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The present volume contains the proceedings of an international colloquium held in February 2015 at the Arts Faculty of the KU Leuven that brought together specialists in (late) ancient philosophy and early Christian studies. Contributors were asked to reflect on the reception of two foundational texts dealing with the origin of the world - the third book of Plato's Timaeus and the Genesis account of the creation. The organizers had a double aim: They wished to offer a forum for furthering the dialogue between colleagues working in these respective fields and to do this by studying in a comparative perspective both a crucial topic shared by these traditions and the literary genres through which this topic was developed and transmitted. Contributors:Paul M. Blowers, Mauro Bonazzi, David C. DeMarco, Volker Henning Drecoll, David L. Dusenbury, Lorenzo Ferroni, Benjamin Gleede, Sarah Klitenic Wear, Clement Kuehn, Gerard P. Luttikhuizen, Claudio Moreschini, Samuel Pomeroy, Gerd Van Riel, Gregory E. Sterling, Dimitrios Zaganas

Pious Jews of the Second Temple period sought to conform their lives to Torah, the law God had given Israel. Their different sects disagreed, however, on how to interpret particular laws and even on the question of who had the authority to interpret them. Jesus and his earliest followers, while focusing primarily on what they believed God was doing in their own day, were repeatedly confronted with issues raised by its relation to God's prior revelation in Torah. This volume contains studies by Stephen Westerholm devoted to the meaning and place of Torah in Early Judaism as well as to New Testament understandings, particularly those of the gospels and Pauline literature. Attention is also given to the "New Perspective on Paul," to recent discussions of justification and Paul's relation to Judaism, and to aspects of the transmission of Jesus tradition among his earliest followers.

Recent anthropological, linguistic, and philosophical studies have significantly increased our understanding of the gift and related phenomena, such as hospitality and charity. While their results can only very carefully be applied to historical theological sources, they do resemble classical discussions on neighbourly love, the administration of sacraments, the handing over of tradition, free will, and God's mercy.In this book, Risto Saarinen studies Martin Luther's understanding of the gift and related issues, such as favours and benefits, faith and justification, virtues and merits, ethics and doctrine, law and Christ. The historical motivation behind this focus consists in the insight that Luther both continues and criticizes the classical, medieval, and Humanist discussions regarding the differences and parallels between gifts and sales. This historical understanding paves the way towards an adequate systematic theology of the gift.

Björn P. Ebert analyses forum shopping in international investment law. He focuses on investment treaty and investment contract arbitration, and concludes that forum shopping is legal and legitimate as long as it is not subject to particular limitations derived from applicable law. He assumes that forum shopping is generally a legitimate procedural technique that both parties to the dispute may employ in order to maximise the protection offered to international investment by international law. To validate the underlying thesis, the author analyses and differentiates between different manifestations of forum shopping. The main manifestations are categorised in three categories: forum planning, forum enhancement, and facilitation of procedure. Each category contains different forum shopping techniques. Björn P. Ebert examines and defines limitations for each category, as well as the manifestations of forum shopping that are assigned to them. He thereby addresses several issues of international investment arbitration that are essential to the perceived problem of forum shopping.

Freedom of testation allows an individual to make effective on his death dispositions of his property on the event of his death. Dependants' relief legislation in British Columbia and compulsory portion in Germany limit this freedom by providing testator's family members with a portion of the estate. However, out of the two, only the legislation gives courts the discretion to change testamentary provisions, by making them, in some cases, entirely ineffective.A comparative analysis of the application, legal character, history and purpose of the limitations leads to the conclusion that the freedom of testation is significantly more limited under British Columbia's legislation than it is under the German law. The author proposes a solution that increases the freedom, adds predictability and reduces subjectivity of the application of the dependants' relief legislation in British Columbia.

This volume contains thirty-one essays by Richard Bauckham, a well-known New Testament scholar, most of which have been previously published in journals or in multi-authored volumes. Many aspects of early Christianity in the New Testament and early patristic periods are covered. Major topics include Gospel audiences and Gospel traditions, Christian apocryphal literature, and early Christian people. The collection reflects the author's conviction that the historical study of early Christianity should not isolate the New Testament literature from other early Christian literature, but must take full account of such sources as the apostolic fathers and Christian apocryphal literature.

