Beginnings Of Christianity Research Articles

Seuils et discontinuités chez Michel Foucault : vers un sujet “post-cartésien” ?

ABSTRACTDrawing from Michel Foucault's final research development (1980–1984), this article disputes Foucault's apparent discontinuity with his previous stands regarding the subject, and unveils a notion I propose to call the “post-Cartesian” subject, i.e. a subject whose ethics displays a congruent harmony between mathêsis (knowledge) and prâxis (action). Spending his last years in the company of Greco-Roman thinkers for whom philosophizing was less a mathêsis than a prâxis, Foucault claims that the disruption of the congruence between logos and ergon occurred at the beginning of Christianity, when the Delphic injunction “know thyself” (gnôthi seauton) took over a precept which had formerly ruled supreme: the “care of the self” (epimeleia heautou). Foucault asserts that Descartes ultimately confirmed this displacement, when the Cartesian subject was no longer required to go through any personal transformation in order to reach truth/knowledge. Challenging this threshold, I argue that the Socratic imperative has not supplanted the “care of the self” in the “post-Cartesian” subject whose task is to resist as much as possible the type of existence/identity which has been impressed on her/him.

Kyrios Christos: A History of Belief in Christ from the Beginnings of Christianity to Iranaeus. By WilhelmBousset. Translated by John E.Steely. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2013. Pp. xx + 496. Paper, $39.95.

Kyrios Christos: A History of Belief in Christ from the Beginnings of Christianity to Iranaeus. By WilhelmBousset. Translated by John E.Steely. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2013. Pp. xx + 496. Paper, $39.95.

Neither Jew nor Greek: A Contested Identity by James D. G. Dunn

In the first volume of his account of the beginnings of Christianity through its literature (Jesus Remembered, 2003), James Dunn proposed a way of reading the Gospels that re-envisioned the conventional analyses of source, literary form, and redaction criticism through the lens of understanding the oral handing-down of tradition as an act of faithful remembering and re-remembering in new settings and to answer new questions. Dunn begins by setting out the sources, and here already some may feel at work the principles that will be more fully expressed in the shape and direction of the whole: the canonical Gospels and “the rest of the New Testament” represent the first century, while the Apostolic Fathers, Apologists, Eusebius and Heresiologists, followed by “Other” Gospels, Letters, Acts and Apocalypses cover the second century. [...]priority is given to those writings that represent what other accounts call “the great church” or “proto-orthodoxy,” and the story finishes before Irenaeus, although he and several later church fathers necessarily on occasion occupy the footnotes. Dunn’s approach follows that of the earlier section, beginning from the Paul-James tension he had identified in the second volume, and working through the traditions and texts item by item to explore the figure of James in New Testament, patristic, Jewish-Christian and gnostic sources, and to attempt to reconstruct the history of the Jerusalem Church into the second century. Persecution and the emerging ideology of martyrdom, apologetics and the engagement with contemporary philosophy, the social dynamics of group formation or of ritual, asceticism and understandings of gender and the body, the development of heresiology as a genre and as an ideology—all topics that have dominated recent discussion of the period in creative ways—are almost entirely absent, or are mentioned in passing only in so far as they serve the structure to which Dunn has committed himself.

Veneradas tradiciones del cristianismo hispano

I have the purpose of offering a brief analysis of the texts and sources that affirm or simply recite some “worship traditions” that have their origin in the beginnings of Christianity in our peninsula. I’ll analyse three traditions that have been recorded in a special way –thanks to a progressive centuries-old consolidation and their continuity to the present day-, in the oral propagation and collective memory of our people and in the written transmission of the history of our nation.

An welchem Ort huldigt man dem neugeborenen Christus?

