Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism (2016)
During 2016, the “Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism” published several noteworthy articles.
2-Corinthians
The Christ of His Christ
Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, ‘Anna Presenting Her Son Samuel to the
Priest Eli’
In due order within The City of God’s longer discussion of Hannah’s prayer at Samuel’s dedication, 1 Augustine arrives at the clause, “[a]nd [he] shall exalt the horn of His Christ” ( 1 Sam 2:10). Here, Augustine ponders:
How shall Christ exalt the horn of His Christ? For He of whom it was said above, “The Lord hath ascended into the heavens,” [1 Sam 2:10 LXX; 4QSama col. 2, line 33] meaning the Lord Christ, Himself, as it is said here, “shall exalt the horn of His Christ.” Who, therefore, is the Christ of His Christ? Does it mean that He shall exalt the horn of each one of His believing people, as [Hannah] says in the beginning of this hymn, “Mine horn is exalted in my God?” [1 Sam 2:1 LXX, Vg.] For we can rightly call all those christs who are anointed with His chrism, forasmuch as the whole body with its head is one Christ. 2
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Forthcoming in BBR: “Rewriting Prophets in the Corinthian Correspondence”
The folks at the Bulletin for Biblical Research have very kindly agreed to publish a revised version of my presentation from the November, 2009 meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society: “Rewriting Prophets in the Corinthian Correspondence: A Window on Paul’s Hermeneutic.” To provide just a bit fuller picture of the essay’s argument:
In the broadest sense of the phrase, any use of Jewish scripture by a later author(s) could be understood to constitute a form of ‘rewritten Bible’. The phrase ‘rewritten Bible’ has, however, come to have a technical meaning whereby it designates a certain body of ancient, Jewish literature. The precise shape of this body of literature continues to be debated, but even with consensus on this specific point as far away as it is, ‘rewritten Bible’ can contribute valuable information to the study of Paul’s use of scripture. In particular, ‘rewritten Bible’ provides a useful foil for the study of Paul’s citations in 1 Cor 1:31 and 2 Cor 10:17 and the hermeneutical paradigm upon which these citations’ validity implicitly rests. In this case, Paul’s connections with ‘rewritten Bible’ literature especially help suggest the constitutive, hermeneutical role that Jesus played as Paul interpreted scripture for the Corinthian church within the broader context of some of the hermeneutical traditions of his near contemporaries.
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