Papyri And The Social World Of The New Testament

Explores the socio-economic background of people in the New Testament using papyrological evidence from Roman Egypt.

This collection of frequently cited articles and chapters, published from 1962 to 2004, provides perspective, with critique, on the history, development, and methodologies of New Testament textual criticism, with emphasis on the role of papyri in antiquity and in current theory.

This volume provides novel social-scientific and historical approaches to religious identifications in late antique (3rd–12th century) Egyptian papyri, bridging the gap between two academic fields that have been infrequently in full conversation: papyrology and the study of religion. Through eleven in-depth case studies of Christian, Islamic, “pagan,” Jewish, Manichaean, and Hermetic texts and objects, this book offers new interpretations on markers of religious identity in papyrus documents written in Coptic, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic. Using papyri as a window into the lives of ordinary believers, it explores their religious behavior and choices in everyday life. Three valuable perspectives are outlined and explored in these documents: a critical reflection on the concept of identity and the role of religious groups, a situational reading of religious repertoire and symbols, and a focus on speech acts as performative and efficacious utterances. Religious Identifications in Late Antique Papyri offers a wide scope and comparative approach to this topic, suitable for students and scholars of late antiquity and Egypt, as well as those interested in late antique religion. A PDF version of this book is available for free in Open Access at www.taylorfrancis.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Die Universitätsbibliothek in Basel ist im Besitz einer kleinen Papyrussammlung von 63 Papyri aus ptolemäischer, römischer sowie spätantiker Zeit in überwiegend griechischer, aber auch hieratischer, lateinischer, koptischer und mittelpersischer Sprache. Der Freiwillige Museumsverein der Stadt Basel erwarb sie im Jahre 1899 für die Universitätsbibliothek und machte damit Basel zur einer der ersten Universitäten, die im Besitz einer Sammlung griechischer Papyri war. Im frühen 20. Jahrhundert nahm sich zwar der an der Universität Basel als Professor für Rechtsgeschichte lehrende Ernst Rabel (Basel 1906-1910) der Sammlung an und bearbeitete einige ausgewählte Texte. Doch er beließ es bei einer Auswahl von 26 Papyri, die er als „Papyrusurkunden der Öffentlichen Bibliothek der Universität zu Basel" während des 1. Weltkriegs im Jahre 1917 publizierte. Dieser Band bietet nun eine Reedition der bereits bekannten Stücke und eine Erstedition aller weiteren Basler Papyri.

This volume covers the transition period stretching from the reign of Justinian I to the end of the 8th century, focusing on the experience of individuals who lived through the last decades of Byzantine rule in Egypt before the arrival of the new Arab rulers. The contributions drawing from the wealth of sources we have for Egypt, explore phenomena of stability and disruption during the transition from the classical to the postclassical world.

This volume brings together a series of innovative studies on Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic Palestine, Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and ancient synagogues in honor of renowned archaeologist Jodi Magness.

In the past twenty-five years, New Testament scholars have drawn on the social sciences, especially anthropology and sociology, to develop a variety of new perspectives on early Christianity. David Horrell here gathers together the classic works in this field, including essays by, for example, John Barclay, Philip Esler, Wayne Meeks, Luise Schottroff and Gerd Theissen. For each selection, David Horrell provides a short introduction and suggestions for further reading. He also provides an introduction outlining the development and future prospects of the discipline.An excellent reference and textbook for scholars and students.

The New Testament is a book of great significance in Western culture yet is often inaccessible to students because the modern world differs so significantly from the ancient Mediterranean one in which it was written. It is imperative to develop a cross-cultural understanding of the values of the ancient Mediterranean society from which the New Testament arose in order to fully appreciate the documents and the communities that they represent. Dietmar Neufeld and Richard E. DeMaris bring together biblical scholars with expertise in the social sciences to develop interpretative models for understanding such values as collectivism, kinship, memory, ethnicity, and honour, and to demonstrate how to apply these models to the New Testament texts. Kinship is illuminated by analysis of the Holy Family as well as to early Christian organisations; gender through a study of Paul’s view of women; and landscape and spatiality through a discussion of Jesus of Nazareth. This book is the ideal companion to study of the New Testament.