Leonardo’s Adoration of the Magi’s (Galleria degli Uffizi) belongs to an iconographic and semantic tradition, which beneficed of an extraordinary evolution during the second half of the fifteenth century. In such representations the poor wooden construction described by the Bible is combined with the ruins of splendid classical buildings and mean the beginning of Christianity on one hand and the submitted pagan era on the other. A comparison of the two drawings of Leonardo, held in the Louvre and the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe of the Uffizi, and the unfinished painting reveals the various steps of the development of the architectural background. Recent ultraviolet studies identified different solutions, conceived and then abandoned by Leonardo, which allow to reconstruct the ruins and architectural fragments in a more detailed manner. In the first version, the Holy family is placed before a heterogeneous structure of wood and stone, while an antique ruin with two flights of stairs raises on the right side. The drawing of the Uffizi focuses its attention on this ruin now shifted to the left side, while the stairs advance strongly toward the centre. On the right side a fragment of a classical order completes the feature, which evokes an antique forum. In the painting the Holy family is situated is the foreground, without any wooden construction to protect them, and the ruin, whose structure and position is slightly changed, is linked to it by the moving of figures and animals. Like in the drawing of the Uffizi many busy craftsmen reveal that the ruin is intended as a building site. The parallel flights remind us of the church of San Sebastiano in Mantua, built according to Leon Battista Alberti’s project, and seems to have been inspired by the Roman temple of Claudius. In Lorenzo de’ Medici’s villa of Poggio a Caiano, begun in 1485, such a pattern had been adopted for the first time in a private building, introducing a complete metamorphosis of this type. Vasari records that several architects proposed drawings for this villa and if such a competition had taken place before Leonardo left Florence in 1482, the latter could have seen sketches or models, like those of Giuliano da Sangallo, and perhaps even proposed his own project. This could explain his interest for architectural features in his Adoration, a concern less present in his other paintings. No document confirms the hypothesis of a direct link between Lorenzo’s villa and the ruin of the Adoration, but it is sure that the latter one is nearly connected to the entourage of Lorenzo de’ Medici who promoted in this years a renewal of architectural typologies and idioms, founded on the principles of Leon Battista Alberti, the spiritus rector of Lorenzo’s youth. When Perugino finished in 1496 another Adoration for the Augustans of San Scopeto he privileged the poor stable conformingly to the biblical tradition, perhaps as required by the monks. Leonardo’s ruin as building-site, as an original metaphor of the new Christian religion, had only little Nachleben. A significant testimony is however an Adoration about 1522/1523 attributed to Sebastiano Serlio, who could have known Leonardo’s bold architectural background through his master Baldassarre Peruzzi.

Cuerpos ambiguos. Un estudio comparativo del status antropológico y político de las mujeres en las Cartas Pastorales y los Hechos Apócrifos de Pablo y Tecla

Los estudios sobre las Cartas Pastorales (1 y 2 Timoteo y Tito) ponen de manifiesto que se trata de escritos compuestos en un contexto polémico. Por un lado, el autor pretende erigirse en legítimo heredero de la tradición paulina frente a otro tipo de teologías con las mismas pretensiones y, por otro, el escrito presenta una doctrina propia con importantes repercusiones para entender los roles de género en los inicios del cristianismo. El presente estudio toma como modelo de análisis la teoría de Mary Douglas acerca de la interrelación entre el cuerpo social y el cuerpo físico para comparar las visiones normativas de género de las Cartas Pastorales (CP) y de los Hechos Apócrifos de Pablo y Tecla (HchPlTe).

Studi Eksegetis Yohanes 1:1-18 Sebagai Apologetik Terhadap Kristologi Saksi Yehuwa

Eksegesa John 1 : 1-18 shows that the Jehovah's Witness teachings deviate from the truth of the Bible and dangerous for Christians . The danger Christology of Jehovah's Witnesses should be bringing us to the prudence and discretion to reject it . It can be said that Jehovah's Witnesses do not include Christianity in accordance with the search results against their teachings . first ; they do not recognize the Bible that has been issued by the Indonesian National Bible Institute and consider if the Bible has too much harm to use their own New Translation of the Holy Scriptures that have been proven not a translation , but just a collection of interpretations and teachings of their leader alone . second ; Jehovah's Witnesses do not acknowledge Jesus as Lord and Savior only . They simply believe that salvation is obtained through belief in Jehovah and his kingdom and perform service message and follow the trial associations .
 Before errors interfere Christology Christology of Jehovah's Witnesses Bible , please note that the topic of Christology is the difference between Christianity and other religions . This discussion has also become one of the topics that face many attacks from the outside or from within Christianity , either in the form of religion , philosophy , and ideology . The debate on this topic appeared since the beginning of Christianity , and give rise to a long and complex debate for nearly three centuries ( 300 years ) !! . Such debates will continue to exist throughout the period and just a rehash issues that had once appeared . And Christians should study the various debates and views of the ever emerging that are not easily fooled by the views back to this era .Eksegesa John 1 : 1-18 has been done and produce a biblical Christology and biblical correct . The truth is not in doubt because of the analysis conducted in accordance with the procedures and rules that apply in general . Now if Christology Christology of John compared with Jehovah's Witnesses, it will show a striking difference . Once observed , Christology Witnesses builds upon the interpretation of individuals who previously have had a negative Christological doctrine .
 Conclusion those who think that Jesus is the firstborn of Creation ; Jesus was a human being ; Jesus is God in creating a peer ; Jesus lower than God , Jesus is the Angel Gabriel , and other Christological doctrine which basically degrading nature of Christ is a form of insult to the majesty of Christ . The Bible clearly and emphatically teaches that Christ is God incarnate , private alpha and omega , the creator of all that exists , and the equivalent of God the Father . Summing Christ as superior human or clear eldest creation is false teachings . The followers of Jehovah's Witnesses must repent. Amen

