The Concept Of Disciple In Matthew S Gospel As Reflected In The Use Of The Term Mathetes

When critics study reader-character interaction in Matthew's Gospel, they tend to reach similar conclusions. The disciples are viewed as the link between Jesus and the readers. The supplicants and Pharisees serve as foils complementing the true meaning of discipleship.This study reconceptualizes the readers' role on the basis of M.M. Bakhtin's analysis of the author-hero relationship. The outcome of this reading strategy is that the readers must also interact with Jesus through the limited perspective of the major character groups, momentarily suspending the post-resurrection knowledge that all authority is g ranted to him. By encouraging the readers to identify with the Pharisees, the Gospel is able to constitute the readers as sinners, thereby establishing them in the supplicants' condition of need, and thus as the potential recipients of good news.This is volume 246 in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series.

In this work, the author investigates Gal 1:13-14, Gal 3:6-14, 1 Thess 4:13-17, 2 Cor 12:1-10 and Rom 10:4 and then expounds how Paul, although originating from Judaism and having been educated in Jewish Biblical interpretation, reaches a new hermeneutic only after his experience of Christ. The apostle proves to be dependent neither on apocalyptic views nor on the methods of Greek Rhetoric nor on Rabbinic Midrash, although he is well versed in them. Instead, he develops a Christological interpretation of the Torah, and this interpretation becomes the centre of his mission to the non-Jews. The Torah finds its eschatological fulfillment in Christ and receives its ethical validity for the nations in the form of the love command.

Sixteen chapters by leading New Testament scholars examine various aspects of the Sayings of Jesus, both canonical and non-canonical, in this volume presented to Prof. Tjitze Baarda. Acknowledging the contributions of this distinguished scholar, the contributors explore specific passages from the Gospels, and other sources (such as Q, the Didache, the Gospel of Thomas, and patristic citations of Jesus' words). Contributors include: J. Neville Birdsall, Sebastian P. Brock, Joel Delobel, J. Keith Elliott, Eldon Jay Epp, Jan Helderman, Pieter W. van der Horst, Henk Jan de Jonge, Marinus de Jonge, Helmut Koester, Andreas Lindemann, Gerard Mussies, William L. Petersen, James M. Robinson, Wolfgang Schenk, Johan S. Vos.

This volume analyzes the "Q materials" in the light of compositional conventions of ancient instructional genres. The author begins by assessing literary-critical approaches to Q which began with Harnack and have culminated in the work of Kloppenborg, Sato, and others. Next he articulates a theory of genre analysis drawn from text-linguistics, literary criticism, and rhetorical criticism. An array of ancient paraenetic texts is used to generate genre-critical models, in turn applied comprehensively to the double tradition materials. The results are used to critically assess recent redaction-history theories of Q's formation and to locate Q more securely among ancient paraenetic genres. The book will be of interest to synoptic gospels scholarship, historians of Christian origins, literary critics, and those investigating the production, social function, and performance of texts in early Christianity.

These studies focus on personal eschatology in the Jewish and early Christian apocalypses. The apocalyptic tradition from its Jewish origins until the early middle ages is studied as a continuous literary tradition, in which both continuity of motifs and important changes in understanding of life after death can be charted. As well as better known apocalypses, major and often pioneering attention is given to those neglected apocalypses which portray human destiny after death in detail, such as the Apocalypse of Peter, the Apocalypse of the Seven Heavens, the later apocalypses of Ezra, and the four apocalypses of the Virgin Mary. Relationships with Greco-Roman eschatology are explored. Several chapters show how specific New Testament texts are illuminated by close knowledge of this tradition of ideas and images of the hereafter.