It seems suitable, when honoring a dean who has become a bishop, to write on an episcopal theologian who thought he could answer Gnostics by discussing curriculum. I doubt that in either office Krister Stendahl would ever have taken such a tack. It is odd to see Irenaeus doing so.

It is now some fifty-two years since the first modern edition appeared of any part of Hephaistion of Thebes' compendium of astrology. The editor very properly collected in his introduction the scanty facts relative to the author and the unknown friend to whom he dedicates his work. But, apparently a little annoyed by the too positive assertion of Salmasius that all astrologers of that date were pagans, he put forth the hasty theory that this astrologer was a Christian. He had indeed no difficulty in proving that a somewhat unorthodox or lax Christian might have been a devotee of astrology at the time, about A.D. 381, when it is likely that Hephaistion wrote; but he went too far in the further statement that “das Werk des Hephaestion selbst bietet sicherlich keinen positiven Anhaltspunkt, dass der Verfasser desselben Nicht-Christ gewesen sei.” This has been echoed by later writers, as A. Bouché-Leclercq, who says “Il est possible qu'Hephestion de Thebes … fût chrétien,” and Fr. Boll, writing shortly before 1912, when a good deal more of our author had been printed in the C(orpus) C(odicum) A(strologicorum) G(raecorum). He sums up Engelbrecht's arguments, that the work begins σὺν θεῷ and is dedicated to one Athanasios, who is called ὁσιώτατος (and by other complimentary superlatives) and so may have been a Christian priest, concluding that the theory of the writer's Christianity is arrived at “wohl mit Recht.” As it seems to me remarkable that three learned men, of whom one had edited the astrologer and the others had certainly read him, should have overlooked the cogent evidence that he was a pagan, I think it worth while to set forth the proofs, positive and negative.

Dr. Torrey has produced a work which, though contained in a little treatise of seventy-two pages, may well be an epoch-making contribution to our knowledge of Acts. He has undertaken to demonstrate two things: first, that Acts 1–15 35 is directly traceable to an Aramaic source which Luke translated; secondly, that the rest of the book is the work of one author.

The researches of the last three decades have conclusively shown that toward the end of the third century B.C. a profound change occurred in the spiritual life of the Jews. Literary prophecy, which had been declining since the time of Haggai and Zechariah (ca. 518 B.C.), now definitely came to an end. The noble tradition had been in its death throes for no less than three centuries. In vain did the Joels, the Obadiahs, and the Deutero-Zechariahs seek to save it from complete eclipse. Its hour had passed. In the meantime, new forces were arising to contend for its place in the spiritual leadership of Israel.

In an article in the fall 1991 issue of the Harvard Theological Review, David Steenburg proposes “to consider the potential significance of chaos theory for modern culture.” This important issue has not received adequate attention because the understanding of math and the physical sciences necessary to be able to speak cogently about chaos theory can be intimidating for nonscientists. Those who are not scientists, however, have at their disposal the popular and effective summary of chaos theory by James Gleick. While Gleick's work is solid, it has led some to be captivated by chaos theory's fecund metaphorical terminology and elegant computer-aided graphical images. Although those images, particularly the logistic map, show striking instances of order hidden within chaotic systems, too often they are used to forward the thesis that there are other systems, ranging from modern literary theory to stock market fluctuations, that also house deep structure amid their apparent disorder. The result is, on occasion, analysis that is based only upon metaphor.

Among the most distinctive discoveries from the excavations of the Roman synagogue at Sardis were many inscriptions in Greek on stone and in mosaic pavements. These proved to record gifts of portions of the rich interior decorations of the building: sections of tesselated mosaic pavement, panels with colorful, ornate cut marble mosaic wall decoration (opus sectile or skoutlosis), and various furnishings and elements of the architecture. The builders and patrons who transformed this elongated space, which had originally performed some other function in the immense Roman civic complex of the bath-gymnasium, into the house of worship for the Jewish community of Sardis, worked for generations cooperatively (and probably in some cases competitively as well) to adorn the interior and provide its rich furnishings in a manner appropriate for conducting worship in the most splendid and dignified setting possible.

