Christian Origins and Greco-Roman Culture

Stanley E. Porter, Ph.D. (1988), University of Sheffield, is President and Dean, and Professor of New Testament, at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He has published numerous monographs, edited volumes, and articles in the field of New Testament studies and related disciplines, including Hermeneutics: An Introduction to Interpretive Theory (2011).Andrew W. Pitts is a Ph.D. candidate in Christian Theology at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and has published articles in journals such as JBL, JGRChJ and CBR, as well as a number of chapters in edited volumes.

... readers are given a master-class in the use of texts from Greco-Roman and Hellenistic Jewish sources to enrich the understanding of the emergence of Christianity. Paul Foster, School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh, Expository Times 126/6, March 2015

• 1. Greco-Roman Culture in the History of New Testament Interpretation: An Introductory Essay.Stanley E. Porter and Andrew W. Pitts2. Manuscripts, Scribes, and Book Production within Early Christianity.Michael J. Kruger3. What Do We Know and How Do We Know It? Reconstructing Early Christianity from its Manuscripts.Stanley E. Porter4. Recent Efforts to Reconstruct Early Christianity on the Basis of its Papyrological Evidence.Stanley E. Porter5. Jesus and Parallel Jewish and Greco-Roman Figures.Craig S. Keener6. The Exorcisms and Healings of Jesus within Classical Culture.Tony Costa7. Cash and Release: Atonement and Release from Oppression in the Imperial Context of Luke’s Gospel.Matthew Forrest Lowe8. Luke and Juvenal at the Crossroads: Space, Movement, and Morality in the Roman Empire.Osman Umurhan and Todd Penner9. Jesus, the Beloved Disciple, and Greco-Roman Friendship Conventions.Ronald F. Hock10. The Imitation of the “Great Man” in Antiquity: Paul’s Inversion of a Cultural Icon.James R. Harrison11. Ephesians: Paul’s Political Theology in Greco-Roman Political Context.Fredrick J. Long12. Exiles, Islands, and the Identity and Perspective of John in Revelation.Brian Mark Rapske 13. Source Citation in Greek Historiography and in Luke(-Acts).Andrew W. Pitts14. Ancient Greek History and its Methodology for Speeches: Is There a Relation to Luke?Sean A. Adams15. Luke as a Hellenistic Historian.Paul L. Maier16. The Genre of the Fourth Gospel and Greco-Roman Literary Conventions.Andreas J. Köstenberger17. Classical Greek Poetry and the Acts of the Apostles: Imitations of Euripides’ Bacchae.Dennis R. MacDonald18. Prescripts and Greco-Roman Epistolary Conventions.E. Randolph Richards19. Letter Openings in Paul and Plato.James Starr20. Progymnasmatic Love.R. Dean Anderson21. “This Is A Great Metaphor!” Reciprocity in the Ephesians Household Code.Cynthia Long Westfall22. Turning Κεϕαλή on its Head: The Rhetoric of Reversal in Ephesians 5:21-33.Michelle Lee-Barnewell23. Frank Speech at Work in Hebrews.Benjamin Fiore, S.J.24. The Strategic Arousal of Emotions in the Apocalypse of John (Part I): A Rhetorical-Critical Investigation of the Oracles to the Seven Churches.David A. deSilva25. The Didache as a Christian Enchiridion.William Varner26. The Classroom in the Text: Exegetical Practices in Justin and Galen.H. Gregory Snyder