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.

David Moessner proposes a new understanding of the relation of Luke’s second volume to his Gospel to open up a whole new reading of Luke’s foundational contribution to the New Testament. For postmodern readers who find Acts a ‘generic outlier,’ dangling tenuously somewhere between the ‘mainland’ of the evangelists and the ‘Peloponnese’ of Paul—diffused and confused and shunted to the backwaters of the New Testament by these signature corpora—Moessner plunges his readers into the hermeneutical atmosphere of Greek narrative poetics and elaboration of multi-volume works to inhale the rhetorical swells that animate Luke’s first readers in their engagement of his narrative. In this collection of twelve of his essays, re-contextualized and re-organized into five major topical movements, Moessner showcases multiple Hellenistic texts and rhetorical tropes to spotlight the various signals Luke provides his readers of the multiple ways his Acts will follow "all that Jesus began to do and to teach" (Acts 1:1) and, consequently, bring coherence to this dominant block of the New Testament that has long been split apart. By collapsing the world of Jesus into the words and deeds of his followers, Luke re-configures the significance of Israel’s "Christ" and the "Reign" of Israel’s God for all peoples and places to create a new account of ‘Gospel Acts,’ discrete and distinctively different than the "narrative" of the "many" (Luke 1:1). Luke the Historian of Israel’s Legacy combines what no analysis of the Lukan writings has previously accomplished, integrating seamlessly two ‘generically-estranged’ volumes into one new whole from the intent of the one composer. For Luke is the Hellenistic historian and simultaneously ‘biblical’ theologian who arranges the one "plan of God" read from the script of the Jewish scriptures—parts and whole, severally and together—as the saving ‘script’ for the whole world through Israel’s suffering and raised up "Christ," Jesus of Nazareth. In the introductions to each major theme of the essays, this noted scholar of the Lukan writings offers an epitome of the main features of Luke’s theological ‘thought,’ and, in a final Conclusions chapter, weaves together a comprehensive synthesis of this new reading of the whole.

Gerbern Oegema has long been drawn to the noncanonical literature of early Judaism literature written during the time between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament (300 b.c.e. 200 c.e.). These works, many of which have been lost, forgotten, and rediscovered, are now being studied with ever-increasing enthusiasm by scholars and students alike. Although much recent attention has been given to the literary and historical merits of the Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, and other deutero- and extracanonical writings, Early Judaism and Modern Culture shows that it is also important to study these literary works from a theological perspective. To that end, Oegema considers the reception of early Jewish writings throughout history and identifies their theological contributions to many issues of perennial importance: ethics, politics, gender relations, interreligious dialogue, and more. Oegema demonstrates decisively that these books more than merely objects of academic curiosity have real theological and cultural relevance for churches, synagogues, and society at large today. Through engaging words, Gerbern Oegema invites his readers to appreciate the vibrant and advanced world of the early Jews and how they have left us insights and visions for modern culture. James H. Charlesworth Princeton Theological Seminary In an era when biblical theology is commonly approached from a narrow canonical perspective, Oegema s demonstration of the theological and historical significance of the noncanonical writings of ancient Judaism is refreshing and important. John J. Collins Yale Divinity School

In this work, a part of the Old Testament Library series, Horst Preuss provides a comprehensive analysis of the theology of the Old Testament. He focuses on a detailed assessment of Israel's responses to God's acts of election and covenant with them as a people. The Old Testament Library provides fresh and authoritative treatments of important aspects of Old Testament study through commentaries and general surveys. The contributors are scholars of international standing.

In der vorliegenden Abhandlung soll versucht werden, zu einer positiven Bestimmung der noachitischen Gebote zu kommen. Diese wird notwendig, wenn man berücksichtigt, daß die sieben eigentlichen noachitischen Gebote, deren Zweck die Definition und Wahrung des ethisch-religiösen Standards ist, ausschließlich Verbote sind. Deren Gehalt und Wesen sind im Talmud und bei Maimonides erschöp¬fend abgehandelt und bestimmt.

This volume presents selected papers read at the first meeting of the Society for Jewish and Biblical Studies in Central Europe, in Piliscsaba, Hungary, February 2009, but does not publish the proceedings of this meeting (for a clarification see here).The papers investigate various aspects of the concept "Stranger" in Jewish tradition, from the Hebrew Bible to Mediaeval Jewish thought. The bulk of the material focuses on Early Jewish literature, which mirrors an intensive interaction with the Hellenistic system of thought, and the development of concurring Jewish interpretations of traditional values. The papers of the volume provide insightful case studies about the formation of Jewish identity in diverse periods of Israelite and Jewish history, as well as the different attitudes to strangers, being either outsiders, or belonging to opposing sects of Judaism itself. The reader finds essays of historical, literary, and hermeneutical attention; of interest also to scholars of various forms of ancient and mediaeval Judaism.