Acts and Christian Beginnings: A Review Essay

This article reviews recent claims that the Acts of the Apostles should be dated in the second century, not in the first century as most scholars currently argue. It notes a range of works that make such claims in passing, but focuses on the multi-authored work Acts and Christian Beginnings, and on some of the publications on which its authors depend. Particular attention is given to the work of Richard Pervo and his case that Acts used both Josephus and a collection of Paul’s letters, and his claim that this requires a second-century date for Acts. The article notes the strength of the case for Luke’s use of both Josephus’ Antiquities and some of Paul’s letters, but questions whether this requires a second-century date, and reflects on the wider issues that are at stake.

La diócesis de Belley-Ars. La memoria de los santos, el Cura de Ars

Aunque la actual diócesis de Belley-Ars fue creada en 1822 sus frutos de santidad tienen una historia de más de 1500 años. El trabajo analiza el desarrollo del catolicismo en el territorio del Ain donde se encuentra Lyon y Vienne sedes conciliares de gran tradición católica. En este recorrido se pueden destacar los inicios del cristianismo y la figura de san Martín de Tours, la reforma monástica (con el influjo de Cluny y el proliferar de las cartujas), y la reforma católica del siglo XVII con los personajes señeros de san Francisco de Sales y san Vicente de Paúl. Luego, analiza sucintamente la vida del Cura de Ars para pasar en un segundo momento a explicar el estado del catolicismo francés en tiempos del santo, mostrando las dificultades a las que se enfrentó.

Chrześcijanie i poganie. O problemach interpretacji odkryć archeologicznych związanych z początkami chrześcijaństwa na ziemiach polskich.

Mediaeval historians as well as archaeologists have been intrigued by the beginning of Christianity in Poland. The interest intensified in 2016 when the country celebrated the 1050th anniversary of the baptism of Poland. The accompanying discussions indicate that facing the ambiguous written sources, researchers still disagree about fundamental data like the year and the location of the baptism, its circumstances or material evidence of the events. An argument was put forward that in this context, celebrating the 1050th anniversary of the baptism of Poland is groundless. Attention was drawn to the fact that baptism of the ruler and his entourage did not affect the country’s inhabitants who remained pagans for a long time afterwards. In this article, I highlight some aspects of the research and the controversy surrounding the interpretation of archaeological finds from the beginning of Christianity in Poland. I also indicate other possibilities of interpreting the existing archaeological sources and the possible ways in further research.

Paul and Mark. Comparative Essays Part 1. Two Authors at the Beginnings of Christianity. Edited by OdaWischmeyer, David C.Sim, and Ian J.Elmer. BZNW, 198. Göttingen: De Gruyter, 2014. Pp. ix + 708. $182.00.

Paul and Mark. Comparative Essays Part 1. Two Authors at the Beginnings of Christianity. Edited by OdaWischmeyer, David C.Sim, and Ian J.Elmer. BZNW, 198. Göttingen: De Gruyter, 2014. Pp. ix + 708. $182.00.

Acts and Christian Beginnings—The Acts Seminar Report. Edited by Dennis E.Smith and Joseph B.Tyson. Salem, OR: Polebridge, 2013. Pp. xi + 370. Paper, $29.00.

Acts and Christian Beginnings—The Acts Seminar Report. Edited by Dennis E.Smith and Joseph B.Tyson. Salem, OR: Polebridge, 2013. Pp. xi + 370. Paper, $29.00.

