Abraham, born in Chaldaea, had in youth already left a fatherland in his father's company. Now, in the plains of Mesopotamia, he tore himself free altogether from his family as well, in order to be a wholly self-subsistent, independent man, to be an overlord himself. … The same spirit which had carried Abraham away from his kin led him through his encounters with foreign peoples during the rest of his life; this was the spirit of self-maintenance in strict opposition to everything—the product of his thought raised to be the unity dominant over the nature which he regarded as infinite and hostile (for the only relationship possible between hostile entities is mastery of one by the other). With his herds Abraham wandered hither and thither over a boundless territory without bringing parts of it any nearer to him by cultivating and improving them. … The groves which often gave him coolness and shade he soon left again; in them he had theophanies, appearances of his perfect Object on High, but he did not tarry in them with the love which would have made them worthy of Divinity and participant in Him. He was a stranger on earth, a stranger to the soil and to men alike.

There is no more prominent atheist today than Jean-Paul Sartre. Yet serious students of Sartre's philosophy are struck by his unabashed use of theological idiom. This use is so extensive that Professor Hazel Barnes in her translator's introduction to Being and Nothingness comments:

Many people who consider themselves religious could quite comfortably accept Sartre's philosophy if he did not embarrass them by making his pronouncement, “There is no God,” quite so specific.

Although traditionally regarded as an austere clergyman, rigidly circumscribed by narrow doctrinalism, Jonathan Edwards has the distinction of being America's pioneer esthetician. In a Dissertation concerning the Nature of True Virtue he brings together nearly all the theories prevalent in the early eighteenth century concerning the relation of beauty to virtue, and discusses the moral aspects of human passions and conduct. Francis Hutcheson is the philosopher whose influence is most pronounced. In the Dissertation he is mentioned by name three times; the general plan of his theory of moral sense is constantly suggested for comparison, contrast or illustration; fundamental doctrines and corollary principles from his system are specifically stated and attacked; and others of his notions are cited in support of Edwards' own views. It has long been known that Edwards read Hutcheson's work, but the close parallels in his own treatise, making it literally a commentary on Hutcheson, have not been generally recognized. Evidence of the extent of Hutcheson's influence may be found by comparing Edwards' dissertation with his earlier work on The Mind, a discussion of the essence of beauty or harmony in the realms of spirit and of sense. Written while its author was engaged in studying Locke, the discussion contains nearly all of Edwards' original ideas on natural and divine beauty. In the expanded and polished treatise some of the original ideas are modified as a direct result of Hutcheson's concepts, and a complete ethical and aesthetic system is developed to supplant the systems of Hutcheson and other moralists popular at the time.

Ethical writers, like biologists, are no longer concerned with the mere fact of evolution. They are dealing with more specific questions of causes and methods. And, as with biology, two stages in the study may be expected. Biologists were at first interested in the historical question: What was the origin of species? They were temporarily satisfied with the answer: Natural selection, operating in conjunction with heredity and variation. Now, however, a clue to the specific method of heredity has been found in Mendelism, the causes operative in producing variation are being discovered by experimentation, and biology is entering upon a constructive stage which promises great results for agriculture, and perhaps also for human health and well-being. Ethics is as yet almost entirely in the descriptive stage. Perhaps we are staggered at the complexity of present problems, and timidly leave to the practical reformer or politician the responsible task of making positive suggestions. But, when the past evolution has been thoroughly analyzed, it may be hoped that social reform and moral education will be more intelligent. The interest of these problems for the student of religion is also obvious. For, to illustrate by one suggestion out of many, we ask: What causes the difference in the ideals of different ages and races? Is it religion, or philosophy, or economic needs and conditions solely? And shall the religious teacher who would hasten the Kingdom of God appeal to the conscience or to the legislature, or, in the conviction that neither of these avails, shall he stand still and wait for the inventor and the inevitable social revolution? It would be absurd to say that we are yet in a position to answer this old question conclusively, but it is not too much to say that no one can now afford to give dogmatic answers without first considering the complexity of the interaction which is increasingly coming into view between religious, political, economic, aesthetic, and ethical factors.

The discovery of a rich corpus of biblical manuscripts among the documents from the caves of Qumrân, and subsequently from other sites in the wilderness surrounding the Dead Sea, has given a fresh impetus to the textual criticism of the Old Testament, and especially to the study of the Septuagint as a tool of criticism. To date, this corpus is only partially published, with much of the most significant material awaiting its editio princeps. But already it is clear that old problems and issues are open to investigation from new perspectives and with a degree of precision and evidential control hitherto not possible.

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.

The Periphyseon, the magnum opus of the Carolingian thinker Johannes Scottus Eriugena (810–877), is widely recognized as the most original work in the history of Christian thought between Augustine and Anselm. Set in the form of a dialogue between a Master and his Student, the Periphyseon presents a daring view of the universe, for which Eriugena coins the term natura. Instead of the traditional Christian dichotomy of God versus creation, Eriugena presents a unified view of reality, the intimidating whole of which he can only conceive by submitting it to a process of division. Hence the name Periphyseon or On the Division of Nature.