Scholarly treatments of the Christian Socialist movement, which gained a modest notoriety in the United Kingdom from 1848 to 1854, invariably draw attention to the resolute political conservatism of its spiritual leader, Frederick Denison Maurice.See, for example, Gilbert Clive Binyon, The Christian Socialist Movement in England: An Introduction to the Study of Its History (London: SPCK, 1931); Olive J. Brose, Frederick Deni-son Maurice: Rebellious Conformist (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1971); Torben Christensen, Origin and History of Christian Socialism 1848–1854 (Universitetsforlaget I Aarhus, 1962); Frank Maudlin McClain, Maurice: Man and Moralist (London: SPCK, 1972); Edward Norman, The Victorian Christian Socialists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) esp. 1–34; Charles E. Raven, Christian Socialism 1848–1854 (London: MacMillan and Co., 1920); and David Young, F. D. Maurice and Unitarianism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992). Maurice's self-confessed “anti-democratical heresies,”The Life of Frederick Denison Maurice Chiefly Told in His Own Letters (ed. Frederick Maurice; 4th ed.; London: Macmillan and Co., 1885) 2:136. his unflagging concern to defend the institutions of monarchy and aristocracy, and his near pathological dread of social programs are taken to be indicative of a “monumental conservatism”Brose, Rebellious Conformist, xv. that ruined his close relationship with his key colleague John LudlowJohn Ludlow (1821–1911) was arguably the initial political inspiration for Christian Socialist movement. He equipped Maurice with an understanding of cooperative groups. Though less theo-logically-minded than Maurice, Ludlow was the other major public voice of Christian Socialism from 1848 to 1854. and thereby ensured the movement's rapid demise. This paper does not attempt to overturn entirely such an assessment of Maurice, but it does seek to complicate matters significantly by way of a critical analysis of Politics for the PeoplePolitics for the People, Nos. 1–17 (London: John W. Parker, 1848). (1848) and Tracts on Christian SocialismTracts on Christian Socialism, Nos. 1–7 (London: George Bell, 1850); Tracts on Christian Socialism, No. 8 (London: John James Bezer, 1850). (1850–1851)—two populist journals that attempted to spread the gospel of Christian socialism to both the English working classes and Anglican clergy. I argue that while often endorsing conservative political values“Conservative” is, of course, a term with meanings relative to context. To call Maurice politi-cally “conservative” is to acknowledge his basic unwillingness to countenance a large-scale political reorganization of English society. Maurice showed little interest in a redistribution of wealth or government ownership of the means of production; nor did he believe that the basic socio-economic structures of English society—such as class—should undergo change. there was also a subversive dimension to Maurice's thought that recent commentators have not appreciated. This subversiveness proceeded from a theological basis: a powerful and imaginative anthropology that conceived of all human beings as sharing in the infinite goodness of Christ, not the corruptive sin of Adam. Cast in political terms, this anthropology enabled Maurice to propose that radical changes to English society might begin in unexpected ways, animated by agency of the marginalized, the downcast, and the disenfranchised. In light of the solidarity of all in Christ, church affiliation, class status, gender, and the like were no barriers to an individual inaugurating the transformation of English society. Anyone could challenge the competitive principle of political economy and promote the Christian ideal of cooperation.

In the preparation of the following survey two methods were possible. I might select for fuller notice certain of the most important productions and by means of them illustrate the progress in this branch of historical science during the period of the war, or I might endeavor to give as complete an account of the literature as possible, including notices of less significant but nevertheless useful publications. I decided upon the second course, partly because the mass of production seemed to me too large and varied to be satisfactorily exhibited by the more or less arbitrary selection of a few works, partly because it often happens that a seemingly unimportant note may be of worth to some scholar who happens to be pursuing research in that particular field—something which in the many years during which I edited the Theologische Jahresbericht I have often found true in my own experience and that of others. Unfortunately the Jahresbericht, which seemed to us indispensable, as well as the Theologische Rundschau, edited by Bousset, whose untimely death we mourn, have both succumbed to the unfavorable conditions of the times. All the more necessary does it seem to create at least a partial substitute for them, and I embraced the opportunity offered me by the editors of this Review the more gladly because in my own country it will for the present be quite impossible to publish such a survey.

