Imperial Cult and Christianity: How and to What Extent Were the Imperial Cult and Emperor Worship thought to Preserve Stability in the Roman World?
This paper deals with the new results of the research of the imperial cult of Rome and its relationship with Christians.
The Gospel of Thomas and the Historical Jesus
The New Testament Gospels offer two different pictures of Jesus: there is Jesus of Nazareth, and then there is Jesus Christ.
Subordinate Woman or Favored Leader: Portrayals of Mary Magdalene in Christian Canonical & Non-Canonical Gospels
In the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, the repeated mention and identification of Mary Magdalene by name validates her presence and prominence among Biblical women. Furthermore, when amongst a group of women, her name is frequently the first listed (though not always). Moreover, Jesus appears to Mary first after his resurrection in several of the books too. Despite these distinctions above nearly all other women, she is specifically named only eleven times in eight chapters of the Gospels (two chapters each).
Philosophies of Imprisonment in Late Antiquity
In order to understand how the conceptual perception of prisons changed with different social groups, one must first understand what prisons were meant to be and what they actually were. Prison structure was governed on logic, with different types of prisons to separate the accused from the condemned. From the structure, scholars can understand the purpose of the prison, and current scholarly debate revolves around the intention of the law-makers.
The Arian Controversy: Some Categories Reconsidered
The choice of categories to designate the two opposing sides in the fourth-century theological controversy is crucially important, for the categories color the whole interpretation of the controversy. Some of the categories used in the past are less than satisfactory. The pair “Arian” and “Nicene” is anachronistic, and perhaps too dogmatic.
The Gospel of Jesus
The text has been constructed out of small pieces
Published here for the first time is a fragment of a fourth-century CE codex in Coptic containing a dialogue between Jesus and his disciples in which Jesus speaks of ‘my wife.’
Patriotism and some related aspects of Roman character
Rome levelled her subjects in crashing, shattering defeat and then lifted them up to share a pride in her that could capture the discriminating Jewish intelligence of a Paul. Her supreme victory came when the superiority and desirability of her civilization were admitted among civilized men.
The Bones of Saint Peter
Sometime in AD 48, Peter had a tense meeting in Jerusalem with an enthusiastic missionary called Paul, who had been travelling among the peoples of the Near East, spreading news of Jesus’ teachings. Peter and his Jewish friends in Jerusalem were anxious that male converts to the new sect should be circumcised, as a sign that their commitment was genuine.
Taking the Emperor
The Roman emperor was a central feature of the cultural context of the first century and must be taken consistently into account in exegesis of the New Testament.