The Researchers Library of Ancient Texts: Volume One -- The Apocrypha Includes the Books of Enoch, Jasher, and Jubilees

Author:
Publisher: Defender Publishing
ISBN: 9780983621690
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
The Bible, as we hold it today, is esteemed by many religious institutions and especially Conservative Christians to be the inspired, inerrant Word of God. This doctrinal position affirms that the Bible is unlike all other books or collections of works in that it is free of error due to having been "given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Tim. 3:16, 17). While no other text can claim this same unique authority, Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphal literature such as contained in this volume of The Researchers Library of Ancient Texts (Volume One--The Apocrypha: Includes the Books of Enoch, Jasher, and Jubilees), provides literature that often precedes or follows the chronology of biblical texts, which frequently are used or assigned as supplemental works within academic settings to help students and scholars discover or better understand cultural and historical context within the Word of God. Whether or not the information contained in the apocryphal literature is entirely precise--as is the canon of Scripture--these ancient texts provide commentators' valuable insight into what many ancient Jews and early Christians believed when, "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets" (Heb. 1:1). The Researchers Library of Ancient Texts is therefore intended to be a supplemental resource for assisting serious researchers and students in the study of the Bible and Bible times. Contained in this volume: The Book of Enoch, The Book of Jasher, The Book of Jubilees, 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, Susanna, Prayer of Azariah, Prayer of Manasseh, Bel and the Dragon, and Laodiceans.

The Researchers Library of Ancient Texts, Volume 2: The Apostolic Fathers Includes Clement of Rome, Mathetes, Polycarp, Ignatius, Barnabas, Papias, Ju

Author: Alexander Roberts
Publisher: Defense Publishing
ISBN: 9780985604530
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
The Bible, as we hold it today, is esteemed by many religious institutions and especially Conservative Christians to be the inspired, inerrant Word of God. This doctrinal position affirms that the Bible is unlike all other books or collections of works in that it is free of error due to having been "given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Tim. 3:16, 17). While no other text can claim this same unique authority, the Apostolic Fathers included in this volume (also called the Ante-Nicene Fathers), covers the Early Christian writings from the beginning of Christianity until the promulgation of the Nicene Creed at the First Council of Nicaea, which was convened in Bithynia by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325. As such, writings contained in this volume of The Researchers Library of Ancient Texts (Volume Two: The Apostolic Fathers: Includes Clement, Anthenagorus, Mathetes, Polycarp, Ignatius, Barnabas, Papias, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus), provides literature that follows the chronology of New Testament texts, which frequently are used or assigned as supplemental works within academic settings to help students and scholars discover or better understand cultural and historical context of the early Christian Church. These ancient texts provide commentators valuable insight into what many ancient Jews and early Christians believed when, "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets" (Heb. 1:1). The Researchers Library of Ancient Texts is therefore intended to be a supplemental resource for assisting serious researchers and students in the study of the Bible and the early Church age. Contained in this volume: The works of Clement, Anthenagorus, Mathetes, Polycarp, Ignatius, Barnabas, Papias, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus.

Ancient Texts for the Study of the Hebrew Bible

Author: Kenton L. Sparks
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 9780801047732
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
The Hebrew Bible represents no mere collection of books but a stunning array of literary genres. To fully illuminate the history and culture of the Old Testament, it is necessary to compare these ancient writings to similar texts written concurrently by Israel's neighbors. Beginning with an overview of the important literary archives of the ancient Near East, Sparks provides exhaustive references to the ancient literary counterparts to the Hebrew Bible's major genres. Surveying the ancient writings found throughout Egypt, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and Palestine, Sparks provides a brief summary of each text discussed, translating brief portions and linking them to literarily similar biblical passages. Exploring over thirty genres--wisdom, hymns, love poetry, rituals, prophecy, apocalyptic, novella, epic legend, myth, genealogy, history, law, treaty, epigraphic materials, and others--it offers an exemplary guide to the fertile literary environment from which the canonical writings sprung. Rich with bibliographic material, this invaluable catalog enables the reader to locate not only the published texts in their original ancient languages but to find suitable English translations and commentary bearing on these ancient texts. A number of helpful indexes round out this outstanding resource. Providing students with a thorough introduction to the literature of the ancient Near East--and time-pressed scholars with an admirably up-to-date research tool--it will become a syllabus standard for a myriad of courses.

New Worlds, Ancient Texts

Author: Anthony Grafton
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674254120
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Book Description
Describing an era of exploration during the Renaissance that went far beyond geographic bounds, this book shows how the evidence of the New World shook the foundations of the old, upsetting the authority of the ancient texts that had guided Europeans so far afield. What Anthony Grafton recounts is a war of ideas fought by mariners, scientists, publishers, and rulers over a period of 150 years. In colorful vignettes, published debates, and copious illustrations, we see these men and their contemporaries trying to make sense of their discoveries as they sometimes confirm, sometimes contest, and finally displace traditional notions of the world beyond Europe.

