Conversion In Antiquity

"This article endeavours to look at the Jerusalem collection from a fresh perspective by examining the language of κοινωνία Paul employs to describe the project in Romans 15.26 and in 2 Corinthians 8.4 and 9.13. After adducing oft-neglected literary and documentary evidence, this essay argues that Paul's audience must have understood κοινωνία to bear significant political and socio-economic implications. This article concludes that the collection was aimed at establishing a new order of socio-economic equality and solidarity among the emergent Christ-believing communities, at both a local and global level, and across socio-cultural and ethnic divides.

Copyrights Cambridge Journals 2012"

Modern scholarship is divided on the interpretation of ΠΑΣΧΩ in Gal. 3.4, and there has yet to be a definitive study on the subject attempting to rectify the disagreements. The clear consensus prior to the late seventeenth century was that ΠΑΣΧΩ possessed negative connotations in this passage. This interpretation was briefly challenged by Justus Christoph Schomer (1648–1693), influencing the majority of German scholarship and creating a major polarity among scholars in the English-speaking world. After making this history of interpretation known, the present study tries to demonstrate that lexically, thematically, and contextually, the preferable interpretation regards ΠΑΣΧΩ as a reference to suffering, in keeping with the longstanding interpretative tradition. [http://jnt.sagepub.com/content/current]

Ritual baths (miqwa’ot) built adjacent to winepresses and olive-presses have been unearthed at about twenty sites dating to the Second Temple period, most of them in Judea and the environs of Jerusalem. While much has been written in recent years on the form and function of ancient ritual baths in general, little scholarly attention has been paid to miqwa’ot found in agricultural contexts.
The presence of these miqwa’ot suggests that the ritual purity of the wine and olive oil processed in these installations was of particular importance. The fact that these ritual baths were situated adjacent to winepresses and olive-presses suggests that agricultural laborers made use of these miqwa’ot immediately prior to commencing work in these installations, a practice which accords with the Pharisaic concept of tevul yom. These finds thus provide rare archaeological evidence for the observance of ritual purity laws based on the Pharisaic system of halakhah.

Purity is a cultural construct that had a central role in the forming and the development of religious traditions in the ancient Mediterranean. This volume analyzes concepts, practices and images associated with purity in the main cultures of Antiquity, and discusses from a comparative perspective their parallel developments and transformations. The perspective adopted is both synchronic and diachronic; the comparative approach takes into account points of contact and mutual influences, but also includes major transcultural trends. A number of renowned specialists contribute a large variety of perspectives and approaches, combining archaeology, epigraphy and social history; in addition, particular attention is given to concepts of purity in ancient Israel and early Judaism as a ‘test-case’ of sorts. Through its extensive coverage, the volume contributes decisively to the present discussion about the forming of religious traditions in the ancient Mediterranean world.

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 conversion process imitates two similar processes from Jewish scripture. First, Aseneth’s transformation parallels the circumcision of the newborn male eight days after his birth. Second, on the eighth day Aseneth partakes of an angelic existence, conversing with an angel, eating the food of angels, and being dressed in angelic garb. This elevation in her status parallels the consecration of the priestly class in Lev 8, which goes through a period of seven days before it can serve as priests on the eighth day. This process thus stresses the distance between non-Jew and Jew, while at the same time providing a scriptural rationale for how Aseneth overcame it.

The evidence surveyed in this paper indicates that Paul took great care in his letters to differentiate between Jesus-believing Jews and Gentiles for the purpose of mutual blessing. Moreover, Paul (like the Jerusalem apostles) formulated a universal rule that the circumcised should remain circumcised (i.e. practicing Jews), and that the uncircumcised should remain uncircumcised in keeping with their respective callings from God.

In his extant letters and speeches, Emperor Constantine often referred to God. However, these references were seldom theological elaborations on the concept of God. Instead, they were usually limited to the use of certain ambiguous titles of God. Accordingly, this article examines the emperor’s concept of God with the help of the so-called title-theology. Arguably, Constantine’s understanding of God developed from inclusive “pagan” henotheism to a qualified Christian monotheism, yet so that it retained the promise of accommodating various views of God. Vagueness in theological matters served the purpose of establishing the widest possible religious consensus in the Roman Empire. At the same time, this calculated vagueness also enabled different interpretations of Constantine’s theological utterances and perhaps contributed indirectly to the Trinitarian controversies within the Christian church. A comparison between Constantine’s concepts of God and that of Nicaea shows both a significant agreement and the existence of different underlying incentives.

