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The study of Hebrews and the Catholic Epistles was never truly confined to their place in fraught ecclesiastical disputes. Recent decades have witnessed a resurgence of interest in these writings. The present volume seeks to assess the relevance of these works to various questions that are often posed to other parts of the New Testament canon, to report on the current state of scholarship devoted to the interpretive issues they raise, and to survey their rich and often-overlooked afterlives.
List of contents
- Preface, Patrick Gray
- Part I : General Issues
- The Text of Hebrews and the Catholic Epistles, Thomas J. Kraus
- Hebrews, the Catholic Epistles, and the Canon, Darian Lockett
- Hebrews, the Catholic Epistles, and the Arithmetic of Canon Lists, Clare K. Rothschild
- Anonymity, Orthonymity, and Pseudonymity in Hebrews and the Catholic Epistles, Armin D. Baum
- Hebrews, the Catholic Epistles, and Pauline Christianity, Bryan R. Dyer
- Hebrews, the Catholic Epistles, and the "Parting of the Ways," Matt Jackson-McCabe
- Hebrews, the Catholic Epistles, and the "Delay of the Parousia," Simon J. Gathercole
- Part II: Hebrews
- Hebrews: Contested Issues, Kenneth Schenck
- Hebrews and the Question of Supersessionism, Philip Church
- How Hebrews Reads Scripture, Susan Docherty
- Hebrews and the Atonement, David M. Moffitt
- Part III: The Catholic Epistles
- The Letter of James: Contested Issues, Alicia Batten
- 1 Peter: Contested Issues, Duane F. Watson
- 2 Peter and Jude: Contested Issues, Travis B. Williams
- The Johannine Letters: Contested Issues, William M. Wright IV
- James and the Historical Jesus, Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr
- The Ecclesiology of the Catholic Epistles, David J. Downs
- Apocalyptic Traditions in the Catholic Epistles, Katie Marcar
- Part IV: Reception and Engagement
- The Reception History of Hebrews, Jason A. Whitlark
- The Reception History of the Letter of James, David B. Gowler
- The Reception History of 1-2 Peter and Jude, Patrick Gray and Adam Booth
- The Reception History of the Johannine Epistles, Alicia D. Myers
- The Reception of Hebrews in the Roman Catholic Tradition at the Council of Trent, Alan C. Mitchell
- Hebrews and the Catholic Epistles in Protestant Creeds, Confessions, Liturgy, and Song, Amy Peeler and Lance Peeler
About the author
Patrick Gray is Professor of Religious Studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. He is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to the New Testament and Varieties of Religious Invention and the author of Hebrews (with Amy Peeler), The Routledge Guidebook to the New Testament, and Paul as a Problem in History and Culture.
Summary
While the Gospels, Paul's Letters, and the Book of Revelation have been well served by volumes orienting readers to the scholarly literature and to their reception histories, Hebrews and the Catholic Epistles have not received nearly the same attention. This relative neglect is in part a legacy of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. Insofar as doctrinal purity in Protestant circles was defined according to rubrics that were, implicitly or explicitly, Pauline in orientation, Hebrews and the Catholic Epistles were at an obvious disadvantage. However, these writings have had a great influence on Christianity throughout the centuries.
As it turns out, the study of Hebrews and the Catholic Epistles was never truly confined to their place in fraught ecclesiastical disputes. Recent decades have witnessed a resurgence of interest in these writings. The present volume seeks to assess the relevance of these works to various questions that are often posed to other parts of the New Testament canon, to report on the current state of scholarship devoted to the interpretive issues they raise, and to survey their rich and often-overlooked afterlives.
Divided into four parts-general issues, topics related to Hebrews, topics related to the Catholic Epistles, and reception and engagement-The Oxford Handbook of Hebrews and the Catholic Epistles studies these books individually as witnesses to the cultural and theological diversity of the early church but also for what they reveal about the process that would eventually produce the New Testament canon.