“The Ways that Never Parted” is the title of a recently published collection of articles that reflects an increasing tendency in scholarship. A significant number of scholars no longer interpret the emergence of Christianity from Judaism as a clear separation between the two religions either at the end of the first or the beginning of the second century. Instead, they envision a prolonged process which, according to some, may even have lasted until the late fourth century. This process is thought to have been shaped by both segregation and rapprochement, creating ambiguity and “fuzziness” rather than clear boundaries. A central notion is the idea of sororal relations between Judaism and Christianity. These scholars no longer see Judaism as the mother figure giving birth to the daughter religion, while remaining unchanged herself, but rather as a sister developing and changing during the first centuries of the Christian era. This interpretation then sees Jews as an integral part of the Roman Empire, which eventually became Christian and (im)posed certain religious challenges.

Users of Bible Translations and especially makers of them have reason to be interested in the grandson of Ben Sira. He is perhaps the earliest identified person of either species. He lived in Egypt twenty-one centuries ago having arrived there, as he tells us, “in the thirty-eighth year under Euergetes the King,” which is probably 132 B.C. That is of course too early to speak of a finished Bible, though he does know the law and the prophets and other books and knows them also in another tongue than Hebrew. It was another Hebrew book—what we call Ecclesiasticus—written by his own grandfather, that he himself translated into Greek. With other translations this was accepted into the Greek and Christian Bible and so has come down to us in the Septuagint, while its original in Hebrew was not ultimately so received in the Hebrew or Jewish Bible.

In the instrument providing for the endowment of the series of lectures which bears his name Judge Dudley directed that the third lecture should be for “The Detecting and Convicting and Exposing the Idolatry of the Romish Church, their Tyranny, Usurpations, Damnable Heresies, Fatal Errors, Abominable Superstitions, and other Crying Wickednesses in their high places; and finally that the Church of Rome is that mystical Babylon, that man of sin, that apostate Church, spoken of in the New Testament.”

It is upon this topic that I am to speak this evening. The times have changed since the lectureship was founded in 1750. Many of the animosities of the fathers are no longer felt by us, and particularly in religious matters union has taken the place of division, sympathy of hostility, coöperation of rivalry. We are interested in other things. Our sense of proportion has changed. We are farther away from the days of persecution, and less nervous about many movements and institutions that our fathers dreaded unspeakably. The spirit of toleration has taken hold upon us all, and Protestants can think and speak kindly of men of other faiths, and can coöperate gladly and heartily with them as opportunity offers for the promotion of good ends dear to them all.

With this spirit I am myself in cordial sympathy, and it is as an historian, not as a polemic, that I shall treat the subject assigned me. I wish to consider as dispassionately as possible the great system that still remains essentially unchanged, in spite of all the vicissitudes that have overtaken the affairs of men since Judge Dudley made his will a hundred and fifty years ago.

Scholars have explained a series of supplements in Paraleipomena B′ (hereafter Par) containing material not in the Massoretic Text of Chronicles by one of the following alternatives: (a) the translator of Chronicles had a Hebrew text expanded with passages from 2 Kings; or (b) Greek passages related in some undefinable fashion to 4 Reigns were added to Par. The supplements in Par do, in fact, bear a tantalizing resemblance to Reigns, but they also differ considerably in vocabulary, grammatical forms, and length; and they presuppose independent contact with a Hebrew text distinct from the Massoretic Text of Kings. The debate still stands at this impasse.

In the manuscripts and versions of the New Testament, in lists of books accepted as canonical, and in the works of ecclesiastical writers the Epistle to the Hebrews occupies three different positions: (I) Among the epistles addressed to churches, i.e. after Romans, after 2 Corinthians, and very rarely after Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, and Titus. (II) After 2 Thessalonians, i.e. after the epistles written to churches. (III) After Philemon, i.e. at the end of the Pauline canon. Each of these positions represents the usage of some particular section, or sections, of the Church; and each is significant for the history of the canon of the New Testament. No other epistle ascribed to the Apostle Paul has been so variously placed in the canon as Hebrews.

The sole daily prayer of the Synagogue, in the proper sense of the word prayer, preces, that is of a request for well-being, is the Tefillah, the “Intercession,” also called Amidah, since it is recited standing. The prayer consists of eighteen sections, each concluded by the same formula: “Blessed be Thou, YHWH.” Thence, the popular name of the prayer: Shemone Esreh, “Eighteen” (benedictions).

The textual problems involved in the parable of the two sons (Matt. 21:28–32) are well known and extraordinarily complex. The parable has been handed down in the manuscript tradition in three forms.

In the provocative eleventh book of his Confessions, Augustine mused:

What then is time? Who can find a quick and easy answer to that question? Whoever in his mind can grasp the subject well enough to be able to make a statement on it? Yet in ordinary conversation we use the word ‘time’ more often and more familiarly than any other. And certainly we understand what we mean by it, just as we must understand what others mean by it when we hear the word from them. What then is time? I know what it is if no one asks me what it is; but if I want to explain it to someone who has asked me, I find that I do not know.

The classic debate between Erasmus and Luther over the role of the human will in conversion is only the most famous of several Reformation era disputes over several related soteriological and anthropological issues. As Reformation developed into Orthodoxy, Calvinists and Lutherans went to battle over the doctrines of double predestination and the perseverance of the saints. The debate over God's eternal decree remained a point of irritation between the two confessions throughout the early modern period even though within each confession differences on these doctrines surfaced during the course of the seventeenth century.

Certain Genera of animals, once flourishing, but now extinct and known only by their fossilized remains, are described by paleontologists. Literary historians recognize also certain genera of literature, once flourishing, but now extinct and known only to a few specialists who care to delve into books which, gathering dust on library shelves, are all but forgotten and virtually fossilized.