Ancient manuscripts of John’s Gospel containing hermeneiai have long puzzled scholars, provoking debate about their origins, purpose, and use. The fragmentary nature of the early evidence has impeded progress towards a better understanding of these specialized books. The present study shows that these books are "Divining Gospels"—editions of John’s Gospel incorporating lot divination materials for use in fortune-telling. The study centers on material presented here for the first time: the text and translation of a unique sixth-century Syriac manuscript, the earliest and most complete example of a hermeneia Gospel. An analysis of the Syriac along with evidence from Greek, Coptic, Latin, and Armenian versions show they all preserve vestiges of the same apparatus, disseminated widely at an early time throughout many different Christian communities. These books must be situated squarely within the development of divinatory practices in early and late antique Christianity. However, they represent a true hermeneutic, a method by which interpreters brought the potency of the Bible to bear on the everyday concerns of people who consulted them for help. Furthermore, the Divining Gospel draws on the special aura that John’s Gospel held in the Christian imagination, both as text and as textual object. An analysis of the interplay between the biblical text and sacred codex, the oracles, the ritual practitioner, and the client enrich our appreciation of this distinctive hermeneutic. Contextualizing these materials in popular use illuminates the fraught relationships between the ecclesial establishment, ritual experts operating on the margins of orthodox respectability, and lay clients seeking knowledge and help.

The present volume provides a comparative look at the contents and layout features of secondary annotations in biblical manuscripts across linguistic traditions. Due to the privileged focus on the text in the columns, these annotations and the practices that produced them have not received the scholarly attention they deserve. The vast richness of extant verbal and figurative notes accompanying the biblical texts in the intercolumns and margins of the manuscript pages have thus been largely overlooked. The case studies gathered in this volume explore Jewish and Christian biblical manuscripts through the lens of their annotations, addressing the various relationships between the primary layer of text and the secondary notes, and exploring the roles and functions of annotated manuscripts as cultural artifacts. By approaching biblical manuscripts as potential "notepads", the volume offers theoretical reflection and empirical analyses of the ways in which secondary notes may shed new light on the development and transmission of text traditions, the shifting engagement with biblical manuscripts over time, as well as the change of use and interpretation that may result from the addition of the notes themselves.

In Late Antiquity, people commonly sought to acquire knowledge about the past, the present, and the future, using a variety of methods. While early Christians did not doubt that these methods worked effectively, in theory they were not allowed to make use of them. In practice, people responded to this situation in diverse ways. Some simply renounced any hope of learning about the future, while others resorted to old practices regardless of the consequences. A third option, however, which emerged in the fourth century, was to construct divinatory methods that were effective yet religiously tolerable. This book is devoted to the study of such practices and their practitioners, and provides answers to essential questions concerning this phenomenon. How did it develop? How closely were Christian methods related to older, traditional customs? Who used them and in which situations? Who offered oracular services? And how were they treated by the clergy, intellectuals, and common people?

"This book centers on The Gospel of the Lots of Mary, a previously unknown text preserved in a fifth- or sixth-century Coptic miniature codex. It presents the first critical edition and translation of this new text. My book is also a project about religious praxis and authority, as I situate the manuscript within the context of practices of and debates around divination in the ancient Mediterranean world."--Preface, p. [vii].

We live in an age of skepticism. Our society places such faith in empirical reason, historical progress, and heartfelt emotion that it’s easy to wonder: Why should anyone believe in Christianity? What role can faith and religion play in our modern lives? In this thoughtful and inspiring new book, pastor and New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller invites skeptics to consider that Christianity is more relevant now than ever. As human beings, we cannot live without meaning, satisfaction, freedom, identity, justice, and hope. Christianity provides us with unsurpassed resources to meet these needs. Written for both the ardent believer and the skeptic, Making Sense of God shines a light on the profound value and importance of Christianity in our lives.

Divination, the use of special talents and techniques to gain divine knowledge, was practiced in many different forms in ancient Israel and throughout the ancient world. The Hebrew Bible reveals a variety of traditions of women associated with divination. This sensitive and incisive book by respected scholar Esther J. Hamori examines the wide scope of women's divinatory activities as portrayed in the Hebrew texts, offering readers a new appreciation of the surprising breadth of women's “arts of knowledge” in biblical times. Unlike earlier approaches to the subject that have viewed prophecy separately from other forms of divination, Hamori's study encompasses the full range of divinatory practices and the personages who performed them, from the female prophets and the medium of En-dor to the matriarch who interprets a birth omen and the “wise women” of Tekoa and Abel and more. In doing so, the author brings into clearer focus the complex, rich, and diverse world of ancient Israelite divination.

An die Seite des Corpus der Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller (GCS) stellte Adolf von Harnack die Monographienreihe der Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur (TU), die er bereits 1882 begründet hatte und die nunmehr als »Archiv für die ... Ausgabe der älteren christlichen Schriftsteller« diente. In ihr werden vor allem die alten Übersetzungen der im Corpus erscheinenden Schriften teils im Original, teils in deutscher oder einer anderen modernen Sprache gedruckt. Daneben steht die Reihe auch für Voruntersuchungen zu den Editionen und für begleitende Abhandlungen offen.