Decades ago, Werner G. Kummel described the historical problem of Romans as its “double character”: concerned with issues of Torah and the destiny of Israel, the letter is explicitly addressed not to Jews but to Gentiles. At stake in the numerous answers given to that question is nothing less than the purpose of Paul’s most important letter. In Th…[Read more]

The majority of interpreters conclude that in Rom 2:17-29 Paul addresses an ethnic Jew. In contrast, Runar M. Thorsteinsson has argued recently that Paul addresses a gentile, specifically a gentile who has judaized and now thinks of himself as a Jew. This article provides further support for Thorsteinsson’s argument, arguing that Paul, contrary t…[Read more]

Though the “many for one” political ideology was widespread in the first century CE, Mark 10:45 rejects this ideology. Instead, this type of rule is contrasted with Jesus’s own rule as a servant king, sacrificing himself (the one) for his followers (the many).

This study reexamines the form and character of the Gezer ‘calendar’ inscription, examines the text’s structural affinities to the list of times in Ecc 3 and demonstrates how the Gezer inscription is, itself, a combination of two incompatible ways of giving an ordered structure to time.

The present study comprises a philological examination of the Biblical Hebrew term šninɔ. The contextual semantics, the ancient translations, and the re-identification of the verbal root ŠNN as a by-form of ŠNY ‘to recount’ demonstrate that šninɔ may be realigned as related to this root and translated as a ‘cautionary tale’.

The following study examines the history of the translation of a Biblical Hebrew phrase in Greek, Aramaic, and Latin—a phrase which shaped the English idiom “to take up a parable, proverb, or song.” As early as Greek and Aramaic Bible translations, the phrase NŚʾ mɔšɔl was translated word-for-word in the target language, even though the verb u…[Read more]

The study challenges the use of the book of Proverbs as a primary data set in the recovery of ancient Israelite and Judean educational values and practices. The study argues that an examination of the nature of the Book of Proverbs and its poetics must necessarily precede the use of this text in reconstructing the values and practices of ancient…[Read more]