"Non-canonical" Religious Texts in Early Judaism and Early Christianity

This volume draws attention to ancient religious texts, especially the so-called 'non-canonical' texts, by focusing on how they were used or functioned in Early Judaism and Early Christianity. The contributors are biblical scholars who have chosen one or more Jewish or Christian apocryphal or pseudepigraphical texts, with the aim of describing their ancient functions in their emerging social settings. These show the fluidity of the notion of scripture in the early centuries of the Church and in Judaism of late antiquity, but they also show the value of examining the ancient religious texts that were not included in the Jewish or Christian biblical canons. These chapters show that there is much that can be learned from examining and comparing these texts with canonical literature and evaluating them in their social context. No ancient text was created in a vacuum, and the non-canonical writings aid in our interpretation not only of many canonical writings, but also shed considerable light on the context of both early Judaism and early Christianity.

Auteur

Lee M. McDonald is President Emeritus and Professor of New Testament Studies Emeritus of Acadia Divinity School, Nova Scotia and Adjunct Professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary. He serves as Scholar in Residence for the American Baptist Churches of Los Angeles and the American Baptist Congregations of the Southwest and Hawaii.

James H. Charlesworth is George L. Collord Professor of New Testament Language and Literature at Princeton Theological Seminary and director of the seminary's Dead Sea Scrolls Project. He is the author of The Beloved Disciple and co-editor of the Trinity Press Faith and Scholarship Colloquies (FSC) Series.

Contenu

Contributors
Abbreviations
Introduction, James H. Charlesworth and Lee M. McDonald

Early Judaism and Modern Culture: Reflections on the Theological Relevance of Early Jewish Literature, Gerbern S. Oegema

Christians in Egypt: A Preliminary Survey of Christian Literature Found in Oxyrhynchus, Craig A. Evans

Reception of the Pseudepigrapha in Syriac Traditions: The Case of 2 Baruch, Liv Ingeborg Lied

The Coptic, Arabic and Ethiopic Versions of the Testament of Abraham and the Emergence of the Testaments of Isaac and Jacob, K. Marin Heide

The Son of David in Psalms of Solomon 17, H. Daniel Zacharias

The Enochic Library of the Author of the Epistle of Barnabas, Eric Rowe

Ruminating on the Canonical Process in Light of a Bodmer Papyrus Anthology (P72), James H. Charlesworth

The Hebrew Gospel in Early Christianity, James R. Edwards

Trapped in a Forgerer's Rhetoric: 3 Corinthians, Pseudepigraphy, and the Legacy of Ancient Polemics, Caleb Webster

The Place of the Shepherd of Hermas in the Canon Debate, David Nielsen

The Protevangelium of James and the Composition of the Bodmer Miscellaneous Codex: Chronology, Theology, and Liturgy, George T. Zervos

The Child Mary in the Protevangelium of James, Mary F. Foskett

Purity, Piety, and the Purposes of the Protevangelium of James, Lily Vuong

Thecla Desexualized: The Saint Justina Legend and the Reception of the Christian Apocrypha in Late Antiquity, Brian Sowers

Selected Bibliography: "Noncanonical" Religious Texts and Their Reception in Early Judaism and Early Christianity, Arthur C. Boulet

Indexes