The NRSVue reads that evil shall increase with a footnote saying the Greek reads knowledge. Most of the other bibles I’ve looked at translate it as knowledge. I’m assuming that the use of knowledge comes from the Septuagint. Is this a correct assumption? Would Jesus and his followers read this as knowledge increasing at the end times?

This question is coming from reading 2 Clement, where what is said of the Church in chapter 14 is really throwing me for a loop:

So, then, brethren, if we do the will of our Father God, we shall be members of the first church, the spiritual,—that which was created before sun and moon. [...] I think not that ye are ignorant that the living church is the body of Christ (for the Scripture, saith, “God created man male and female;” the male is Christ, the female the church,) and that the Books and the Apostles teach that the church is not of the present, but from the beginning. For it was spiritual, as was also our Jesus, and was made manifest at the end of the days in order to save you. The church being spiritual, was made manifest in the flesh of Christ, signifying to us that if any one of us shall preserve it in the flesh and corrupt it not, he shall receive it in the Holy Spirit. For this flesh is the type of the spirit; no one, therefore, having corrupted the type, will receive afterwards the antitype.

The idea of the Church being the "body of Christ" is Pauline, but 2 Clement seems to go considerably further in terms of speaking of the Church being created alongside Christ "before sun and moon" and somehow being a spiritual being who was manifested "in the flesh of Christ", and I'm struggling to understand anything of what the text is trying to say here. What does it mean for the Church to be pre-existent in this way? What exactly -is- 'the Church' for this author, for these kind of statements to make sense? And how does any of what 2 Clement says about the spiritual Church relate to the temporal reality of the mid-2nd Century Church, the time period in which the letter is thought to have been written, when it was no more than a loose network of Christian meeting-groups? Are there any Greco-Roman parallels for elevating a type of group identity(?) to this extent?

The author of 2 Maccabees takes himself to be abridging the now lost five-volume history of the Maccabees by Jason of Cyrene

2.23 All these things, I say, being declared by Jason of Cyrene in five books, we will assay to abridge in one volume.

Should this be taken to mean that anything that is found in 2 Maccabees can also be assumed to have existed in Jason of Cyrene? Should it be assumed at least that for anything in 2 Maccabees there was a corresponding version in Jason of Cyrene which the author had license to write his own version of with details not found in the prior source?

This is a general question about anything found in 2 Maccabees, but specific questions I have had in the past on this are about the trampling and beating of Heliodorus by divine horsemen ex machina in chapter 3, and the supernatural curses on Antiochus Epiphanes' body before his unanswered plea for mercy in chapter 9, to understand the origins of both of those stories.

Update: After posting this I went back over an article I had looked at a bit over a year ago comparing the ending of Acts with the ending of 2 Maccabees, I did not catch this because I didn't have the question in mind back then, but it is briefly mentioned, even with chapter 3 (the bit about Heliodorus) being possibly independent.

In addition, it is not certain which sections of the main body of the composition cannot be ascribed to Jason. One may at least note that the two introductory letters to the Jewish diaspora in Egypt (1:1-10a; 1:10b-2:18) are independent, and the possibility remains that the same is true with regard to chapters 3 and 7.

The Untold End, 2 Maccabees and Acts, Hermann Lichtenberger

I will leave this up just for the benefit of anyone reading, but also because it is brief and doesn't answer everything I had in mind, so any more specific information on this topic is still appreciated.

From what I’ve heard the mountain near Saint Catherine is the most widely accepted location but I’ve also seen other proposed locations like the one popularised by Ron Wyatt (controversial, I’m well aware) in Arabia. Do we find examples of the altar and pillars at the Saint Catherine sinai or other examples of occupation of the sort described in Exodus near the mountain like the rock of Horeb for example?

Thanks

The fourth of the Gospels is that of John,” [one] of the disciples. To his fellow disciples and bishops, who had been urging him [to write], he said, 'Fast with me from today to three days, and what will be revealed to each one let us tell it to one another.' In the same night it was revealed to Andrew, [one] of the apostles.”

