The New Testament at the Intersection of Judaism and Hellenism

Carl Holladay illustrates the exegetical benefits of viewing the Roman world during the late republic and early empire as a complex mixture of religious and philosophical traditions within which Judaism and Hellenism are two distinct yet interactive systems of thought that helped shape the contours and literary texture of the New Testament.
Some of the topics explored: how Roman imperial attitudes toward kingship, especially within the provinces, inform the portrayal of Jesus as king in Matthew's Gospel; how Philo of Alexandria's views of human agency relate to other Jewish writings during the Second Temple period; how the apostle Paul's report of Jesus's words at the Last Supper compares with other »holy pronouncements« by deities in Greco-Roman cults and associations; how the right to face one's accusers, a prominent feature of the western legal tradition, relates to the statement by the Roman procurator Porcius Festus in Acts 25:16; whether the interpretive scheme of promise-fulfillment that figures prominently in the New Testament is an early precursor to a view of scripture that typifies modern historical criticism; how Luke's language of self-description as an investigative writer who seeks to provide a coherent, reliable account of Jesus and the early church compares with the technical historiographical vocabulary of such self-proclaimed historians as Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Flavius Josephus; and when the Old Testament, which began to be translated into Greek in the late third century BCE, first came to the attention of pagan writers.

1. Jesus and the Gospels
2. Acts of the Apostles
3. Paul
4. Hellenism, Hellenistic Judaism, Philo of Alexandria
5. Biblical Interpretation