Raccolta di studi sulla letteratura paolina. A cura di Jan Lambrecht. La prima parte considera la concezione paolina della legge, le sue convinzioni escatologiche e la riflessione che Paolo sviluppa attorno alla risurrezione di Cristo e dei cristiani. La seconda parte del libro esamina l'ecclesiologia e la composizioni climatiche dell'Apocalisse. Most of these thirty collected studies were written in Rome. Two are translations from the Dutch; three have not been published previously. Some few studies address philological problems, but most try to explain the thought of the biblical text. There are full-fledged articles and also brief notes. Bringing them together in one volume will prove useful to students of Paul, of Pauline Literature and of The Book of Revelation. These essays are the result of years of teaching experience and extensive research. This book consists of two parts: Pauline and Deutero-Pauline Letters, the larger one, and The Book of Revelation, the smaller. The first part considers Paul's view of the law, his eschatological convictions and his reasoning regarding the resurrection of Christ and of the Christians. The second part examines the ecclesiology and the climatic composition of The Book of Revelation. The movement from judgments to blessings is carefully investigated.

The Pauline letters continue to provoke scholarly discussion. This volume includes papers that raise a variety of questions regarding the canon of the Pauline writings. Some of the essays are more narrowly focused in their intent, sometimes concentrating upon a single dimension related to the Pauline canon, and sometimes upon even a single letter. Others of the essays are more broadly conceived and deal with how one assesses or accounts for the process that resulted in the letters as a collection, rather than analyzing individual letters. There are also mediating positions that attempt to overcome the disjunction between authenticity and inauthenticity by exploring the complex notion of interpolation.

This paradigm-shifting study is the first book-length investigation into the compositional dates of the New Testament to be published in over forty years. It argues that, with the notable exception of the undisputed Pauline Epistles, most New Testament texts were composed twenty to thirty years earlier than is typically supposed by contemporary biblical scholars. What emerges is a revised view of how quickly early Christians produced what became the seminal texts for their new movement.

This book argues that the throne motif constitutes the major interpretive key to the complex structure and theology of the book of Revelation. In the first part of the book, Gallusz examines the throne motif in the Old Testament, Jewish literature and Graeco-Roman sources. He moves on to devote significant attention to the throne of God texts of Revelation and particularly to the analysis of the throne-room vision (chs. 4&5), which is foundational for the development of the throne motif. Gallusz reveals how Revelation utilizes the throne motif as the central principle for conveying a theological message, since it appears as the focus of the author from the outset to the climax of the drama. The book concludes with an investigation into the rhetorical impact of the motif and its contribution to the theology of Revelation. Gallusz finally shows that the throne, what it actually represents, is of critical significance both to Revelation's theism and to God's dealing with the problem of evil in the course of human history.

Is there a book of the Bible more often discussed and yet less understood than the Book of Revelation? The "seven seals." The "dragon." The "beast." The "sea of glass." The fantastic imagery found in the Book of Revelation has long captivated Christians but remains mysterious to many. In the midst of so much discussion about the end times, what does Revelation teach us about living in the present moment, with our eyes focused on the heavenly Jerusalem? Michael Barber's Coming Soon explores these questions by taking a detailed look at Revelation and its rich tapestry of prophecy, history, and biblical allusion. Barber explores the profound link between the Mass celebrated here on earth and the eternal reality of heaven, demonstrating that the Apocalypse reveals truth that has practical implications for today and points to a firm hope in tomorrow. Coming Soon is a verse-by-verse commentary on the Book of Revelation using the Revised Standard Version: Catholic Edition of the Bible. Barber provides a Catholic interpretation, which sees the liturgical background of this book of Scripture-a perspective missing in many Protestant commentaries.

The author explores the Christian identity characteristics of Pauls letter to the Galatians. By so doing, she presents Pauls struggle to work out a form of Christianity, which includes Jews and Gentiles, males and females, free and slave, on the basis of their common baptism in Christ. While the Roman Empire struggled to include many different ethnic groups, Paul in Galatians makes a bold breakthrough to a new inclusivity in Christ and his Holy Spirit. This solution holds major social implications: it can help overcome divisions of race, culture, nationality, or ethnicity. The author endeavours to affirm certain equality among people while also realizing that this equality is not absolute in every respect. The results of the study of Galatians confronts the situation in the new Republic of South Africa where, despite the ultra-liberal constitution, the country still needs the inclusive and ethical message of Galatians to address the new problems of blackon-black racism, xenophobia, homophobia, violence against women, great corruption in government, and irresponsible exercise of authority and freedom. Galatians remains crucial for its insistence on social inclusivity and liberating, yet real, ethics. The author is convinced that the eternal truths of Christianity, as displayed in the Jesus Movement of antiquity, are still relevant in addressing contemporary life issues that aggrieve people in post-Apartheid South Africa.

The goal of the present study unfolds in the following four ways. First, in analyzing Pauline writings (primarily Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians) it can be demonstrated that the Apostle can be described as an ethicist. The hypothesis operative here is that in the sources, despite their occasional and situational character and their epistolary form, one can recognize a coherent system of grounds for behavior (i.e., ethics). I call this recognizable ethics “implicit ethics.” Secondly, this work pursues an explicit ethical interpretation of Paul’s writings. What does it mean to read these texts through an ethical lens? I here offer an approach with which one can decipher the ethical content of a historical text. This methodology for ethical analysis (so called ‘organon’) is not only applicable to Paul’s writings, but can also provide an impetus for the ethical interpretation of other NT texts and even for the literature of early Christianity and the Bible more generally. The variety of forms and the complexity of the reflection in Paul’s letters can, in a third point, enrich the discourse of theological ethics. It will be seen, that the rationale for his ethics is pluralistic and simply cannot be described in a one-sided manner as simply being a “deontological ethics of norms.” Along these lines, a fourth element is found in stimulating interdisciplinary debates concerning ethics. If one is able to examine and describe the norms and grounds of justification in Biblical ethics using the language and forms of description utilized in modern ethical theory, biblical ethics could once again gain a voice that can be taken seriously in the modern discussion of values. The point is not to have Scripture per se join the discussion but for these texts to function as a “laboratory” (Paul Ricoeur) in which ethical speech and thought relevant for contemporary concerns can be inspired and encouraged. In a concluding chapter this dialogue is already started by describing specific aspects of Pauline ethics against the background or moral philosophical debate, e.g. “bodily ethics – beyond hedonism”, “ethics of relinquishing – beyond contractual ethics” or “ethics of love beyond Eudaimonian ethics”.