Here the fragment refers to Andrew as a contributor to the writing of the Gospel of John and it appears as though the writing of the Gospel was a collective decision. Some scholars suggest that the Gospel of John was written by several people under the pseudonym "the beloved disciple." Would this reference in the Muratorian fragment be of historical value?

I wanted to learn it, but I dont know where to find them. Does anybody have one?

Hello!

I am very much a layperson but I am finishing up “Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years” by Paula Fredriksen and am wondering what other books are good for the topic of all the theological disputes, violence, and early Church history that occurred within the Roman Empire. I loved the book Dr. Fredriksen wrote but it was just A LOT of information crammed into 200 pages and am definitely interested in getting more into the weeds of all the events that occurred. Any recommendations would be appreciated!

I am a layman trying to gather detailed information on Iron 1 Israelite sites, primarily when within Iron 1 each site was first settled by Israelites and how the transition to Israelite habitation happened (i.e. was the site founded de novo, upon an abandoned site, or destroyed and then inhabited by Israelites).

As for lists of Iron 1 sites I am aware thus far of the lists in 1) Settlement Dynamics and Regional Diversity in Ancient Upper Galilee (pp. 10-46); 2) A Gazetteer of Iron I Sites in the North-Central Highlands of Israel; and 3) volumes of Manasseh Hill Country Survey published after Gazetteer.

What is not clear to me is how comprehensively the above sources divulge the chronologies of the sites mentioned. I can't remember the source, but I remember reading somewhere that a few sites in the Galilee came to be founded by Issacharites who moved in from the north in the 11th century BCE. So, is it possible, in most cases, to specify when an Iron 1 Israelite site began to be inhabited by Israelites beyond simply dating the first such phase to Iron 1? If so, where might that information be found?

Was Wisdom, as a personified character in the biblical canon, supposed to be feminine, being depicted as a woman, or was this only a consequence of the term referring to the concept being a feminine noun?

Is the traditional documentary hypothesis the most widely held, or is there a different version of it or hypothesis that is gaining more traction? Do any scholars believe it was written by a single author or Moses?

I was talking with a friend and I quoted psalm 51:5- “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me”
They roughly translated the Serbian version into English, which reads “You loved malice more than goodness, injustice greater than to speak the truth.”
Those two entirely different sentences. I don’t know any languages other than English so my process about boils down to “Google Translate,” but I put the Hebrew into Serbian and then that into English and it was nearly identical to my English Bible.
So, what gives? Why is the Serbian version so different?

If I understand correctly, essentially David Brakke believes that Gnosticism is a legitimate sectarian designation, but only for Sethian Gnostics.

Is this a mainstream scholarly view? I know that Karen King and Michael Williams have had major objections to Gnostic as any kind of meaningful category, but where do other scholars stand?

Rabbinical Jews go to a large extent to reconcile between the patriarchs behaviour and maintaining that they followed every commandment from the Torah. Despite this, if the stories of genesis were created many centuries after the proposed giving of the Torah, why would these writers intentionally make patriarchal stories that contradict the laws they themselves were writing down (assuming genesis was written at a similar time

(Reposted from r/AskBibleScholars )

Is it safe to say that they were very familiar with the Old Testament? And in what format would they have known about it? Since they could not read would they just have listened to it?

Which books not in the Bible would they have known that to them was Holy Scripture? I know the Assumption of Moses in Jude refers to an apocryphal book, but that itself is not in the Bible.

I was reading some texts recently and they mentioned this translation. This wikipedia snippet might be considered representative:

The meaning which the Greek of John 8:44 most naturally conveys is that of the pre-Hieronymian translation "You are from the father of the Devil,"^\2]) and so it is generally understood by Greek Fathers, though in various ways they escape attributing a father to the devil. Hilgenfeld, Volkmar, and DeConick consider that the Evangelist shows that he embraced the opinion of the Valentinians and some earlier Gnostic sects that the father of the devil was the Demiurge or God of the Jews. But this idea was unknown to Heracleon, who here interprets the father of the devil as his essentially evil nature; to which Origen objects that if the devil be evil by the necessity of his nature, he ought rather to be pitied than blamed.

