Theology

Mark S. Smith maps four decades of Psalms research, foregrounding cultural contexts, pilgrimage motifs, and embodied emotion. He explores genre-bending poetics and argues for the Psalter as a carefully composed whole, shaped by its Levitical compilers and structured like an opera in five movements.

Gotthold E. Lessing's literary work reveals a profound theological dimension. Especially in his early writings, the pastor's son engages critically and intensely with Christianity. Christian anthropology however is, as Steffen Götze's analysis shows, a cornerstone of Lessing's literary oeuvre.

Literature or textbook? In antiquity, no clear distinction was made in this respect, as Christian Neumann demonstrates regarding the complex interplay of literary design and didactic function in Plutarch's Quaestiones Graecae and Romanae and Gellius' Noctes Atticae.

Tyler Hallstrom engages in the debate about the meaning of Jesus's dramatic disturbance in the Jerusalem Temple. He provides an in-depth study of the relevant biblical texts, historical context, and socio-economic factors and concludes that Jesus's indignation was indeed directed at economic exploitation in the temple.