Articles by Markus McDowell
Books by Markus McDowell
This preliminary study explores the concept and practice of prayer found in the writings of six m... more This preliminary study explores the concept and practice of prayer found in the writings of six major Stoic philosophers from the ancient world: Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. Placing these writers in their context within the evolution of Stoic philosophy, and in their socio-religious and historical context, McDowell then characterizes the nature, purpose, and practices of Stoic prayer. A brief comparison with prayer from the New Testament closes the study.
Markus McDowell examines how the literature of the Second Temple period portrays women at prayer ... more Markus McDowell examines how the literature of the Second Temple period portrays women at prayer through an examination of the literary context and character of those prayers. The goal of this work is a greater understanding of how women were portrayed in literary sources and an offering of some fresh insights for the study of women's religious and social roles in the ancient world. The texts are analyzed and categorized within five areas: social location, content, form, occasion, and gender perspective. The prayers are also compared and contrasted with men's prayers in the same sources. The analysis includes locating (as much as possible) the historical, literary, and cultic context of each document in which these prayers appear. By examining all prayers in these texts uttered by women (not just prayers of named or prominent women), and then comparing them with all the prayers of men in those same texts, certain patterns appear. This study adds to our knowledge of women and religion in Second Temple Judaism by primarily exploring patterns that appear among the prayers in the literature of the Second Temple period. While there are fewer prayers by women than men in this literature, the prayers of women are not portrayed as significantly different from those of men in terms of social location, content, form, or occasion. At the same time, the prayers of women exhibit other patterns of language - and in a minor way, form and occasion - that differ from the prayers of men.
This book examines the prayer texts in the collection of ancient documents known as the Apostolic... more This book examines the prayer texts in the collection of ancient documents known as the Apostolic Fathers, written during the early second century. The book begins with an overview of the Apostolic Fathers and of the prayers found therein. Appendices include every prayer passage in the nine documents. The core of the book explores the function of prayer in the letters of the collection (1 Clement, The Letter of Ignatius, Polycarp to the Philippians, and the Martyrdom of Polycarp). Each letter includes an introduction (authorship, date, form, genre, sources, purpose, and theme), followed by a brief commentary on every prayer passage. The prayers are categorized by type: benedictions, doxologies, exhortations to prayer, petitions, prayer-reports, wish prayers, and references to the practice of prayer. The book closes with a brief summary of the function of epistolary prayer in the Apostolic Fathers. The second edition adds new analysis and includes the Greek (or Latin) and English text of every prayer passage in the letters.
Papers by Markus McDowell
Christianity, The Prayers of First Chronicles, Jan 15, 2018
Christianity, Enriching Your Prayers: How to Study the Prayers of the Bible, Jun 21, 2018
Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology, 1999
Some weaknesses should also be noted. In principle Dunn tries hard to take social realities into ... more Some weaknesses should also be noted. In principle Dunn tries hard to take social realities into account and to respect the embodied character of Paul's theology. In practice he sometimes remains too abstractly conceptual. The discussion of Paul's anthropology, for example, is carried more by analysis of words than by textual or social exegesis. The lexical data concerning "Body/Soul/Flesh" resembles the catalogues of Bultmann and the TDNT. The social implications of embodiedness deriving from ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and social status (slavery/freedom, wealth/poverty) do not come up until Dunn deals with ethics. The social and rhetorical dimensions of Paul's correspondence likewise remain underdeveloped, leaving Dunn unable effectively to address questions of continuity and discontinuity in the "Pauline school," or to note the specific ways in which the development of Paul's theology is contingent on the situation he addresses and the rhetoric he employs to address that situation.
... to Mishnah: The Origins of Mishnah's Division of Women," Jo... more ... to Mishnah: The Origins of Mishnah's Division of Women," Journal of Jewish Studies 30 (1979): 138-53; see also Kraemer, "Women in the Religions of the Greco-Roman World," 130-31. 17 T Berakot 3 la-b, for instance, uses Hannah as a model for the order of public prayer. ...
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Articles by Markus McDowell
Books by Markus McDowell
Papers by Markus McDowell