LIETUVIŲ KALBOS DRAUDIMO INTERPRETACIJA 1889 m. „VARPO“ PUSLAPIUOSE

In all times, the status of the Lithuanian language has been associated with the development of Lithuanian state and its people as well as with the changing historical factors. At the end of the 19th century, the intellectuals enshrined the ideas of statehood and freedom. The first Lithuanian newspapers “Aušra” (1883–1886) and “Varpas” (1889–1905) are symbols of the national revival. The aim of this research is to reveal the essence of interpretations published in the newspaper “Varpas” (1889) concerning the language prohibition policy in Lithuania.The “Varpas” trends met the natural expectations of the Lithuanian nation in the end of the 19th century, especially to preserve the native language, while newspaper publishers’ arguments revealed the weakness of the czar’s government strategy regarding the Lithuanian language: Latin letters are connected with the Lithuanian language from the beginning of Christianity in the Lithuania (1387) and the institutional education; the most important criterion for renouncing the Russian alphabet is the nation’s decision. The Latin alphabet is a truly national thing; the prohibition to use the Lithuanian language in public life can be considered as a manipulation of the nation from the religious point of view, as part of the assimilation policy which forces Lithuanians to abandon not only their native language, but also their faith; participation of the church in politics shows its great moral decline.The low national self-awareness of Lithuanian families, scarce examples of a positive relation between the Lithuanian language and Lithuanian intellectuals (medics, priests), students’ receptivity to foreign language elements tattered confidence among Lithuanians. Therefore “Varpas” publishers decided to perform a mission – to explain the ways how to unite, to protect the nation’s foundation – its language, and to strengthen national self-awareness.

Semantic Voids, New Testament Translation, and Anachronism

This essay addresses the problem of theologically-inflected English translation choices of the New Testament, and how those translations come to bear in theologically disinterested scholarship on Christian beginnings. As a case study I examine the ubiquitous rendering ofekklesiaas “church” in Paul’s letters. I argue that Paul was not referring to Christian churches, but to the “day of theekklesia” in the Septuagint, when God’s people gathered at Sinai/Horeb. Paul is not making Christians out of pagans; he is making quasi-Judeans out of gentiles. Renderingekklesiaas “church” inscribes Christian essentialism into Paul’s letters, and masks what Paul is actually doing with this word. The bridging of Greek-to-English semantic voids on the part of translators and New Testament scholars is a consistent problem that frustrates advancements in Pauline studies, and in studies of the religions of the Roman Empire more generally.

Reconsidering Hamartia as “Sin” in 1 Corinthians

English translations of the New Testament (nt) consistently render the Greek termhamartiaand its cognates as “sin.” English translations of other Greek texts dated to roughly the same time period, however, provide a variety of English words such as “mistake,” error,” or “things we get wrong,” to accommodate contextual nuances. This essay argues that this bifurcation has several unappealing consequences for the study of Christian beginnings. The palpable difference in translation portrays thenttexts as unique departures from the moral discourse of the time and reifies an unnecessary divide between early Christian and other kinds of moral literature, while the unqualified use of the English word sin brings with it the possibility that readers will import more unified theological doctrines about sin onto texts written well before the doctrines were even developed.

Paul and the Faithfulness of God, Parts I and II, III and IV. By N. T. WRIGHT.

T hese are the next two volumes in Tom Wright’s massive multi-volume study, Christian Origins and the Question of God . Since the time gap between volumes is substantial, it is perhaps appropriate to recall the earlier volumes—Vol. 1, The New Testament and the People of God (SPCK 1992), Vol. 2, Jesus and the Victory of God (SPCK 1996), and Vol. 3, The Resurrection of the Son of God (SPCK 2003). The last named, Vol. 3 of the series, had obviously broken away from the original sequence (the resurrection of Jesus being so important). The consequence of this change in sequence was that questions left hanging from Vol. 2, about Jesus’ own expectations and their fulfilment, were not really taken up and remain(ed) hanging. One wonders whether they will ever be taken up in sequence, since the next two volumes make a substantial jump from the first Christian Easter to Paul, leaving the issue of the beginnings of Christianity in Jerusalem (and elsewhere?), and the most immediate corollary in Jewish Christianity abandoned in the gap. The fact that the two Paul volumes, although listed under the overall heading of Christian Origins and the Question of God , break the sequence by not being numbered volumes 4.1 and 4.2, presumably indicates the author’s awareness that the sequence suffers somewhat from a degree of discontinuity.

