namely, casting the dichotomy between monotheism and idolatry in starkly ethical terms—is taken up and utilized by Hermann Cohen and Emmanuel Levinas in the twentieth century.