William B Bowes

Since the publication of J. Gresham Machen’s The Origin of Paul’s Religion
in 1921, scholarly interpretation of Paul and his theology has gone through
a significant series of transformations. At that time, Machen’s work was
one of the most thorough repudiations of the idea that Paul’s message
had any basis (Hellenistic or otherwise) other than his encounter with
Jesus himself, with Machen intending to minimize the growing distance
between Paul and the earliest followers of Jesus that was being proposed in the scholarship of his day. While many of the initial responses to Machen’s work were positive, the field of Pauline studies began to change dramatically in the decades following his work, and that requires both a careful re-evaluation of what Paul’s gospel is and how Machen’s insights might be re-read considering these changes. This article will assess how Paul’s gospel has been interpreted since 1921, examining developments over time. The analysis will begin with an examination of Machen’s original work and the responses to it, and it will proceed by analyzing literature related to the origin of Paul’s message over three series of decades that have followed, with a view to affirming the importance of Machen’s interpretive approach and enduring influence.

Prayer plays a more significant role in the Gospel of Mark than previously assumed. Given that Mark and his readers understood the world in terms of a cosmic conflict between temporal and spiritual realms, I contend that prayer in Mark has a resistance oriented focus. This article reexamines Markan prayer texts, evaluating them in the context of antiquity and Mark's understanding of spiritual-temporal conflict.

While Jude and 1 John emerged from different situations, each letter makes a case against the beliefs and behaviors of groups causing disruption in their respective communities. Both arguments against their opponents involve appeals to authority,
necessary because the opponents legitimize themselves and their authority by claiming God’s Spirit. In this article, the author argues that the message of both letters is better understood when read alongside first-century views of S/spirit possession and represent contemporaneous attempts to distinguish who legitimately possesses God’s Spirit. For Jude, this entails conformity to divinely established authoritative structures,
defining and unifying the community and delimiting behaviors. For 1 John, this entails conformity to the community’s authoritative tradition, defining and unifying the community and distinguishing truth from error. Reading these letters in this way
aids our understanding of how early communities handled division and how their pneumatologies relate to the need to adhere to a certain order.

Acts of the Apostles reports several uprisings and instances of mob violence that occur across Asia Minor, caused by or related to the evangelistic and missionary endeavors of Paul and his companions in the middle of the first century. While the historicity of the events recorded in Acts is an issue of perennial dispute, the disturbances associated with the expansion of the Christian message are presented by the author as historical events. Consequently, a closer and more detailed examination of the major uprisings throughout the text is in order. This article begins with an analysis of extrabiblical records of mob violence and uprisings in the first-century Roman Empire, and then moves to an analysis of five episodes of mob violence recorded in Acts for the purpose of comparing the way that uprisings during the early Imperial period were recorded. The discussion concludes by arguing that Acts reports these events in a manner consistent with the way that other uprisings during this time were reported, and the details in Acts match the social and cultural context of the areas described. As a result, readers should consider the accounts in Acts to have a higher degree of historical reliability.

In a 1998 JETS article, James Dvorak examined scholarly perspectives on the relationship between John's Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels. Since then, significant shifts in interpretation on this question merit a re-examination. In 1998, the perspective of most scholars reflected the long-held consensus throughout the twentieth century that John's Gospel was independent and separate from the Synoptics. Recent decades, however, have seen an increased openness to a closer relationship between them, especially with Mark but also with Luke and Matthew. In his evaluation of the relationship, Dvorak opted for a mediating position between independence and dependence. The present article examines trends in scholarship over the last twenty-five years, evaluating whether a relationship closer to dependence (especially on Mark) has more explanatory power than independence or a mediating position.

