Theology

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.

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.

In twelve revised and expanded essays on the Johannine writings, Michael Theobald takes up central debates - the genesis of the Corpus Iohanneum, the Johannine Lord's Supper - and turns his attention to questions of reception history, such as the interpretation of the Gospel in mysticism.

Drawing on theoretical and methodological perspectives ranging from material philology and digital humanities to cognitive science, the contributors to this volume present novel approaches to the study of the nature and functions of Coptic apocrypha in the context of late antique and early Islamic Egypt.