Justifications for foodways are too often ignored in the academic study of commensality. In seeking to understand how a particular group constructs the rules around the table – what, how, and with whom one will or will not eat – the rationales for these rules must be factored into any scholarly analysis. In this essay, I use the example of anc…[Read more]

This essay explores how changing the subject can function as a valid legal process in classical rabbinic literature. In order to do so, it first establishes standard rabbinic legal procedure, in which the legal reasoning for arguments is debated and either supported or refuted. Next, it discusses cases that do not fit this pattern: namely, those…[Read more]

The central argument for source division of the Pentateuch is that the present form of the literature is incoherent. The first place most readers notice the incoherence, and where biblical scholarship began giving it attention a few centuries ago, is in the Primevel Story in Genesis 1-11. Among those who accept some form of the Documentary…[Read more]

The central argument for source division of the Pentateuch is that the present form of the literature is incoherent. The first place most readers notice the incoherence, and where biblical scholarship began giving it attention a few centuries ago, is in the Primevel Story in Genesis 1-11. Among those who accept some form of the Documentary…[Read more]

Review of Kipp Davis, Kyung S. Baek, Peter W. Flint, and Dorothy M. Peters (eds.) The War Scroll, Violence, War and Peace in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature: Essays in Honour of Martin G. Abegg on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday.

Review of Kipp Davis, Kyung S. Baek, Peter W. Flint, and Dorothy M. Peters (eds.) The War Scroll, Violence, War and Peace in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature: Essays in Honour of Martin G. Abegg on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday.

In Matt 23:31 and Luke 11:47 Jesus accuses his Jewish opponents of killing prophets. The gospel texts provide no basis for this charge, other than the conflict that Jesus seems to be facing at the moment. Even the one prophetic figure whose death has affected Jesus, John the Baptist, was not killed in Jerusalem, but was executed, according to the…[Read more]

An analysis of pentateuchal laws pertaining to women either born or married into priestly and levitical families in ancient Israel.

This paper addresses the compositional history of the story of the apportionment of the Transjordan to the Reubenites and Gadites in Numbers 32. After a detailed study of the narrative difficulties within this chapter, it is argued that Numbers 32 contains two independent stories and a post-compilational insertion. Each of the two stories is then…[Read more]

A critical review of Philip W. Comfort’s 2015 *A Commentary on the Manuscripts and Texts of the New Testament*.

Although much of what follows will focus on those two words in 1 Thess 5.3 — peace and security — the ultimate aim is to root 5.3 more firmly within the wider literary context of the letter and the social world in which 1 Thessalonians was composed and received. Following a sketch of the debate over whether 5.3 represents false prophecy or a…[Read more]

Fakes, Forgeries, and Fictions examines the possible motivations behind the production of apocryphal Christian texts. Did the authors of Christian apocrypha intend to deceive others about the true origins of their writings? Did they do so in a way that is distinctly different from New Testament scriptural writings? What would phrases like…[Read more]

Generically, theologically, and with respect to content Joseph and Aseneth and the Gospel of Mark are miles apart. But the two narratives also exhibit remarkable stylistic affinities. Each is paratactically structured, frequently employs verbs that are active in voice and imperfective in aspect, evokes Jewish Scriptures echoically rather than by…[Read more]

Generically, theologically, and with respect to content Joseph and Aseneth and the Gospel of Mark are miles apart. But the two narratives also exhibit remarkable stylistic affinities. Each is paratactically structured, frequently employs verbs that are active in voice and imperfective in aspect, evokes Jewish Scriptures echoically rather than by…[Read more]

Of the myriad approaches to the identity of the “I” in Rom 7:7–25, missing is any study that considers seriously the tragic Greek laments. This article offers a new perspective on the identity of the “wretched man” — rather, the “wretched woman” — in Rom 7:7–25. I contend, based on generic and inter-traditional arguments, that Eve, not Adam, is th…[Read more]

Paul is alone among New Testament authors in using LXX Malachi’s τραπέζης κυρίου (trapeza kyriou, table of the Lord). In bringing his lengthy section on Christian freedom to a close, Paul addresses a specific concern of the Corinthian church: the eating of meat sacrificed to pagan idols. In 1 Cor 10:14–22 we see Paul use τραπέζης κυρίου a…[Read more]

In describing the Eucharist as the “new oblation of the new covenant,” Irenaeus of Lyons presents Malachi 1:10-11 as a foreshadow of this new sacrifice. He is not alone in doing so: the Didache and Justin Martyr also view the Eucharist as the fulfillment of Malachi 1:10-11. The primary question for this project is whether the text of Malachi…[Read more]

“Forbidden Texts on the Western Frontier: The Christian Apocrypha from North American Perspectives” features papers presented at the second York Christian Apocrypha Symposium held in September 2013 at York University in Toronto, Canada. The papers focus on what makes North American Christian Apocrypha scholarship unique, on what has come to def…[Read more]

Against a longstanding tradition of ascribing religious conversion to the centurion who witnesses Jesus’s death in Mark 15:39, I argue that his acclamation of Jesus as υἱὸς θεοῦ is better understood within the narrative as the words of a conquered enemy. The centurion’s confession parallels the responses of unclean spirits and Legion, two ot…[Read more]