Papers presented at the Fourteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2003 (see also Studia Patristica 39, 41, 42 and 43). The successive sets of Studia Patristica contain papers delivered at the International Conferences on Patristic Studies, which meet for a week once every four years in Oxford; they are held under the aegis of the Theology Faculty of the University. Members of these conferences come from all over the world and most offer papers. These range over the whole field, both East and West, from the second century to a section on the Nachleben of the Fathers. The majority are short papers dealing with some small and manageable point; they raise and sometimes resolve questions about the authenticity of documents, dates of events, and such like, and some unveil new texts. The smaller number of longer papers put such matters into context and indicate wider trends. The whole reflects the state of Patristic scholarship and demonstrates the vigour and popularity of the subject.

A Jesus Creed 2015 Book of the Year This work provides a new starting point for studying the origins of church offices. Alistair Stewart, a leading authority on early Christianity and a meticulous scholar, provides essential groundwork for historical and theological discussions. Stewart refutes a long-held consensus that church offices emerged from collective leadership at the end of the first century. He argues that governance by elders was unknown in the first centuries and that bishops emerged at the beginning of the church; however, they were nothing like bishops of a later period. The church offices as presently known emerged in the late second century. Stewart debunks widespread assumptions and misunderstandings, offers carefully nuanced readings of the ancient evidence, and fully interacts with pertinent secondary scholarship.

This second collection of essays exploring various dimensions of sacramental theology from a Baptist perspective includes biblical, historical and theological studies from scholars from around the world. Subjects covered are sacraments and sacramentality, sacrament and sacrifice in Hebrews, the sacrament of fearful intimacy, the church as sacrament, baptism and the Lord's supper for post-Christendom Baptists, Pauline baptism and Roman Insulae, open communion for the contemporary church, penance, sacred space, recovering a biblical understanding of baptismal regeneration, the Lord's supper and the spirituality of C.H. Spurgeon, Southern Baptist eucharistic sacramentalism and soul competency, re-thinking ex opere operato sacramentalism, the sacramentality of the word in Gregory of Nyssa, and searching for a common theology of baptism between Baptists and the Churches of Christ. This volume does not speak the final word on the subject, but is a step along the way toward the recovery and reconstruction of a rubust sacramentalism in a Baptist modality.

This volume examines questions concerning the construction of gender and identity in the earliest days of what is now Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Methodologically explicit, the contributions analyze textual and material sources related to these religious traditions in their cultural contexts. The sources examined are predominantly products of patriarchal elite discourses requiring innovative approaches to unveil aspects of gender otherwise hidden. This volume extends the discussion represented in the volume Gender and Second-Temple Judaism (2020) and highlights the fruitfulness of interdisciplinary research beyond anachronistic discipline distinctions.

This book is a collection of cutting-edge essays on the Dead Sea Scrolls as part of ancient Mediterranean media culture, featuring interdisciplinary feedback from scholars in New Testament studies and Classics.