The New Testament texts collectively bear witness to the apocalyptic and eschatological orientation of the early Christian movement, which saw in the death and resurrection of Jesus the decisive intervention of God in history and the inauguration of a new age. As the capstone of the canon, Revelation is perhaps the clearest example of apocalyptic eschatology, even while it appears to be quite different from other New Testament texts. In this article I offer an analysis of Revelation as a text of hope, written to late first century Christian communities in need of hope as a basis for their beliefs and actions while facing an increasingly ambiguous and threatening social, political, and religious situation. My argument will proceed with an exploration of hope as a concept, noting its multifaceted nature and various definitions, moving to an analysis of the place of hope within Christian theology. The main body of the article is concerned with an exploration of the role of hope within Revelation, beginning with an examination of its language, genre, context, and purpose, and concluding with an examination of its content and narrative flow, noting how these aspects of the text coalesce into a theology of hope. Ultimately, I conclude that Revelation was written for the purpose of creating and sustaining hope in its readers (reading from the perspective of an oppressed minority group) and was intended to be circulated and reread in church communities as a continuous witness to hope in the face of an uncertain future.

Mark 2:26 has presented itself as a difficult textual and historical problem for interpreters. Mark narrates Jesus describing an action of David which is said to happen during the priesthood of Abiathar, but in the Old Testament source this detail appears inaccurate and is absent from the Matthean and Lukan versions. This article will first examine three types of problems that arise in interpreting this text and will then evaluate two types of solutions that have been proposed. The aim of this article is to highlight the limitations of previous approaches and to argue for a third type of solution as best option for understanding the text, which is based in a narrative reading of Mark's Christology.

There has been a renewed interest in the language of faith (pistis) in recent years, but few studies have focused exclusively on the way that such language is understood and utilized in Luke-Acts. This article explores the nuance and development of faith-language in appropriated and unique Lukan passages, focusing on the faith of Jesus's disciples. The analysis then turns to how this develops throughout the narrative into Acts, with a focus toward illustrating how Luke uniquely highlights the disciples' pistis to show that a problem to be remedied in the era of Acts is their lack of faith.

This article seeks to emphasize the liberating and countercultural place of women within the earliest centuries of church history through an examination of the earliest surviving criticisms of Christianity by pagan writers. The examination will focus most directly on the work of Celsus, a second-century non-Christian writer, noting how some of his criticisms highlight the particularly high reception of the Christian message by women. I endeavor to show through an analysis of both Celsus’ critiques as well as certain aspects of Greco-Roman culture in the earliest years of church history that to be a Christian offered women not only a sense of belonging and significance within an egalitarian movement, but also offered them a countercultural sense of liberation.

Since the publication of J. Gresham Machen’s The Virgin Birth of Christ in 1930, there has been a wide variety of popular and scholarly engagements with the content and implications of Jesus’ infancy narratives. Machen’s weighty defense was among the most thorough treatments available at its time, and it cemented his already seminal role as a bastion oftheological conservatism in the midst of a changing era. Many of the initial responses to Machen’s work were positive, and with a few exceptions, publications produced in the decades immediately following were largely supportive of historic, traditional interpretations of the virgin birth. However, in the second half of the twentieth century, publications began to reveal a greater divide between the methodology and conclusions of interpret�ers, with a greater proliferation of dissenting voices. Within the last three decades, publications about the infancy narratives have reflected a further shift, namely, that the virgin birth has come to be viewed by an increasing number of interpreters as not only false but harmful. Even with more dissenting voices, there has also been an increase in defenses of the doctrine, following in Machen’s footsteps. This article will review how Jesus’ infancy narratives have been interpreted since 1930, examining developments over time. The analysis will begin with an examination of Machen’s original work and the responses to it, and will proceed by analyzing literature related to the virgin birth over the three thirty-year periods that have followed, with a view to affirming Machen’s arguments, interpretations, and enduring influence.

In the United States, the homelessness situation has developed into what is commonly called a crisis. An array of helpful and unhelpful responses has been proposed, and public opinion on the homeless varies. Apathy or inaction on the part of the church is not an option, since concerns for the poor and displaced permeate Scripture. This article considers the complex factors related to homelessness and the theology of Scripture on the subject, evaluating approaches and offering meaningful and effective responses in light of the role of the church in the world. The intersection of ecclesiology and a practical response to the crisis will be examined to elucidate better a specifically Christian approach.