Religious, philosophical, and theological views on the self vary widely. For some the self is seen as the center of human personhood, the ultimate bearer of personal identity and the core mystery of human existence. For others the self is a grammatical error and the sense of self an existential and epistemic delusion. In Western psychology, philosophy, and theology, the term 'self' is often used as a noun that refers not to the performance of an activity or to a material body per se but rather to a (gendered) organism that represents the presence of something distinct from its materiality. This volume documents a critical and constructive debate between critics and defenders of the self or of the no-self that explores the intercultural dimensions of this important topic. Contributors:Fidel Arnecillo, Jr., Yuval Avnur, Marlene Block, Sinkwan Cheng, Ingolf U. Dalferth, Iben Damgaard, Duncan Gale, Jonardon Ganeri, Stephanie Gehring, W. Ezekiel Goggin, Leah Kalmanson, Trevor Kimball, Kate Kirkpatrick, Gereon Kopf, Dietrich Korsch, Deena Lin, Alexander McKinley, Eleonora Mingarelli, Joseph S. O'Leary, Robert Overy-Brown, Raymond Perrier, Joseph Prabhu, Friederike Rass, Marcelo Souza

The contributions in this volume critically engage with Mogens Müller's work on ancient Judaism, the Septuagint, the New Testament gospels, and the reception history of the Bible, covering a variety of topics within the field of biblical rewriting and reception. Rewriting and reception are parts of a continuous process that began within biblical literature itself and have continued in the history of interpretative communities where the Bible has been received and cherished in innumerable ways until today. The present volume aims to further the scholarly debate on important topics within biblical studies. It demonstrates that the notion of reception can be addressed from very different angles and from diverse hermeneutical and methodological viewpoints, all of which offer fresh insights into ancient texts and their afterlife. Contributors:Gitte Buch-Hansen, Troels Engberg-Pedersen, Tilde Bak Halvgaard, Ingrid Hjelm, Thomas Hoffmann, Jesper Høgenhaven, Martin Karrer, Siegfried Kreuzer, Michael Labahn, Martin Meiser, Halvor Moxnes, Jesper Tang Nielsen, Heike Omerzu, Christina Petterson, Frederik Poulsen, John Strange, Thomas Thompson, Francis Watson

The studies by Devorah Dimant collected in this volume survey and analyze Jewish works composed in Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek during the Second Temple period, and discuss their contents, ideas, and connections to the Dead Sea Scrolls. In particular, themes related to the Aramaic Tobit and 1 Enoch are elaborated as well as the links between Hebrew Qumran apocryphal writings and the later apocalyptic writings 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch. A chapter on the apocalyptic at Qumran proposes a new conceptual framework for the subject. Together the studies offer a broad and fresh perspective of the Jewish literary scene at this time, developed in the land of Israel in the last centuries BCE and the first century CE.

Why did the early followers of Jesus call themselves "Christians"? What was their social and religious capital? Why did Christianity attract both poor widows and wealthy women? What did pagans think of early Christians? Integrating the major apocryphal Acts of the Apostles in the study of Christianity and the ancient world, Jan N. Bremmer illustrates their prominence of women and their, sometimes surprising, usage of magic as well as establishing a new chronology and place of composition for these Acts. He also shows that the early Christian tours of hell derive from both Jewish and Greek models, although they become increasingly Christianised. The author concludes by decoding the intriguing visions in the Passion of Perpetua by placing them in the contemporary world, thereby compelling us to sympathize with the hopes and fears of young Christian martyrs. It is the close attention to both pagan and Christian traditions that make these papers, which have all been updated and some of them revised, an exciting read for scholars and advanced students alike.

