Imagining the Death of Jesus in Fourth-Century Mesopotamia

Blake Hartung, Ph.D. (2017), Saint Louis University, is Assistant Teaching Professor of Religious Studies and History at Arizona State University. He has published several articles and a translated volume on early Syriac Christianity.

• PrefaceAbbreviations1 Introduction: Imagining the Death of Jesus in Fourth Century Mesopotamia1 Introduction2 The Subject of This Study3 Why Ephrem?4 Ephrem, the Syriac Tradition, and Early Christianity5 State of the Question: The Death of Jesus in Early Christianity6 Sources for This Study7 The Plan of This Book2 Ephrem’s Biblical Imagination1 Introduction: “Sheol Vomited and Spat out the Dead”2 Ephrem and the Bible3 Ephrem’s Use of Matthew 27:52–534 The Raising of the Dead in Ephrem’s Theological Imagination5 Ephrem, the Bible, and the Resurrection of the Dead in Polemical Context6 Conclusion3 Dramatizing the Defeat of Death: Personification and Performance1 Introduction2 The Personified Death and the Conquering Jesus: Death and Its Defeat in Ephrem’s Mêmrâ on Our Lord3 Adapting the Drama of the Descent to Sheol4 Ephrem’s Audiences and the Performance of Death5 Conclusion4 Dramas of Jewish Rejection: Jews and the Death of Jesus in Ephrem’s Theological Imagination1 Introduction2 Ephrem’s Anti-Jewish Polemic: Rhetoric or Reality?3 The Triumphal Entry: An Anti-Jewish Drama in Poetry and Prose4 Who Are the “Jews”? The Layers of Dramatic Polemic5 Dramatizing Supersessionism6 Alternative Portrayals of Jews7 Conclusion5 The Economy of Debt and Payment: Economic Imagery, Benefaction, and the Death of Jesus1 Introduction2 Economic Imagery and the Context of the Debt Payment Motif3 The Passion as Debt Payment in Publicly Performed Poetry4 The Debt-Paying Passion in Anti-Marcionite Polemic5 Conclusion6 Time, Chronology, and the Crucifixion1 Introduction2 The Feast of Pascha in Northern Mesopotamia3 Marking Time and Retelling the Passion Narrative4 Ephrem’s Cosmic Chronology of the Death of Jesus5 Paschal Chronology: Ephrem and the “Three Day Problem” (Cruc. 6)6 Conclusion7 Conclusion1 Summary of This Work2 The Challenges of Studying Ephrem: Methodological Reflections3 Possibilities for Further StudyBibliographyIndex of Primary SourcesGeneral Index