No one who has studied the history of the last century can fail to be struck by the great changes which have taken place in human thought, affecting the whole outlook of man in his relation to the world both within and without and constituting a revolution in the intellectual life of our times. The most permanent forces in human life have been brought face to face with new facts, new conditions, and new ideas, and nowhere do we find the evidences of this change in outlook greater than in the sphere of religion, where the old problems and the old controversies are passed or passing. One of the great questions of today is, as a recent writer has said, “whether Christianity can come to terms with the awakening self-consciousness of modern civilization, equipped with a vast mass of new scientific knowledge and animated for the first time by ideals which are not borrowed from classical or Hebrew antiquity.” But Christianity itself has already been deeply influenced by some of the changes which have taken place. The great forces of history press steadily upon all the institutions of society and the form or expression of the religious life is profoundly affected by the movements of thought or changes in sentiment which take place in human society.

The myth of Môt and ʼAlʼeyan Baʻal, who is Hadad, recounted in the texts unearthed at Ugarit, is a work of the schematizing imagination, and expressive of the ordered relations of natural phenomena conceived as embodied in gods. The systematic organization of the events in which the gods are caught, or which they dominate, shows that the myth arose from “observation of the great annual fluctuations of the seasons and a desire to explain them,” and that the authors or revisers, “brooding over the mystery of external nature,” sought “to lift the veil and explore the hidden springs that set the vast machine in motion.” We are well aware that “the civilized nations of western Asia and Egypt pictured to themselves the changes of the seasons, and particularly the annual growth and decay of vegetation, as episodes in the life of gods, whose mournful death and happy resurrection they celebrated with dramatic rites.” But in our texts we are introduced to subtle variations. Here the lapse, absorption and return of the rain are interfused with the regeneration and decline of plants in a rhythmic process to which no parallel is to be found among extant documents of similar purport and provenance. And the investigation of “nature's plan,” however cumbered with besotted notions, is so diligent as to bring the resulting depiction close to the twilight zone between mythology and the speculations of the early physical philosophers.

The basis of theistic belief is fortunately broader than the theistic arguments. People believe in God before they argue in favor of His existence, and the fortunes of theism are not inseparably bound up with any of the arguments framed in its support. No one, however, who is interested in the rational basis of theology can be indifferent to the fate of an argument which, whatever the philosophical objections to be brought against it, has in all ages of the world made a powerful appeal to human reason.

Since the Enlightenment ennui and despair have been among the most dominant themes in western literature. In the twentieth century there scarcely exists a single major work of fiction which views man's nature and destiny under the aspect of hope or fulfillment. Why this should be so is the subject of interminable discussion which, generally speaking, locates the deeper cause in the breakdown of virtually all genuine religiousness with an attendant rise of meaninglessness and emptiness. This development in turn is linked to the various revolutions, particularly the Industrial, that have combined to undermine traditional occidental modes of thought and living. While some critics hold that it is merely a question of modern society becoming gradually accustomed to the blessings so precipitously conferred upon it by technology, thus comparing its present growing pains to those of an adolescent, few seem to disagree on the prevailing exhaustion and anxiety. In addition to the note of doom struck by the best intellectuals of our day — and its fashionableness is no argument against its truth — it would appear that the unreflecting masses independently of being exposed to this literature do not know how to redeem their leisure time, have lost a great deal of capacity for spontaneous participation, and seek despairingly if not eagerly for something vital to which they can relate themselves and through which find renewed structure in their lives.

In her recent book Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, Susan Faludi pointed out the violence endemic to the Wild Man paradigm set forth in Robert Bly's Iron John:

For months, Bly has refused requests for an interview—his media interviews are largely with men—but today he accedes to a brief conversation over lunch. Between man-size bites of a sandwich, the poet says he bars women from most of his events because men need a sanctuary from a female-dominated world. “There's no place for the warrior in this country. The feminists have taken over from the Catholic priests.” And this is only the start of the female incursion. “I just see it getting worse and worse. Men will become more and more insecure, farther from their own manhood. Men will become more like women.…” What evidence does he have that all this is happening, or that feminism is actually turning men “soft”? The venerable poet flies into a sudden rage. “I don't need evidence. I have brains, that's how I know.”