In this work, Andrei A. Orlov examines Jewish apocalyptic traditions about the angel Yahoel, tracing their conceptual impact on the development of later rabbinic and Hekhalot beliefs concerning the supreme angel Metatron. The author argues that the figure Yahoel, who became associated in Jewish apocalypticism with the distinctive aural ideology of the divine Name, provides an important conceptual key not only for elucidating the evolution of the Metatron tradition, but also for understanding the origins of the distinctive aural ideology prominent in early Jewish mystical accounts. Andrei A. Orlov suggests that the aural mould of Jewish apocalypticism exercised a decisive and formative influence on the development of early Jewish mysticism.

The impetus for this collection of essays on canonical and non-canonical Acts is to honor the scholarly achievements of Richard I. Pervo. Pervo pioneered the view that canonical Acts is comparable to ancient fiction - the various episodes about Peter, Paul, and the other apostles composed to entertain, even as they inform. In the spirit of this work, contributors prod and provoke readers, traveling at different speeds and with notable variation from the center of the broad orbit of canonical Acts. The hope is that the essays foster conversation about the things discussed, offering no small measure of delight along the way. Contributors:Harold W. Attridge, Clayton N. Jefford, Amy-Jill Levine, Dennis R. MacDonald, Troy W. Martin, Shelly Matthews, David Moessner, Mikeal C. Parsons, Mark Reasoner, Clare K. Rothschild, Melissa Harl Sellew, Janet E. Spittler, Angela Standhartinger

Inwieweit sind Vertragsparteien an ihre Versprechen gebunden, obwohl der Zufall ihre Pläne durchkreuzt hat? Diese Frage nach der Gefahrtragung zielt auf Grundprobleme des Vertragsrechts. Susanne Zwirlein analysiert die Genese der Regeln zu Unmöglichkeit und Gefahrtragung beim Kauf beweglicher Sachen im englischen und deutschen Recht in ihrem ideengeschichtlichen Kontext. Flankierend unternimmt sie einen kritischen Ausblick auf Möglichkeiten und Grenzen einer Rechtsvereinheitlichung auf diesem Gebiet. Sie zeigt auf, welche erheblichen Unterschiede die historische Entwicklung und die dogmatischen Tiefenstrukturen von Unmöglichkeit und Gefahrtragung im englischen und deutschen Recht aufweisen. Die Verfasserin gewinnt ihre Ergebnisse durch eine historisch-vergleichende Analyse, die Quellen von der Antike bis in die Gegenwart umfasst.

The search for the fundamental principles which frame society and hold it together has once again taken on a new urgency in these times of crisis. For this reason, the specialist labour and social law panel of Germany's Society for Comparative Law (Gesellschaft für Rechtsvergleichung) brought to its 35th conference in 2015 a group of scholars from different parts of the world in order to investigate the significance of religion for today's labour and social security laws.The resulting volume starts with a general overview of the impact of religion, economics, and politics on welfare states. The case studies that follow set out the models found in different countries: the corporatist welfare state in Germany that grants various religious groups special roles; France's laicist system; Sweden, where the state did not say farewell to the national church until the start of the millennium; and the USA, where churches are not deployed to achieve state objectives, but where religious freedom is protected. Turkey and Israel are also included to illustrate two countries whose jurisdictions reflect non-Christian religious orientations. Each report deals with fundamental principles on the one hand, and specific problems pertaining to labour and social law that involve a religious element on the other. With contributions by:Jörg Althammer, Rachel Barag-Hirshberg, Gwenola Bargain, Tankut Centel, Reinhold Fahlbeck, Thomas Kohler, Achim Seifert

In this book, Sunny Kuan-Hui Wang explores the relationship between sense perception and testimony in the Gospel of John. While Johannine scholars tend to focus on one or the other, she shows that sense perception and testimony are both significant and are used together with the intention of drawing readers into the narrative so that they become witnesses in an emotionally engaged way. It is argued that John's use of sense perception together with testimony is rooted in Jewish literature. Yet John also employs a Graeco-Roman rhetorical technique, enargeia , which appeals to the persuasive power of sense perception to make his narrative vivid. John does not downplay sense perception. Rather, he uses it in the context of testimony as a means of persuasion to draw the readers, in their imagination, into the experience of the first disciples and thus deeper into faith and witness.