“But through the devil’s envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his party experience it.” Thus reads the customary English translation, largely unchanged since the earliest English translations, of Wisdom of Solomon 2:24. As modern translators have apparently not questioned the devil’s place in this verse, so too have modern scholars and commentators taken for granted the devil in the diabolos. On the surface this seems reasonable enough. The Greek diabolos was used in the LXX as a translation of the Hebrew satan, the adversary or seducer of Job and Zechariah. Of course, in some Second Temple Jewish traditions and then in Christian literature this satan became Satan and the diabolos became the devil, an angel, evil and fallen, in some fashion opposed to the will of God. Diabolos had become such a commonplace term, especially in early Christian literature, to signify the devil, that the thought of it representing something other than this fallen angel has seemingly been disregarded. The problem with taking the diabolos for granted in Wisd is that translators or scholars then read into the text a notion absent, and even contrary to, the rest of the text’s ideology. The devil simply does not fit into this author’s worldview. So, how to explain the diabolos? I argue that this term and this verse with it have been mistranslated and misunderstood, beginning with the early Greek church fathers, precisely because theologians and scholars both had a preconceived notion that the diabolos could only be the devil. I propose an alternative reading of this verse which does not stretch the limits of the Greek term, but actually makes the verse as a whole accord better with proper Greek syntax. The diabolos of Wisd 2:24 is not an evil, fallen angel, nor is it even the Hebrew satan. The diabolos here refers specifically to the type of adversary of the text immediately preceding this passage, the persecutor of the righteous man. Through detailed philological and textual analyses, I will attempt to show how this translation of diabolos makes more sense, both in respect to the Greek and to the overall ideology of the author. The devil has no place in this author’s thought, and by reevaluating this passage with a more critical eye, we may better understand this author's unique world of thought and the overall purpose of his text.

In the first century CE Jewish identity was defined in a context of significant religious diversity. This presents those who read Paul’s Letters with a problem: how to locate Paul’s thought within the complicated matrices of Jewish intellectual traditions of this period. This study locates Paul within the matrix of Jewish messianic thought between the second century BCE and the first ccentury CE by comparing conceptual elements of messianic traditions in the Parables of Enoch and the undisputed Letters of Paul. Comparative analysis of the nature and functions of the messiah figures in the Parables and the Letters of Paul demonstrates a remarkable combination of shared elements, indicating that Paul was familiar with the Enochic messiah traditions. The extraordinary combination of shared elements is so striking as to preclude the possibility that the Parables and Paul constituted independent developments. The evidence indicates that Paul developed his concept of the Kyrios out of the Enochic Son of Man traditions, or that Paul was at least influenced by these traditions.

This study surveys the archaeological evidence of Jewish ritual baths (miqwa’ot) built adjacent to tombs, dating variously from the late Second Temple period through the 3rd – 4th centuries C.E., and analyses this evidence in light of the halakhic sources. At first glance, this archaeological phenomenon would seem to stand at odds with normative halakhah, which mandates miqweh ablutions for corpse-impurity only at the end of a seven-day purification process. A careful reading of the scriptural and rabbinic sources, however, reveals that while a seven-day purification process is required for one who has contracted impurity directly from a corpse or a grave, impurity conveyed through an intermediary source (i.e. physical contact with one who has contracted direct corpse-impurity) may be purged through ablutions on the same day that the impurity was incurred. This study suggests that miqwa’ot adjacent to tombs were utilized at the conclusion burial ceremonies by funeral participants had contracted such “second-degree” impurity.