This article presents a reading of the story of the Patriarch's meeting with the Emperor Diocletian as it appears in the late antique midrashic compilation, Genesis Rabbah. The story encapsulates the complexity of the relationship between the rabbis and Roman political, cultural and religious hegemony, showing the rabbis as both in eternal conflict with the Roman Empire and its culture and, yet, in many ways, very Roman themselves. In the second half of the article, I argue that this story presents a unique perspective on rabbinic views of both “demons” and the Olympian gods themselves. I conclude by comparing and contrasting these views with the approaches of early Christian thinkers.

What do we know about Luther's mother?

According to the biographers, very little. We have “only a very shadowy conception,” Heinrich Boehmer says, in spite of Spalatin's remark that Martin was her “spit and image.” Even Erik Erikson, who is quite ready to offer clinical extrapolations from scant evidence, admits that a “big gap exists here, which only conjecture could fill.”

Scholarship on Phil 2:6–11 has long wrestled with the question of “interpretive staging.” While acknowledging that Jewish sapiential and apocalyptic literature as well as Roman apotheosis narratives provide important matrices for the hymn, the following study pinpoints a third backdrop against which Paul's dramatic christology would have been heard in Philippi: Euripidean tragedy. Echoes of Dionysus's opening monologue from Euripides's Bacchae in the carmen Christi suggest that Roman hearers of Paul's letter likely understood Christ's kenotic metamorphosis as a species of Dionysian revelation. This interpretive recognition accomplishes a new integration of the hymn's Jewish and imperial-cultic transcripts. Jesus's Bacchic portraiture supports a theology of Christ's pre-existence, while simultaneously establishing him as a Dionysian antithesis to the imperial Apollonian kyrios Caesar. These Dionysian echoes also elevate the status of slaves and women, and suggest that “the tragic” remains modally present within the otherwise comic fabula of the Christ myth.

Elaborate depictions of the court system in Second Temple and rabbinic literature signify its centrality for the Jewish legal tradition. Rather than offering positivistic descriptions, these representations are better thought of as templates of how to organize justice. While historically less informative, they are vivid expressions of the early Jewish legal imagination and its fascinating fixation on the architecture of justice.

A measure of the ahistoric quality of early accounts of judicial administration is their considerable exegetical strata. This article surveys how four seminal Second Temple and rabbinic works constructed accounts of the judiciary on the foundation of Scripture. The variances among them unfold from decisive hermeneutical choices, beginning with the threshold question of which among several, internally inconsistent, biblical sources to select as a base text. What animates these various choices, in turn, are competing conceptions of the origin and nature of legal authority within a religious tradition that enshrines the role of law.

All historical studies suffer from the unconscious transformation of generally accepted hypotheses into ‘universally known facts.’ This transformation is particularly frequent in NT criticism, where the small amount of directly relevant material necessitates constant resort to hypotheses. Therefore particular credit is due to Munck for writing a book which challanges many of the accepted hypotheses about Paul.

The MS published here in all its extant fragments represents the remains of 3 successive columns, about 30 letters to the line, 34 lines to the column, from a scroll written at about the turn of the era. Contrary to the writer's earlier published impression, its text is not such as can be supposed to underlie the form presented in later Septuagint codices; it is instead a considerable reworking of the original LXX to make it conform both in quantity and in diction to a Hebrew consonantal text nearly indistinguishable, within the limited scope of our evidence, from that of MT.

The question of how human language functions in relation to God constitutes one of the most difficult problems in Christian theology. I contend that Christian notions of language about God should be constructed in light of christology, since both are concerned with the relationship between the human and the divine. Northrop Frye, drawing on the poetry and thought of William Blake, speaks of the importance of “the double vision of a spiritual and a physical world simultaneously present” in understanding how religious language works. This fundamental quality of double vision or tension characterizes the relationship between the human and the divine both in language about God and in christology. In this article I shall examine several aspects of the relationship between the human and the divine: first, the basic problem of theological language as discussed by George Lindbeck; second, the notion of theological language as metaphorical, as discussed by Sallie McFague; and third, christology as found in the Chalcedonian definition of Christian faith. I shall conclude that it is appropriate to construct notions of language about God in light of Chalcedonian christology.