The essays in this volume situate the Nag Hammadi Codices and their texts in the context of late antique Egypt, treating such topics as Coptic readers and readings, the difficulty of dating early Greek and Coptic manuscripts, scribal practices, the importance of heavenly ascent, asceticism, and instruction in Egyptian monastic culture. They also explore the relationship of the texts to the Origenist controversy and Manichaeism, the continuity of mythical traditions in later Coptic literature, and issues relating to the codices' production and burial. The volume thus showcases the new trend in scholarship to treat the Nag Hammadi Codices not as sources for Gnosticism, but instead for Christianity and monasticism in late antique Egypt. Contributors:Christian Askeland, Christian Bull, Dylan Burns, Julio Cesar Dias Chaves, David Coblentz, Jon Dechow, Stephen Emmel, René Falkenberg, James E. Goehring, Lance Jenott, Lillian Larsen, Hugo Lundhaug, Louis Painchaud, Philip Sellew, Blossom Stefaniw, Ulla Tervahauta, Paula Tutty, Michael A. Williams

How are we to understand Bonhoeffer? In these essays, Peter Frick attempts to answer this question by examining different aspects of Bonhoeffer's thought, thus illuminating the hermeneutical, philosophical, theological, and social dimensions of his writings. All sixteen essays collected here were written between 2007 and 2014; some of them address the question of methodology, others contribute to Bonhoeffer's intellectual formation, and still others seek to connect with contemporary questions. The aim of the volume is to present Bonhoeffer's key theological and philosophical ideas, and to emphasize their contemporary relevance.

This volume comprises fifteen new essays on the Apostolic Fathers with a focus on 1 and 2 Clement. An introductory essay investigates the role of seventeenth-century librarians in the origination of the collection's title. Five essays concern 1 Clement, exploring its relationship to 1 Corinthians, its generic classification, the discussion of "Christian education" (1 Clem. 21:8), the golden calf tradition, and the well-known legend of the regeneration of the phoenix. Three essays treat 2 Clement, including problems with recent translations of chapter 1, the motif of the barren woman in chapter 2, and the analogy of faith as a race in chapter 7. The volume ranges widely within and beyond early Christian literature-from the streets of ancient Achaean and Asian the early modern libraries of Europe.

The present volume aims at a comparative study of the processes of reception, rewriting and interpretation between canonical and apocryphal texts in early Jewish and early Christian literature. A closer look at the respective developments in both corpora of literature can open up new perspectives for understanding the developments and changes between texts that were already considered authoritative and their reception in new, 'parabiblical' or 'apocryphal' compositions. The way of reception may also influence the perspective on canonical texts. The range of texts considered includes the LXX, Targumim and Pesharim, books such as Jubilees, the Genesis Apocryphon, the Gospel of Thomas, and Apocryphal Acts, traditions about Esther, Ezra, Manasseh, Peter and Paul, depictions of hell from Enoch to the Apocalypse of Paul, and the development of miracle stories. Contributors:Veronika Bachmann, Michael Becker, Claire Clivaz, Jörg Frey, Wolfgang Grünstäudl, David Hamidovic, Meghan Henning, Alberdina Houtman, Jutta Jokiranta, Stefan Krauter, Martin Meiser, Simon Mimouni, Tobias Nicklas, Karl-Heinz Ostmeyer, Enno-Edzard Popkes, Jörg Röder, Julia Snyder, Michael Sommer, Janet Spittler

This volume is based on presentations delivered at a symposium held in May 2015 at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg. It seeks to reinvigorate the scholarly exchange which can be traced back to the late 19th century between company law academics in Germany, China, Japan and South Korea. Contributions from all four jurisdictions include papers on directors' liability and capital maintenance as well as studies of the role of shareholders in public companies and the regulation of groups of companies. With contributions by:Andreas Cahn, Ruoying Chen, Moon-Hee Choi, Kyung-Hoon Chun, Holger Fleischer, Gen Goto, Hans Christoph Grigoleit, Hideki Kanda, Hiroyuki Kansaku, Kon Sik Kim, Katja Langenbucher, Junhai Liu, Jianbo Lu, Kenichi Osugi, Hyeok-Joon Rho, Gerald Spindler, Eiji Takahashi