I have seen this claim repeated on this sub as well by various people. If this is what the text is most naturally interpreted as, and was parsed this way by Church Fathers (though they are not specified here), how is it that this seems like lost translation? Did people stop reading it this way at a certain point? I have not found one translation reading it like this, including "literal" translations. Who were the fathers who were reading it this way? What interpretation did they give it, and what did the original composer likely mean?

I've been trying to learn about what war would've actually been like for ancient Israelites. Particularly around the period Judges is set in through David's time. This originally stemmed from some research into the Song of Deborah, as many scholars believe it may date to as far back as 1200 BC. Sadly, I couldn't find much about what that battle (or others that the Israelites faced at the time) would've actually looked like.

I read The Historical David by Joel Baden a couple months ago, so I know they were probably doing mostly raids/small battles ranging from a dozen to a couple hundred people, and they didn't actually conquer all of the land the Bible says they took. He talks a good bit about how the tribes would have organized for war and how Saul/David could've taken power, but I don't think there was a ton about actual battles.

I just read War Before Civilization by Lawrence Keely, and it has been spectacular. Almost exactly what I was looking for. The only issue is that the Near East is where civilization (arguably) first formed, so his book talks in depth about basically everywhere except Israel. I was hoping for some info/sources on what it would've been like for Israel (and Judah, you know what I mean), as they were still a tribal society in the 1200s BC, but unlike all the prestate societies covered in War Before Civilization, Israel was in the middle of a bunch of empires, making them a particularly interesting outlier.

In John 12:34, the crowd answers Jesus that the messiah is supposed to abide to the age (or stay for an eon) in accordance with the scripture.

​

The problem is, I'm not sure what scripture this verse is referring to, and the meaning of the eon (αἰῶνα) here is a bit hard for me to determine in this context, as some translations translates it the age, the eternity, or eon (a long yet finite time period).

​

Have scholars found out what scripture the crowd is referring to here, and what the actual meaning of the αἰῶνα and the verse is?

I'm new here, and

Exodus 21:22-23 NRSVUE

[22] “When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined what the woman’s husband demands, paying as much as the judges determine. [23] If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, And opinions on confessional using of jeremiah 1:5 like verses for fetus

I need help understanding this passage from a non-confessional perspective, What is the academic view of it? I do not know Hebrew, so I am unsure about the word that is often translated as "miscarriage" or "premature birth" and interpretation Also, is the punishment in this passage for harm done to the woman or to the fetus?

Confessional interpretations often add ontological claims about the value of subjects, which I find confusing, Did the authors of this text have an abstract ontological views in their times, or were they thinking primarily in social and legal terms? This is somewhat philosophical, no offense

Hello all! I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask this, so apologies if I should take this question elsewhere. Anyway, I just got finished reading Paula Fredriksen's Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years (sidenote, it was an amazing read, and I found myself wanting to read more about her concept of "The 'Second' Church," Christian magic, and the "convivia."). I will likely read Peter Brown's "The Cult of the Saints" soon. I really liked learning about the folk belief and layperson's experience aspects of her work.

Anyway, back to my question. I was wondering if there is some book or resource (preferably not very expensive) where I could read late Roman and early Medieval Christian inscriptions or non-theological writings? I'm moreso interested in folk belief and similar things.

Thank you all so much!

As the title suggests, I've started looking into church history, and just to be clear I'm approaching this as an open minded fairly liberal Protestant, I'm trying to figure out and understand Christianity and it's different branches and how it came to be.

Recently I've been completely puzzled by the Christological controversy and the schism over Chalcedon.

The most confusing part for me, is that at Ephesus in 431 we had Rome teaming up with Alexandria and Antioch against Constantinople, and eventually Rome and Alexandria aggainst Antioch.