This article examines a ḥadīth text that illustrates the complicated interactions between Christian and Islamic sacred spaces in the early period of Islamic rule in the Near East. In this narrative, the Prophet Muḥammad gives a group of Arabs instructions for how to convert a church into a mosque, telling them to use his ablution water for cleansing and repurposing the Christian space for Muslim worship. Contextualizing this narrative in terms of early Muslim-Christian relations, as well as late antique Christian religious texts and practices, my analysis compares this story with Christian traditions regarding the collection and usage of contact relics from holy persons and places. I argue that this story offers an example of early Islamic texts' engagement with, and adaptation of, Christian literary themes and ritual practices in order to validate early Islamic religious claims.

Dans cet article, j'envisage la façon dont Foucault a tenté de forger, à partir de sources antiques, des outils pour penser sur un mode nouveau la forme moderne du rapport à soi. Ce faisant, Foucault propose une méthode pour faire l’ontologie historique et critique de nous-mêmes en tant que sujets dont la forme présente du rapport à soi a hérité de l’événement moderne dans l’histoire de la pensée. Il propose ainsi une manière d’hériter du passer ainsi qu’une méthode pour évaluer l’importance de cet héritage historique.

Au Collège de France, Foucault avait entamé une série de cours sur la question du sujet et de la vérité. Je m'intéresse plus particulièrement au geste de Foucault dans les cours sur L’herméneutique du sujet. Par ce geste Foucault tente de dégager, dans la spiritualité antique, à l’interstice de la metanoïa chrétienne et de l’epistrophè platonico-gnostique, quelque chose comme une autre conversion à soi, que je qualifie de stoïco-cynique, et qui n’implique ni rupture dans le rapport à soi, ni bifurcation du monde, mais seulement un « déplacement du sujet ». Cette transformation ouvre une « distance à soi » permettant d’opérer cette autre conversion par laquelle le sujet se constitue en faisant retour à soi comme étant cette distance à soi. Le sujet y est donc réfléchi comme processus éthopoïétique actif et non comme une substance ou une chose donnée a priori.

Enfin, je voudrais attirer l’attention sur la façon dont Foucault élabore des outils de pensée permettant d'esquiver le recours aux synthèses dialectiques et à l'herméneutique historique au profit d'une pensée matinale de la grandeur qui affirme la créativité dans l'histoire. Ce mode de pensée ne conclut pas sans ouvrir sur l’altérité, en affirmant la part de risque inhérente à l’avenir.

This Dissertation aims to present the diagnosis of the psychological type of Jesus given by Nietzsche in The Antichrist. According to Nietzsche, one of the theses for the solution of the problem about the genesis of Christianity is in understanding how the psychological type of the redeemer has been adulterated by the ecclesiastical Christianity. The type of Jesus is classified by Nietzsche as idiot, namely, a man who has a degenerate physiological constitution, which makes him unable to obtain a natural growth; bearing a morbid sensitivity to pain, this type finds itself unable to make contact with reality, leading him to turn over into his own interiority, opposing no resistence to the external threats. The evangelium of Jesus represents a natural and not resentful practice to décadence through the acceptance of their physiological conditioning, such practice has been corrupted by ecclesiastical Christianity as a doctrine of salvation of the soul, by which life is denied in its totality.

En el marco del próximo Sínodo de Obispos, que tratará sobre la “nueva evange¬lización”, el presente artículo se propone reflexionar sobre algunos aspectos de la “primera evange¬lización”. Comienza subrayando la novedad que esta supuso en el mundo antiguo. En segundo lugar, precisa la diversa perspectiva que presuponen las principales fuen¬tes: la visión participante de las cartas de Pablo y la más distan¬ciada del libro de los Hechos. En tercer lugar se trata de precisar, con ayuda de estudios del campo de la Psicología y la Sociología, los factores que determinan el pro¬ceso de conversión. Por último, se describen algunos rasgos de la pri¬mera misión cristiana, insistiendo en el papel que en ella desempeñó la casa como lugar de acogida y como medio de acceso a diversas redes sociales.