The authors of this volume, over thirty authoritative practitioners and scholars, illuminate the context for religion in public education nationally and globally. Their principal focus is on Religious Education in England, with its distinctive matrix of Christianity, plurality of beliefs and secularity. The volume's complementary attention to RE provision in eight other countries and within Europe is revealing of each and a source for comparative comment on the `English approach'. Religion is understood universally as referring to the deepest meanings which we have generated to live with, both individually and collectively. The peculiarity of England with a constitutional monarchy and established church is identified as an enabling feature for understanding, inclusivity and openness rather than separation and mutual ignorance, but that RE is threatened by government inattention. Contributors:Jeff Astley, Vishalache Balakrishnan, Dennis Bates, Alan Brine, Alan Brown, Sarah Lane Cawte, Rasamandala Das, Malcom M Deboo, René Ferguson, Brian Gates, John Gay, Angela Gluck, Julie Grove, Anna Halafoff, Nasima Hassan, Sivane Hirsch, James Holt, John Keast, Sahin & Yildiz Kizilabdullah, Emile Lester, Asher Maoz, Bruce Maxwell, Harshad Sanghrajka, Bernd Schröder, Ranvir Singh, Mike Stygal, Phra Nicholas Thanissaro, Richy Thompson, Tatyana Tsyrlina-Spady, Stephen Vickers, Peter Ward, Paul Weller, Barbara Wintersgill, Marc Wisnosky

The interpretation of 1 Cor 8-10 as a coherent argument is complicated by several factors, most significantly the apparent contradictions in the text (primarily an issue within chapter 8) and the remarkable changes in Paul's tone (primarily an issue with how 10:1-22 relates to 8:1-13 and 10:23-11:1). Trent A. Rogers argues that Paul consistently prohibits believers from eating y appealing first to their obligation to love other believers and then to their obligation of exclusive faithfulness to Christ. The approach of his analysis is to examine how the representation of God functions in Paul's argument, especially in comparison to other Hellenistic Jewish polemics against idolatry. While this is an argument made about particular practices, it is an argument made on theological grounds, and these theological underpinnings have been largely unexplored until now.

A scholarly consensus holds that Luke is ambivalent toward the Pharisees, or at least that he has left readers with an ambiguous depiction of them. What previous evaluations of the Lukan Pharisees have left unanswered, however, is why Luke would give such an impression of these characters and then what might lie behind the rhetorical effects of ambiguity. Justin R. Howell reevaluates the long-standing debate about the Pharisees in Luke-Acts, arguing the thesis that there is ambiguity in the Lukan Pharisees because, in his portrayals of them, the author has applied what ancient Greco-Roman rhetoricians call "figured speech." The fact that the Lukan Pharisees appear ambiguous to some readers does not necessarily mean that Luke was also undecided about or ambivalent toward them, for the use of figured speech can presuppose a firm and critical stance on the characters in view.

This volume consists of previously published articles by Frances Young, a scholar of early Christianity, well-known for her work Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture, together with a few newly composed additions. The studies collected here are concerned with the New Testament, but their approach is often not in the modern historico-critical mode. Rather, they bring new insight through being informed by the author's patristic specialism, by methodological enquiries, by her interest in doctrinal and theological reading, and by exploration of the very nature and function of sacred scriptures. The significance of this volume lies in the way it exemplifies the extraordinarily interesting changes which have taken place in biblical hermeneutics during the last 50-60 years. Many of the essays could be useful, not only to research specialists, but to advanced undergraduates as well as clergy and preachers.

