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Early Jewish Writings and New Testament Interpretation is a concise, introductory volume to orient undergraduates, seminarians, and interested readers to some of the most important early Jewish writings that currently inform New Testament interpretation. Written in accessible, non-technical language,
Early Jewish Writings and New Testament Interpretation introduces readers to some of the most important extra-canonical early Jewish writings from the Hellenistic and Roman eras, and how they currently inform understandings of early Christianity and New Testament literature.
List of contents
- 1.Forms of "Scripture" in Early Judaism
- Early Judaism
- Canon and "Non-Canonical" Literature
- Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical Books
- Pseudepigrapha
- Dead Sea Scrolls
- Philo and Josephus
- This Book
- 2.The Glory of Wisdom
- The Dimensions of Wisdom
- Sages and Scribes
- Wisdom Writings
- The Wisdom of Jesus ben Sira
- The Wisdom of Solomon
- Wisdom in the New Testament
- 3.In the Last Days
- Apocalyptic Literature
- Apocalyptic Thought
- 1 Enoch
- Post-70 CE Apocalypses
- 4 Ezra
- 2 Baruch
- Apocalypse of Abraham
- Apocalypticism in the New Testament
- 4.Rewriting Scripture
- Explicit Interpretation
- Implicit Interpretation
- Rewritten Scriptures
- Jubilees
- Biblical Antiquities (Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum)
- Scriptural Interpretation in the New Testament
- 5.In the Wilderness
- The Community of the Dead Sea Scrolls
- Scriptural Manuscripts and Their Interpretation
- Rule Documents
- Legal Writings
- Psalms, Hymns, Prayers
- Wisdom and Apocalypticism
- The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament
- 6.Jews, Greeks, and Romans
- Philo of Alexandria
- Philo and the New Testament
- Josephus
- Josephus and the New Testament
- Glossary
- Works Cited
- Index of Sources
About the author
C. D. Elledge is Associate Professor of Religion at Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota, where he teaches courses in New Testament and Early Jewish literature. After completing his Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary, Elledge served as a Fulbright Scholar at the Hebrew University Institute of Archaeology and the Ecole Biblique de Jerusalem.
Summary
Early Jewish Writings and New Testament Interpretation is a concise, introductory volume to orient undergraduates, seminarians, and interested readers to some of the most important early Jewish writings that currently inform New Testament interpretation. While the literature of Early Judaism is vast, five specific literary categories stand at the forefront of modern New Testament research. These include wisdom writings, apocalypses, rewritten scriptural narratives, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the writings of Philo and Josephus. Individual chapters explain their respective contributions toward interpreting the theological ideas, socio-historical settings, and literary features of specific New Testament writings.
The volume further describes literary collections that the church would later classify as “apocrypha” and “pseudepigrapha,” providing an historically nuanced perspective on what “scripture” might have looked like prior to the formation of the biblical canon. Interpreted within their ancient context, many of these writings offer insight into a religious environment in which Judaism and the nascent church were still emerging religions that had not yet gone their “separate” ways. The reader of the New Testament today can, therefore, understand the indebtedness of the New Testament literature to traditions found in contemporary Jewish works, while also appreciating the creative, new ways in which the church interpreted them.
