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Archive for the ‘Paul’ Category


Paul’s Letter to the Galatians & Christian Theology

In Call for papers, Galatians, Paul, St Andrews on June 22, 2011 at 7:58 pm

Paul’s Letter to the Galatians & Christian Theology

10-13 July 2012, St Andrews

We are pleased to announce the fourth St Andrews conference on Scripture and
 Christian Theology. Since the first conference on the Gospel of John in
 2003, the St Andrews conferences have been recognized as amongst the most
 important occasions when biblical scholars and systematic theologians are
 brought together in conversation about a biblical text. With the book of Galatians as our key text, biblical scholars and theologians of the Christian tradition will gather to work out how exegesis and theology meet, critique and inform each other.

Registration will open shortly, here.

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John Barclay, “The Christ-Gift, Israel and Time: From Galatians to Romans”

In Cambridge, John BARCLAY, Paul, Samuli Siikavirta, SEMINAR REPORTS on May 30, 2011 at 9:32 pm

A report on a paper given by Professor John M.G. Barclay (Durham) at the Senior New Testament Seminar of the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, 17 May 2011

The list of forthcoming papers in the New Testament Seminars at Cambridge can be found here. You can also find us on facebook, here.

In what was clearly amongst the best-presented papers of the senior seminar series of this academic year, Professor John Barclay focused on the relationship between the Christ-gift and God’s plan. He painted his argument on the backdrop of the views of N.T. Wright and J.L. Martyn on the Christ-event and time. Barclay criticised both of them, admitting, though, that his own view was closer to that of Martyn’s: whereas Wright sees the crucifixion as the event that shocks Israel and unveils God’s apocalyptic plan, Martyn holds that the Christ-event creates a new cosmological moment in which the whole cosmos is put to a halt by the cross. Read the rest of this entry »


Morna Hooker, ”Paul’s Understanding of Holiness”

In Cambridge, Morna HOOKER, New Testament, Paul, Samuli Siikavirta, SEMINAR REPORTS on February 23, 2011 at 5:43 pm

Report on a senior seminar paper by Morna Hooker, Lady Margaret Professor Emerita, University of Cambridge, 8 Feb 2011.

The list of forthcoming papers in the New Testament Seminars at Cambridge can be found here.

Morna Hooker presented a survey of Paul’s holiness language and theology throughout the Pauline corpus. She expressed at the outset that her reason for giving a seminar paper on this particular topic was the neglect which sanctification/holiness has faced in New Testament scholarship particularly in areas affected by the Protestant overemphasis of justification over against sanctification. What also requires clarification is the confusion of terms in English: holiness terminology in Paul can be rendered in English with such words as holy, saints, holiness, sanctification and consecration. Read the rest of this entry »


Lutz Doering, “Paul and Ancient Jewish Letter Writing”

In DSS, Durham, Justin A. Mihoc, Lutz DOERING, New Testament, Paul, SEMINAR REPORTS on February 12, 2011 at 12:30 pm

This is a report on a paper presented by Dr Lutz Doering, Reader in New Testament and Ancient Judaism in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University, at the New Testament Research Seminar at the Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University, 29th of November 2010.

The list of forthcoming papers in the NT Research Seminars at Durham University can be found here.

Dr Doering presented in this paper some very interesting ideas which are to be included and developed in his forthcoming monograph on Jewish and early Christian letter writing. Whilst trying to define the characteristics of Paul’s epistles, he gradually analysed the stylisation of the author, co-senders and addressees of the letters and their use within early Christian communities and, also, epistolary formulae such as the Proem and the structure of the Prescript. Read the rest of this entry »


Review Article: F.W. Horn and R. Zimmermann, Jenseits von Indikativ und Imperativ

In Friedrich Wilhelm HORN, Mohr Siebeck, New Testament, NT Ethics, Paul, Ruben ZIMMERMANN, Samuli Siikavirta on January 19, 2011 at 7:28 pm

2011.01.03 | F.W. Horn and R. Zimmermann, eds. Jenseits von Indikativ und Imperativ: Kontexte und Normen neutestamentlicher Ethik / Contexts and Norms of New Testament Ethics, vol. 1, (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 238), Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009. ISBN 978-3-16-149997-5. Cloth.