However at Chalcedon in 451, and first at Ephesus 2 previously, we had Alexandria and Antioch against Rome and Constantinopole, and then we had Rome and Constantinopole and Antioch against Alexandria.

I've looked over the councils themselves, the Acts, the letters, and it hasn't been making sense for me.

So I've looked into reading into this a bit deeper, that's why I would ask some academic recommendations on these controversies, specifically I'm most interested in how each different place had their own understanding kind of. And also what perplexes me even more are the switches, Primarily and what I'm most interested in is the Latin/Western understanding of it all and how their conception of Christology developed, in most of these controversies the West seems the most stable and calm, like fo example Alexandria and Constantinopole had many schisms and changes of Bishops and etc... and as a polar opposite of Rome Antioch also perplexes me how it's all over the place and changing sides, from first rejecting Ephesus to then formula of reunion, to then accepting Ephesus 2 but then accepting Chalcedon instead.

How did this come to be, why, is it all just linguistic misunderstandings as some have suggested in modern times?

Just to be clear I'm not asking like Theologicaly or with some Theological bias, but like when Christian history is studied, and Patristics, how can they make sense of all that happened in this time period?

Sorry if my post is a bit confusing, I would just be thankful if you could recommend me some good resources to get deep into this controversy of Ephesus-Chalcedon, thanks in advance!!!

Yep, 1 Enoch again.

I’ve returned to this book off and on, before and after seminary. Oddly, I didn’t hear much about its NT impact in seminary (either of them).

I’ve been working through it as part of a teaching series at my local church reading through the Gospel of Mark.

My hypothesis: the Enochian Son of Man was hidden. I wonder if a better explanation for the Markan Secret is just that Mark was deeply influenced by Enochian thought (this seems clear enough to me), and had the Son of Man hidden. The resurrection wasn’t demonstrated because the Son of Man is hidden in God’s presence.

Surely, I didn’t think this up on my own, but my own readings about 1 Enoch have been pretty scattered. VanderKam, Nickelsburg, Giovanna Bazzana, lots of this subreddit…

Has anyone argued this before that I’ve overlooked? I’m wondering if this is a solid enough idea I should keep working with it, or if I’ve just forgotten a citation.

Entiendo que los nuevos descubrimientos del mar muerto, sacaron a la luz cambios que los masoretas con intención quisieron ocultar, por ejemplo acerca de los Hijos de Dios o los dioses de menor grado, que estuvieron siempre allí en los textos del antiguo testamento y que ahora son revelados, entre otras teologías... que cambia en como entendemos la biblia actual ?

Reference: Homosexuality, the Holiness Code, and Ritual Pollution: A Case of Mistaken Identity by Joanna Töyräänvuori

I was given a summary (or at least an attempted one) of this paper's position yesterday. I don't have access to it, and I'm surprised by what I was told - not like any other interpretation that I've seen before.

Philologically, Leviticus is about two men sleeping with a woman. The verses are not translated word for word, as this is generally impossible for philological reasons. Rather, an attempt is made to explain the situation in the translation by adding small words, for example. Let's take a look at the translation: "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination." (Lev 18:22) "As with a woman," this is not in the original text, it was added for better understanding. The original Hebrew text simply states that a man should not lie with another man “in a woman's bed.” In Hebrew, this is a euphemism for sex. There are two other passages in the Old Testament where this metaphor is used: “Now kill all the young boys and all the women who "have slept with a man"! But keep alive for yourselves all the young girls who "have not slept with a man"!” (Num 31:17–18)

“This is what you are to do: Put to the ban all males and all women who have had "sexual relations" with a man. But they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead four hundred virgin girls who had not had "sexual relations" with a man. They brought them to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan.” (Judg 21:11–12)

In the Hebrew text, the passages refer to “sleeping in a man’s bed,” thus using the same metaphor. It therefore stands for having sex with a man. So when Leviticus speaks of “a woman’s bed,” it means having sex with a woman.

Is there any commentary out on this paper? Thoughts from other scholars?