This essay summarizes Runar Thorsteinsson’s groundbreaking book, Paul’s Interlocutor in Romans 2, and situates the remaining essays in the volume.

This essay reexamines the logic of Paul’s argument in Romans 2, in light of Jewish traditions that insisted that God gave Israel, and Israel alone, the law.

The author of Joseph and Aseneth writes a lengthy narrative about Aseneth’s conversion, thereby providing a justification for Joseph’s marriage to an Egyptian woman. The author explicitly connects her seven-day period of withdrawal to creation, thus portraying her conversion as a divinely wrought new creation. In addition, her eight-day con…[Read more]

This article seeks to determine the Pentateuchal background for Jesus’s arguments regarding the resurrection of the dead.

Paul’s identification of Christ with the rock that provided water to Israel in the wilderness has confounded interpreters. This article seeks to demonstrate that Paul depends upon a tradition within early Jewish thinking, as evidenced in poetic works such as Deuteronomy 32, Psalm 78, and Psalm 95, which linked Israel’s God to this rock. Des…[Read more]

One of the more heated lexical debates in LXX studies surrounds the meaning of the Greek term proselutos. Yet the only thorough examination of the word in the LXX is W.C. Allen’s 1894 article, “On the Meaning of proselutos in the Septuagint,” which argues that the LXX translators distinguish carefully between two different uses of ger in the Hebre…[Read more]

Matthew’s use of (kata)luō in Matt 5:17-20 needs to be understood in light of other occurrences of these words in Jewish literature. This paper focuses on two historical events around which these words cluster: the Antiochan persecution and the destruction of the Temple. Since Jewish literature characterizes the Hellenizers of the Maccabean pe…[Read more]

In Luke 2:22 Luke attributes parturient impurity to both Mary and Jesus (and/or Joseph). Interpreters have often concluded that this verse demonstrates that Luke misunderstands the levitical legislation pertaining to childbirth impurity (Leviticus 12), which discusses only the impurity of the new mother. This article argues that, despite the…[Read more]

This article reassesses the textual evidence for Genesis 17:14.

In spite of the genealogical exclusion of non-Israelites evidenced throughout Ezra-Nehemiah, numerous scholars find strategies of inclusivism within the work. In particular, Ezra 6.19-21 and Neh. 10.29-30 have been understood to envision the incorporation of outsiders into the Golah group. After surveying the evidence for exclusivism in…[Read more]

Since the author of Hebrews locates his readers in Israel’s wilderness period in Heb 3.1-4.11 and 11.8-39, the discussion of paideia in 12.5-13 should be interpreted in light of early Jewish conceptions of Israel’s time in the wilderness. Confirmation that this is the correct context in which to understand 12.5-13 will be found in Deuteronomy, Wis…[Read more]

It has been argued that the fragment 4Q372 1 contains polemic against the Samaritans and their temple cult at Gerizim. While allusions to Samaritans are found in the text, their presence signifies to the restored southern tribes that their restoration is not yet complete. Since the northern tribes, represented by the person of Joseph, remain in…[Read more]

This paper argues that the letter to the Hebrews renarrates Israel’s history as an extended exodus which comes to an end as a result of Christ’s high priesthood. According to the author, the promise of rest in Psalm 95 demonstrates that Joshua was unable to lead Israel into God’s promised rest. Based on this exegetical key, the author rerea…[Read more]

This article is a form-critical analysis of the Song of Moses.

Paul and the Gentile Problem provides a new explanation for the apostle Paul’s statements about the Jewish law in his letters to the Romans and Galatians. Paul’s arguments against circumcision and the law in Romans 2 and his reading of Genesis 15-21 in Galatians 4:21-31 belong within a stream of Jewish thinking which rejected the possibility that…[Read more]