Review article by Samuli Siikavirta, University of Cambridge.

We extend our thanks to Mohr Siebeck for providing us with a review copy.

It is only in the recent years that some scholars have begun to criticise the indicative/imperative division of New Testament ethics that was first presented by P. Wernle in 1897 and popularised by R. Bultmann in his 1924 essay.Truthfully to its name, Jenseits von Indikativ und Imperativ [Beyond the Indicative and Imperative] delves into the recent criticism via 17 articles (two of which are in English) that present ways of going beyond the indicative and imperative. The book is the result of a round-table discussion on the foundations of New Testament ethics that took place in Germany in 2007. Read the rest of this entry »


Author’s Response to RBECS’ review on Solidarity and Difference: A Contemporary Reading of Paul’s Ethics

In Bloomsbury, David G. HORRELL, NT Ethics, Paul, Samuli Siikavirta on November 2, 2010 at 5:43 pm

2010.11.06 | David G. Horrell, Solidarity and Difference: A Contemporary Reading of Paul’s Ethics. London: T&T Clark, 2005. 360 pp. ISBN 0567083349. Hardback.

The RBECS review is available here.

I am grateful to Samuli Siikavirta for taking the time to engage at length with Solidarity and Difference and I hope that these few brief remarks by way of response may help not only to clarify issues but also, perhaps, to take discussion beyond where the book leaves off. Read the rest of this entry »


Shane Berg, ”Revelation and Anthropology in the Community Hymns of the Hodayot and in Romans”

In Cambridge, Hodayot, Paul, Romans, Samuli Siikavirta, SEMINAR REPORTS, Shane BERG on October 28, 2010 at 12:20 am

This is a report on a paper of Shane Berg, Assistant Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, presented in the Senior NT seminar at the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, 26 Oct 2010.

The list of this term’s papers in this particular seminar is available here.

Shane Berg’s paper presented the interesting hypothesis that the anthropology and religious epistemology of the community hymns of the Qumran Hodayot (thanksgiving hymns) have similarities with those of Romans. Berg argued that both the Hodayot and Romans assert universal human sinfulness in light of the creation and Fall narratives of Genesis on the one hand and the remedying agency of the Spirit on the other.

Amongst other Qumran texts, the paper mentioned 1QHa 9:10-18; 6:13; 20:11-12 and 7:12-14 as examples of community hymns with universal sinfulness in their anthropology. They depict human existence in a negative fashion, emphasising human sinfulness, ignorance and frail and inadequate cognition to come to God’s will. Men are composed of dust and cannot know God – and idea that has its Biblical background in Gen. 2-3 (cf. Job 10:9; 4:19; 34:15; Ecclesiastes 3:20; 12:7; Ps 103:14; 104:29). Read the rest of this entry »


Solidarity and Difference: A Contemporary Reading of Paul’s Ethics

In Bloomsbury, David G. HORRELL, NT Ethics, Paul, Samuli Siikavirta on October 26, 2010 at 2:55 pm

2010.10.05 | David G. Horrell, Solidarity and Difference: A Contemporary Reading of Paul’s Ethics. London: T&T Clark, 2005. 360 pp. ISBN 0567083349. Hardback.

Reviewed by Samuli Siikavirta, University of Cambridge.

You can find the author’s response to this review here.

Horrell concludes with three alternative ways of appropriating Pauline ethics to contemporary situations and dilemmas. As the first alternative, Horrell presents thinking ‘with’ Paul along the lines of Hauerwas’s ecclesial ethics, secondly, ‘beyond’ Paul to offer a mediating position between communitarian and liberal ethics, and thirdly, ‘against’ Paul due to the sheer differences between our plural society and the Pauline communitarian context.

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