The early church was made up of a myriad of local churches, each with different settings, problems and ideas regarding how its community should be structured. What Are They Saying About the Formation of Pauline Churches? surveys the different models available in the Greco-Roman period for understanding how Paul's Christian groups ordered their communities. There are four models: the synagogue, the philosophical school, the ancient mystery cult and the voluntary association. Dr. Ascough devotes a chapter to each model and to the authors who use it to understand Pauline churches. The archaeological and literary data are coordinated with data from the Pauline letters to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of the models for understanding these churches. In the end, all four models are helpful and no one model is adequate to explain all the aspects of each Pauline church. This is a superb book for those seeking an overall view of the debate on the culture and organization of the first Christian communities. +

Seminal essays from a leading New Testament scholar For the past twenty years, John Barclay has researched and written on the social history of early Christianity and the life of Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora. In this collection of nineteen noteworthy essays, he examines points of comparison between the early churches and the Diaspora synagogues in the urban Roman world of the first century. With an eye to such matters as food, family, money, circumcision, Spirit, age, and death, Barclay examines key Pauline texts, the writings of Josephus, and other sources, investigating the construction of early Christian identity and comparing the experience of Paul's churches with that of Diaspora Jewish communities scattered throughout the Roman Empire.

This book presents an overview of the best of contemporary scholarship on the fourth and fifth century bishop, Augustine of Hippo. His life, his sermons and letters, doctrinal writings and pastoral work, as well as his own faith and spirituality are reviewed in light of new research. This Father of the Church emerges as a dynamic thinker struggling to integrate his Christian faith with the demands of reason, and to discern Christian meaning amidst the political and social controversies that plagued the late Roman world. The circumstances of his life and the dynamism of his faith are more relevant to the contemporary Christian than one might suspect. The early- and mid-twentieth century saw new scholarly interest in and understanding of Augustine. His persistent influence on Christian theology, especially in the West, was evident, mid-century, at the Second Vatican Council; his thought is cited liberally in Council documents. Since the Council there has been an explosion in Augustine studies, marked largely by the shift from doctrinal to historical approaches and methodologies. New appreciations of Augustine s pastoral role have arisen from careful study of his sermons and letters, several of which have been rediscovered in the past several decades. Controversy about Augustine s teachings on original sin, human sexuality, and the relationship of church and state continue. However, contemporary Augustinian scholarship invites a reconsideration of long-standing presumptions about Augustine, among both those who defend him as well as those who revile him.

This innovative volume is the first English-language monograph to compare Paul's Corinthian church with contemporary cult groups from Mediterranean antiquity.

Six major scholars selected for their contributions in the study of biblical inspiration and who provide a veritable cross-section of the diversity of viewpoints on this topic as found in Anglo-American scholarship are surveyed. Abraham Heschel James Burtchaell Bruce Vawter William Abraham Kern Trembath Paul Achtemeier This presentation offers a constructive criticism of these insights from a Roman Catholic perspective, synthesizes their significant contributions, and shows the continuing dialogue among North American scholars in the field of biblical inspiration. A unique contribution of this book is that it affirms the traditional understanding of biblical inspiration as set forth by the Catholic Church, most notably in Dei Verbum of the Second Vatican Council, while at the same time positing the continuity between past biblical inspiration and present spiritual illumination. Book jacket.

"Arguably the greatest Christian sermon ever written, yet one of the more neglected and difficult writings in the New Testament, the Letter to the Hebrews is, says the author,"a long reflection on Jesus as the definitive means of access to God."" "This book surveys recent scholarship about Hebrews and the progress made in that scholarship, and informs prospective students and theologians of resources available to them." "Biblical scholars, theologians, students, and pastors will find this work to be stimulating and enriching on the biblical, theological, and pastoral levels."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

We know a good deal about the life of the Apostle Paul, and are also reasonably well-informed about the circumstances connected with the writing of his letters. Concerning, however, the collecting of those letters together--how, why, when and where this was done--we are curiously ignorant. The conventional answer has been that it happened gradually, as an almost inevitable, imperceptible process. The arguments, however, on which this answer is based, cannot claim to be conclusive, and in recent years two scholars in the United States have challenged the whole assumption. In this book Dr. Mitton presents both points of view and the arguments by which they are supported, and invites the reader to give consideration to the less familiar theory.