Das Martyrium als imitatio Christi: Die literarische Gestaltung der spätantiken Märtyrerakten und -passionen nach der Passion Christi

Abstract From the beginning of Christianity, the martyrs have been deemed paragons of the ideal of imitatio Christi, their willingness to lose their life for Christ’s sake proving their perfect discipleship. This article examines how martyrdom is literarily framed as an imitation of the Passion of Christ within the Latin acta martyrum and passiones from the 4th to 6th centuries. After an outline of the imitation concept in the New Testament, several instances from those late antique stories reveal a literary technique to deepen the description of the martyrdom by means of inserting quotations from and allusions to the Passion into the martyr narrative. In this manner the martyrdom account relates to the Passion of Christ, and-to at least some extent-renews its model. Two early instances (the stoning of Stephen [Acts 6:8−7:60] and the Martyrium Polycarpi) demonstrate that such stylization is no late antique innovation but dates back to the era of the Apostolic Fathers. Observations in the late antique narrative show its continuing popularity, but also a restraint in identifying the martyrs too much with Christ. By limiting the references, both quantitatively and qualitatively, the hagiographers made sure that (even a partial) imitation of the Passion of Christ in no way would amount to rivalry with the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus.

The Differences and Reasons of Religious Influences on Chinese and Western Dramas

The origin of both Chinese and western drama has close relationship with religions. At the beginning of middle ages, however, the Buddhism and Christianity affected the development of Chinese and western drama in China and western countries respectively. This paper analyzes the great influences of Buddhism and Christianity on the process and themes of Chinese and western drama from middle ages, and discusses the reasons of different development process and themes caused by Buddhism and Christianity through the analysis of two different doctrines and the penetrating styles in civil. There are many differences between the Chinese and western dramas, one of which is the description of ghost. In Chinese drama, the ghosts would be involved in the events of the real world, and the in the western drama, one rarely finds the ghost returns to the real world under the influence of the Christianity. The belief in the Buddhism in China is often utilitarian, so the drama under the influence of the Buddhism seldom has the consciousness of transcendence, which is contrary to the western drama.

Conflict, Conquest, and Conversion: Two Thousand Years of Christian Missions in the Middle East. By Eleanor H. Tejirian and Reeva Spector Simon. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012. 280 pp. $35.00 cloth.

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)Conflict, Conquest, and Conversion: Two Thousand of Christian Missions in the Middle East . By Eleanor H. Tejirian and Reeva Spector Simon . New York : Columbia University Press , 2012. 280 pp. $35.00 cloth.Book Reviews and NotesThis survey joins an ever-increasing number of studies on Christian Missions in the Middle East. Western Catholic and Protestant missions have been the object of much scrutiny and curiosity, especially after the rise of the Orientalism and Clash of Civilizations paradigms that have been raised by Middle Eastern scholars in the last quarter of the twentieth century. With several U.S. led invasions of Iraq, the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and with the seismic shifts taking place in nationalist identities due the Arab Spring, studies of such intercultural and interreligious engagements will only increase. This work is part of a larger and longer term project by Eleanor Tejirian and Reeva Spector Simon on the study of Western interaction with the Middle East. Having held several international conferences in the area of Middle East Studies, these two scholars published the results of a pre-9/11 and pre-2003 Iraqi Invasion conference titled Altruism and Imperialism: Western Cultural and Religious Missions in the Middle East by Columbia University Press in 2002.While previous studies have undertaken specific tasks of considering particular mission agencies, areas or events, Conflict, Conquest, and Conversion sets out analyze the Middle East as the place of origin for all Christian mission. It attempts examine the Middle East as an entity in and of itself, as the place where Christianity was born, settled, expanded out of, returned and clashed with the indigenous peoples. The authors' intentions are provide an overarching and religious of the region. As Tejirian and Simon indicate, the survey is to provide a benchmark narrative that tells the story of Christian missions the Middle East from the beginning of Christianity the present (x-xi). A major emphasis of this narrative provides particular attention the social and political constructs from which and into which Christian missionaries engaged.The book is divided into nine very manageable chapters laid out in a historical progression. Chapter 1 lays the foundation for the First Thousand Years of Christianity, noting its origin as a Middle Eastern religion. The mediaeval period is taken up in chapters 2 and 3 where the focus is primarily upon Latin Christian mission and culture. Western Protestant missions take up the lion's share of the book, comprising chapters 4-7. Significant attention is given the cultural projects of Western Protestant mission agencies. Chapters 8 and 9 conclude with the role of Western mission after the great World Wars and the rise of nationalism. The attention the impact of the cultural issues of Western missions in the midst of dramatic political changes is not new this field but is an important focus of this work and is done well.Surveys are always difficult projects. To provide a compelling narrative while maintaining faithfulness complex issues is never easy. A work of this design would have better served its readers in several ways. First, while the authors are be commended for their intention provide a broader social, religious, and political context of missions in the Middle East, the 207 pages of content do not do justice the topic. This of course is an economic issue, but certainly a survey of two thousand years deserves more pages. Pages are jam packed with terms, ideas, and movements that necessarily rush along. In some cases definitions are not clearly given.Second, given the broad landscape of history and issues covered in this survey, using a variety of voices by different authors might have helped underline the importance, complexity, and care with which a topic of this magnitude calls. …

