Hellenism – Judaism – Christianity
Essays on Their Interaction
by P.W. Van Der Horst
In 1990 the author published two volumes of collected essays. The first one, Essays on the Jewish World of Early Christianity, focused on the relevance of Jewish themes and writings for the study of early Christianity; the second one, Studies on the Hellenistic Background of the New Testament, centered on pagan Hellenistic material, elucidating various aspects of the New Testament and Early Christianity. In the present volume these threads come together. In 20 essays, most of them published over the last few years, some of them new, several aspects of pagan Hellenistic and Judeo-Christian cultures are investigated in their various forms of interaction. Disparate though the copies may seem at first sight, the underlying unity is to be found in the fact that the author wrote all these essays in the framework of the Utrecht University Faculty of Theology’s research project: ‘The Cultural Milieu of Early Christianity’. The study of the New Testament was the starting point and remains the impetus for the research that lies behind most of all of these contributions. In the Utrecht tradition, inaugurated by W.C. van Unnik, New Testament problems are studied in their ancient context in the widest sense of the word. This inevitably leads to thorough research of both Jewish and Hellenistic cultures in the period from Alexander the Great to Justinian, in their various interactions. This is why the book has a fourfold division: (1) Hellenism and Judaism, (2) Judaism and Christianity, (3) Hellenism and Christianity, and (4) Hellenism-Judaism-Christianity. The author hopes that reading these studies will create a greater awareness of how much there is yet to be discovered in these still largely unexplored areas of the interrelationships of Graeco-Roman, Jewish and Christian cultures in antiquity. Whatever important research has already been done in this field, there is little doubt that this kind of investigations is still very much in its infancy. If these contributions, however modest, make other scholars and students enthousiastic for pursuing this line of research, the author will have attained his goal.
- By (author) PW van der Horst
Other Titles in this Series
Texts and Contexts of Jeremiah
The Exegesis of Jeremiah 1 and 10 in Light of Text and Reception History
Volume 82
Transformations in the Septuagint
Towards an Interaction of Septuagint Studies and Translation Studies
Volume 47
The Akedah Servant Complex
The Soteriological Linkage of Genesis 22 and Isaiah 53 in Ancient Jewish and Early Christian Writings
Volume 69
In Spirit and Truth
An Exegetical Study of John 4:19-26 and a Theological Investigation of the Replacement Theme in the Fourth Gospel
Volume 46
“With All Your Soul Fear the Lord” (Sir. 7:27)
Collected Essays on the Book of Ben Sira II
Volume 87
Prophecy after the Prophets?
The Contribution of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Understanding of Biblical and Extra-Biblical Prophecy
Volume 52
Beyond the Breach
An Exegetical Study of John 4:1-42 as a Text of Jewish-Samaritan Reconciliation
Volume 92
Studies on Jewish and Christian Historical Summaries from the Hellenistic and Early Roman Periods
Volume 95
Re-thinking the Death of Jesus
An Exegetical and Theological Study of Hilasmos and Agape in 1 John 2:1-2 and 4:7-10
Volume 73
Wachstumsgesetz oder Kurzungstendenz?
Gedachtnispsychologische Erkenntnisse zu den inhaltlichen Uberhangen in den synoptischen Paralleltraditionen
Volume 104
In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes
Studies in the Biblical Text in Honour of Anneli Aejmelaeus
Volume 72
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