Theology

Jacob A. Lollar provides a complete text and reception analysis of the earliest extant copies of the Acts of Thekla, disciple of the apostle Paul and the most famous female saint in Christian history. He offers new insights into the earliest attestations of her story from West Asia to North Africa.

Daniel Maier offers the first comprehensive reconstruction and contextualisation of the earliest extant Christian vision of Paradise, as preserved in the complex transmission of the Apocalypse of Peter. He undertakes a detailed analysis of all extant witnesses, including the often-neglected Pseudo-Clementine framework of the Ethiopic manuscripts.

This volume tests the »within Judaism« paradigm as a heuristic rather than a presupposition. Contributors explore how New Testament texts formed within the pluralism of Second Temple Judaism and assess their value as expressions of groups embedded in Jewish history, with attention to boundaries, external perceptions, and literary genres.

Susanne Luther demonstrates how the Gospel of John, through its specific use of literary strategies of authentication, is conceived both as a historiographical account of past events and, at the same time, as a narrative of the incarnate Son of God that transcends the conventions of historiographical narration.