By their very nature, Special Economic Zones encompass various elements studied in the academic disciplines of economics, political science and law. While their objectives are determined by economics, and their structures, implications and limits by law, their implementation requires a certain combination and cooperation of political forces, something which has been the subject of political science enquiries. A conference held at Kyushu University in Fukuoka convened scholars from all these disciplines to put Special Economic Zones into perspective. The papers presented highlighted functions and structures, historical aspects, the political dimension and foreign equivalents of deregulation, the interplay of such zones, and constitutional considerations. Freedom of contract and competition law, plus the effects that these economy-boosting tools may have on labour and innovation are also dealt with. With contributions by:Jürgen Basedow, Tom Ginsburg, Carsten Herresthal, Kazuaki Kagami, Toshiyuki Kono, Caslav Pejovi¿c, Hideaki Shiroyama, Shinto Teramoto, Wolfgang Wurmnest, Ren Yatsunami

Large-scale economic change such as the rise of coinage occurred during the Persian-dominated centuries (6th -4th centuries BCE) in the Eastern Mediterranean and ancient Near East. How do the biblical texts of the time respond to such developments?In this study, Peter Altmann lays out foundational economic conceptions from the ancient Near East and earlier biblical traditions in order to show how Persian-period biblical texts build on these traditions to address the challenges of their day. Economic issues are central for how Ezra and Nehemiah approach the topics of temple building and of Judean self-understanding, and economics are also important for other Persian-period texts. Following significant interaction with the material culture and extra-biblical texts, the author devotes special attention to the ascendancy of economics and its theological and identity implications as structuring metaphors for divine action and human community in the Persian period.

As lawyers we are normally interested in various substantive areas of law; and as comparative lawyers we are interested in finding out about the differences and similarities between national legal systems. But from time to time we should also reflect on how we think and operate, and look at basic questions of legal methodology - both for the sake of understanding better what we do as lawyers immersed in our own legal systems and as lawyers attempting to assess and comprehend how foreign legal systems work. The nine essays in this volume are devoted to the topics of law-making today (with a focus on Japan, Turkey and Russia), judicial decision-making today (with a focus on England and Wales, Switzerland and Argentina), and legal scholarship today (with a focus on the United States, France and South Africa); and they thus revolve around the three protagonists of legal development: legislators, judges and professors. With contributions by:Aditi Bagchi, Basak Baysal, Jean-Sébastien Borghetti, Thomas Coendet, Matthew Dyson, Yuko Nishitani, Agustín Parise, Helen Scott, Andrey M. Shirvindt

In this study, David Willgren attempts to provide answers to two fundamental questions in relation to the formation of the `Book' of Psalms: "how?" and "why?". The first relates to the diachronic growth of the collection (how are these processes to be reconstructed, and on what grounds?), while the second relates to questions of purpose (to what end are psalms being juxtaposed in a collection?).By conceptualizing the `Book' of Psalms as an anthology, and by inquiring into its poetics by means of paratextuality, David Willgren provides a fresh reconstruction of the formation of the `Book' of Psalms and concludes, in contrast to the canonical approach, that it does not primarily provide a literary context for individual psalms. Rather, it preserves a dynamic selection of psalms that is best seen not as a book of psalms, but as a canon of psalms.

Akiva Cohen investigates the general research question: how do the authors of religious texts reconstruct their community identity and ethos in the absence of their central cult? His particular socio-historical focus of this more general question is: how do the respective authors of the Gospel according to Matthew, and the editor(s) of the Mishnah redefine their group identities following the destruction of the Second Temple? Cohen further examines how, after the Destruction, both the Matthean and the Mishnaic communities found and articulated their renewed community bearings and a new sense of vision through each of their respective author/redactor's foundational texts. The context of this study is thus that of an inner-Jewish phenomenon; two Jewish groups seeking to (re-)establish their community identity and ethos without the physical temple that had been the cultic center of their cosmos.

The close relationship between Jeremiah and Deuteronomy has stood near the center of Jeremiah scholarship for over a century. Nathan Mastnjak brings new light to this phenomenon by subjecting every credible allusion to Deuteronomy in Jeremiah to detailed analysis with particular attention to interpretative processes and the dynamics of authority. By locating each allusion in the history of the composition of the book, the author traces a discernible shift in the perspective on Deuteronomy's authority. While early texts in Jeremiah allude to Deuteronomy as merely one prestigious literary work among others, it emerges as a religious textual authority in the later layers. These later layers construct and deploy Deuteronomy as an authority but are simultaneously constrained to transform it in the interest of religious innovation.