Introduction to Messianic Judaism provides a description of what the Messianic Jewish community looks like today at its center and on its margins. The first section of the book traces the ecclesial contours of the community, providing a socio-historical and theological snapshot of the community's origins, where it is presently and where it is heading. Alongside these chapters, the book also includes a number of essays on biblical and theological issues central to the identity of Messianic Judaism. The twelve contributors to the first part of the book are recognized leaders in the Messianic Jewish community. They work with various organizations, including the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations, the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America, the International Alliance of Messianic Congregations and Synagogues, the Messianic Jewish Rabbinical Council, Tikkun International, Chosen People Ministries, Messianic Jewish Theological Institute, Israel College of the Bible and the New School for Jewish Studies. Fourteen scholars from a wide spectrum of Christian backgrounds have written essays for the second part of the book. Their participation signals a growing academic and ecclesial interest in Messianic Judaism. Since the 1970s, a sea change has taken place in New Testament studies that has far-reaching implications for how the church evaluates Messianic Judaism. A broad reassessment of the New Testament writers’ view of Judaism has occurred since the publication of E. P. Sanders’s seminal work Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1977), and this reevaluation continues unabated. The contributors to the second part of Introduction to Messianic Judaism draw from this recent scholarship and demonstrate how post-supersessionist interpretation of the New Testament results in readings of the biblical text that are consistent with Messianic Judaism. The final section of the book is written by Joel Willitts who provides a summary and synthesis of the essays, explaining how they shed light on the ecclesial context and biblical foundations of Messianic Judaism.

The late Antique mosaic of Orpheus decorated a small room, approximately 18 m2 in area, connected with two even smaller ones, in 4 m2 and the other 2 m2 in area, belonging most likely to a small funerary chapel (or tomb) discovered in the ancient necropolis by the Damascene Gate in Jerusalem; it was discovered in 1901 by H. Vincent.
The author proposes a new interpretation of the iconographic program of the Orpheus myth used by wealthy Christians in a sepulchral context (see Olszewski M.T. «Orphée endeuillé de la mosaïque funéraire de Jérusalem», in Rey Mimoso-Ruiz, B. ed., Actes du colloque «Orphée entre Soleil et ombre», à l’Institut Catholique de Toulouse du 16 au 17 novembre 2007, Inter Lignes, numéros spécial – mars 2008, pp. 205-214, 226). He also proposes a new interpretation of the role Orpheus played in Roman funerary art, concentrating on the importance of the play on words and the visual and textual punning that was popular in ancient art and especially in funerary art. He rejects the popular interpretation of Orpheus as Christ in the Roman catacombs and proposes to interpret the image as that of Orpheus, bard of the departed souls, without any ahistorical connection with Christ. The program of the mosaic from Jerusalem is thus explained as a play on the words Orpheus-orphanos and Chiron (Chi-Rho) and Pan [Παν(τοκράτωρ)].The frequently used Christian funerary formula of resting in peace, Christ or the Lord corresponds
perfectly with the mood created around the mythical bard.
Orpheus’ universal role as singer and musician moving even the most stony of hearts, extolling the beloved departed, is absolutely justified in the context of a 6th-century Christian tomb. Orpheus is a popular and neutral figure, meaning that in effect it does not constitute a threat to Christian theology and can be tolerated by the educated Christians of Jerusalem.

From Brill's website:

New Perspectives on 2 Enoch: No Longer Slavonic Only presents a collection of papers from the fifth conference of the Enoch Seminar. The conference re-examines 2 Enoch, an early Jewish apocalyptic text previously known to scholars only in its Slavonic translation, in light of recently identified Coptic fragments. This approach helps to advance the understanding of many key issues of this enigmatic and less explored Enochic text. One of the important methodological lessons of the current volume lies in the recognition that the Adamic and Melchizedek traditions, the mediatorial currents which play an important role in the apocalypse, are central for understanding the symbolic universe of the text. The volume also contains the recently identified Coptic fragments of 2 Enoch, introduced to scholars for the first time during the conference.