God's Library

Author: Brent Nongbri
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300240988
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 416

Book Description
A provocative book from a highly original scholar, challenging much of what we know about early Christian manuscripts In this bold and groundbreaking book, Brent Nongbri provides an up-to-date introduction to the major collections of early Christian manuscripts and demonstrates that much of what we thought we knew about these books and fragments is mistaken. While biblical scholars have expended much effort in their study of the texts contained within our earliest Christian manuscripts, there has been a surprising lack of interest in thinking about these books as material objects with individual, unique histories. We have too often ignored the ways that the antiquities market obscures our knowledge of the origins of these manuscripts. Through painstaking archival research and detailed studies of our most important collections of early Christian manuscripts, Nongbri vividly shows how the earliest Christian books are more than just carriers of texts or samples of handwriting. They are three-dimensional archaeological artifacts with fascinating stories to tell, if we’re willing to listen.

Ancient Texts for New Testament Studies

Author: Craig A. Evans
Publisher: Hendrickson Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 584

Book Description
One of the daunting challenges facing the New Testament interpreter is achieving familiarity with the immense corpus of Greco-Roman, Jewish, and pagan primary source materials. From the Paraphrase of Shem to Pesiqta Rabbati, scholars and students alike must have a fundamental understanding of these documents' content, provenance, and place in NT interpretation. But achieving even an elementary facility with this literature often requires years of experience, or a photographic memory. Evans's dexterous survey-a thoroughly revised and significantly expanded edition of his Noncanonical Writings and New Testament Interpretation - amasses the requisite details of date, language, text, translation, and general bibliography. Evans also evaluates the materials' relevance for interpreting the NT. The vast range of literature examined includes the Old Testament apocrypha, the Old Testament pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, assorted ancient translations of the Old Testament and the Targum paraphrases, Philo and Josephus, the New Testament pseudepigrapha, the early church fathers, various gnostic writings, and more. the NT, and a comparison of Jesus' parables with those of the rabbis will further save the interpreter precious time.

Christianity and the Transformation of the Book

Author: Anthony Grafton
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674037863
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Book Description
When early Christians began to study the Bible, and to write their own history and that of the Jews whom they claimed to supersede, they used scholarly methods invented by the librarians and literary critics of Hellenistic Alexandria. But Origen and Eusebius, two scholars of late Roman Caesarea, did far more. Both produced new kinds of books, in which parallel columns made possible critical comparisons previously unenvisioned, whether between biblical texts or between national histories. Eusebius went even farther, creating new research tools, new forms of history and polemic, and a new kind of library to support both research and book production. Christianity and the Transformation of the Book combines broad-gauged synthesis and close textual analysis to reconstruct the kinds of books and the ways of organizing scholarly inquiry and collaboration among the Christians of Caesarea, on the coast of Roman Palestine. The book explores the dialectical relationship between intellectual history and the history of the book, even as it expands our understanding of early Christian scholarship. Christianity and the Transformation of the Book attends to the social, religious, intellectual, and institutional contexts within which Origen and Eusebius worked, as well as the details of their scholarly practices--practices that, the authors argue, continued to define major sectors of Christian learning for almost two millennia and are, in many ways, still with us today.,

Christianity, Book-Burning and Censorship in Late Antiquity

Author: Dirk Rohmann
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110486075
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 370

Book Description
It is estimated that only a small fraction, less than 1 per cent, of ancient literature has survived to the present day. The role of Christian authorities in the active suppression and destruction of books in Late Antiquity has received surprisingly little sustained consideration by academics. In an approach that presents evidence for the role played by Christian institutions, writers and saints, this book analyses a broad range of literary and legal sources, some of which have hitherto been little studied. Paying special attention to the problem of which genres and book types were likely to be targeted, the author argues that in addition to heretical, magical, astrological and anti-Christian books, other less obviously subversive categories of literature were also vulnerable to destruction, censorship or suppression through prohibition of the copying of manuscripts. These include texts from materialistic philosophical traditions, texts which were to become the basis for modern philosophy and science. This book examines how Christian authorities, theologians and ideologues suppressed ancient texts and associated ideas at a time of fundamental transformation in the late classical world.

Scribes and Schools

Author: Philip R. Davies
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
ISBN: 9780664227289
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 236

Book Description
Scribes and Schools is an examination of the processes which led to the canonization of the Hebrew Bible. Philip Davies sheds light on the social reasons for the development of the canon and in so doing presents a clear picture of how the Bible came into being. Volumes in the Library of Ancient Israel draw on multiple disciplines--such as archaeology, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, and literary criticism--to illuminate the everyday realities and social subtleties these ancient cultures experienced. This series employs sophisticated methods resulting in original contributions that depict the reality of the people behind the Hebrew Bible and interprets these insights for a wide variety of readers.

Ancient Libraries

Author: Jason König
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107244587
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 501

Book Description
The circulation of books was the motor of classical civilization. However, books were both expensive and rare, and so libraries - private and public, royal and civic - played key roles in articulating intellectual life. This collection, written by an international team of scholars, presents a fundamental reassessment of how ancient libraries came into being, how they were organized and how they were used. Drawing on papyrology and archaeology, and on accounts written by those who read and wrote in them, it presents new research on reading cultures, on book collecting and on the origins of monumental library buildings. Many of the traditional stories told about ancient libraries are challenged. Few were really enormous, none were designed as research centres, and occasional conflagrations do not explain the loss of most ancient texts. But the central place of libraries in Greco-Roman culture emerges more clearly than ever.