The Jewish Jesus: How Judaism and Christianity Shaped Each Other by Peter Schäfer, and: The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ by Daniel Boyarin (review)

Reviewed by: The Jewish Jesus: How Judaism and Christianity Shaped Each Other by Peter Schäfer, and: The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ by Daniel Boyarin Zev Garber The Jewish Jesus: How Judaism and Christianity Shaped Each Other Peter Schäfer . Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012. 370 pp. The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ Daniel Boyarin . New York, 2012. 224 pp. The effort of Peter Schäfer, emeritus Director of the Program in Judaic Studies and Ronald O. Perelman Professor of Jewish Studies and Professor of Religion at Princeton University, to evaluate the challenge and influence of nascent Christianity on formative rabbinic Judaism in the Second Temple Judaism period is distinguished by a dual accomplishment. The introductory chapter of The Jewish Jesus presents an overview of the volume, which argues that Christianity and Judaism are parallel sister religions engaged in self-other polemical and apologetic interaction during late antiquity in search of personal and group identity. Rigid definitions ("heresies," "orthodoxy." religions," "sects," etc.) are questioned. Radicalization of strict monotheism is offered; that is, to demarcate between the rhetoric and practice of the belief mitswah. More important, the accepted paradigm of rabbinic opponents, that is, pagan Greco-Roman polytheism, in all its diversity on the one hand, and beginnings of Christianity on the other hand, is reassessed. Selections from the varied streams of biblical, rabbinical, and noncanonical writings are compared and contrasted. Together they encompasses politics, theology, mysticism, eschatology, and history issues primarily related to creation, revelation, and redemption in the period of Jesus reaching ab [End Page 131] initio and projecting ad infinium. Second, Schäfer's cogent methodology provides a critical view of the literary structures and secondary sources under discussion. He sees additional sources in the basic narrative and his literary analytical approach enables the reader to encounter literary themes and approaches in context and to appreciate different opinions on the rabbinic imagination. His chapters are carefully planned and argued: anatomy of a literary composition, levels of interpretation, sample readings, several footnotes and an acceptable bibliography. Schäfer's volume is divided into nine chapters. Chapter 1, "Different Names of God," is an analytical discussion focusing on the mis/understanding and mis/usage of the two basic names for the Israelite God in the Hebrew Bible, namely, the grammatically plural ending Elohim (God/Gods) and the mystery surrounding the sacramental activity of the high priest related to the tetragrammaton YHWH (Lord). In Second Temple Judaism, "heretics" chose to see Elohim referring to a variety of gods. Thus, parallels with pagan Greco-Roman cults, the complex diarchy and tetrarchy of the hierarchical Roman Empire, and the birthing of the two later three powers of the Christian God. Chapter 2, "The Young and Old God," explains that the different guises associated with God in a third-century Palestinian midrash represent multiple activities and attributes explicit in the narrative. By no means do the titles mean multiple gods. Chapter 3, "God and David," explicates a heretical tendenz within Babylonian rabbinical authority founded on Daniel 7:9 and mentioned in the anonymous David Apocalypse in the Hakhalot literature that the throne of mashiach ben david (Judean Messiah of the line of David) is exalted alongside the throne of God. Rejection of the thrones of equal divine figures is interpreted as rejection of the elevated Lamb of God in the New Testament Book of Revelation. Chapter 4, "God and Metatron," opines that the elevation of Enoch-Metatron in the Bavli and in 3 Enoch (Hekhalot literature) are a sharp rejection of the elevation of Jesus to divine status in the New Testament. Chapter 5,"Has God a Father, a Son, or a Brother?," relates Roman Empire hierarchy to God's family background in Palestinian midrashim, and embraces dissection of God and Son in Christian origins played out against the claims of Judaism and Christianity on the proper inheritor of Eretz Israel. Chapter 6, "The Angels," depicts early Palestinian authority negation of a trend in angelology that elevates angels beyond their usual role of praising and serving the Lord. For example, literality of biblical verses on [End Page 132] creation ("Let us [God and Angels] make man") pose...