CONTENTS:
Preface
Andrei A. Orlov and Gabriele Boccaccini

PART ONE: 2 ENOCH
No Longer “Slavonic” Only: 2 Enoch Attested in Coptic from Nubia
Joost L. Hagen

TEXT AND DATING OF 2 ENOCH
The “Book of the Secrets of Enoch” (2 En): Between Jewish Origin and Christian Transmission. An Overview
Christfried Böttrich
The Provenance of 2 Enoch: A Philological Perspective. A Response to C. Böttrich’s Paper “The ‘Book of the Secrets of Enoch’ (2 En): Between Jewish Origin and Christian Transmission. An Overview”
Liudmila Navtanovich
2 Enoch: Manuscripts, Recensions, and Original Language
Grant Macaskill
The Sacerdotal Traditions of 2 Enoch and the Date of the Text
Andrei A. Orlov
Excavating 2 Enoch: The Question of Dating and the Sacerdotal Traditions
David W. Suter

CONTENT AND CONTEXT OF 2 ENOCH
2 Enoch and the New Perspective on Apocalyptic
Crispin H.T. Fletcher-Louis
The Watchers of Satanail: The Fallen Angels Traditions in 2 Enoch
Andrei A. Orlov
Patriarch, Prophet, Author, Angelic Rival: Exploring the Relationship of 1 Enoch to 2 Enoch in Light of the Figure of Enoch
Daniel Assefa and Kelley Coblentz Bautch
Calendrical Elements in 2 Enoch
Basil Lourié
2 Enoch and Halakhah
Lawrence H. Schiffman
Halakha, Calendars, and the Provenances of 2 Enoch
Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra

PART TWO: ADAM, ENOCH, AND MELCHIZEDEK: MEDIATORIAL FIGURES IN SECOND TEMPLE JUDAISM

ADAMIC TRADITIONS
Adam as a Mediatorial Figure in Second Temple Jewish Literature
John R. Levison
Better Watch Your Back, Adam: Another Adam and Eve Tradition in Second Temple Judaism
Lester L. Grabbe
Adamic Traditions in 2 Enoch and in the Books of Adam and Eve
Johannes Magliano-Tromp
Adamic Traditions in Early Christian and Rabbinic Literature
Alexander Toepel
Adamic Tradition in Slavonic Manuscripts (Vita Adae et Evae and Apocryphal Cycle about the Holy Tree)
Anissava Miltenova

MELCHIZEDEK TRADITIONS
Melchizedek Traditions in Second Temple Judaism
Eric F. Mason
Melchizedek at Qumran and in Judaism: A Response
Devorah Dimant
Enoch and Melchizedek: The Concern for Supra-Human Priestly Mediators in 2 Enoch
Charles A. Gieschen
Melchizedek in Some Early Christian Texts and 2 Enoch
Harold W. Attridge
“Much to Say and Hard to Explain”: Melchizedek in Early Christian Literature, Theology, and Controversy
Pierluigi Piovanelli
On Adam, Enoch, Melchizedek, and Eve
Daphna Arbel
Bibliography on 2 Enoch
Andrei A. Orlov

Over the past fifty years, archaeological excavations in Israel have unearthed about half a dozen ancient synagogues that were in use at different points in time between the first century BCE through the outbreak of the Bar-Kochba rebellion early in the second century of the Common Era.  In close proximity to each of these synagogues, a mikveh (ritual bath) has been discovered.  In contrast, no mikvaot have been discovered adjacent to any of the dozens of later synagogues that have been excavated and studied, with only one or two possible exceptions. 
At this point it is impossible to determine exactly when mikvaot ceased to be built in connection with synagogues, as the archaeological record reports very little about synagogues of the late second - early third century CE.  From an archaeological perspective, it is clear that at least from the second half of the third century, synagogues began to be built without regard for proximity to mikvaot.
Talmudic sources make no mention of a requirement to build mikvaot adjacent to synagogues. To date, no satisfactory explanation has been given for the evident connection between the synagogue and the mikveh in the early period, and the disappearance of such a connection in later periods of synagogue history. The objective of this paper is to present and explore a possible interpretation of this puzzling phenomenon.
  During the Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods, a rabbinical enactment was in effect requiring mikveh ablutions prior to engagement in Torah study and prayer for individuals who had experienced seminal emission. Careful study of the Talmudic sources reveals that this enactment was nullified early in the Amoraic Period, sometime during the second quarter of the third century CE.
It would appear that the mikvaot built adjacent to the earlier synagogues were intended for this precise function, serving visitors to the synagogue who required ritual ablutions prior to Torah study and prayer.  Once the rabbinical enactment regarding these ablutions was nullified, there was no longer need for such mikvaot, and hence the absence of mikvaot in proximity to the later synagogues.