Taking up this well worked problem in New Testament scholarship may seem audacious to some, futile to others. At least one scholar has exulted over his own claim, supported by a few, to have solved the problem; whereas at least one other scholar has declared the problem insoluble. Although the problem is difficult, the elements of a solution are indeed present in the discussion. It is taken up again in this essay because of its importance for research on the historical Jesus and on the emergence of Christology.

Recent studies and archaeological work have focused attention once again on an old problem—the origins and development of the synagogue—by bringing two sides of the issue to light. On the one hand, some studies have reconsidered theories of synagogue origins in the Babylonian, Persian, or Hellenistic periods. The result is that several traditional assumptions typified in the works of Julian Morgenstern, Solomon Zeitlin, George Foot Moore, and Louis Finkelstein have been questioned. The question of origins has come to rest on the Palestinian setting and on the nature of the “synagogue” not as institution in the later Talmudic sense, but as “assembly.” There is no clear archaeological evidence for synagogue buildings from Second Temple Palestine. Only after 70 CE and the destruction of the Temple, did it emerge as the central institution of Pharisaic-Rabbinic Judaism.

One hundred and seventy years ago, on 17 July 1816, the Society for the Promotion of Theological Education in Harvard University was established, thus beginning a process that led to the founding of a “faculty of theology” or Theological Seminary at the University. Undergraduate education at Harvard College had by this time moved quite far from the founders' original concern to provide a literate ministry to the churches. By the beginning of the nineteenth century Harvard men were educated in a broad curriculum oriented more toward liberal education than professional training. So the theological faculty was created in order to provide specialized training for those preparing to enter the Christian ministry

Ben Sira's view of the cult and his relationship to the priesthood are issues which have received much attention from scholars, yet there is no consensus on either question. Most critics cannot escape from the conclusion that Ben Sira had at least an interest in cult and priesthood. Some have argued that he harbored even a domineering interest in cultic worship, but others, like R. Smend and R. Pfeiffer, are ambivalent: they claim on the one hand that Ben Sira had an intense interest in things cultic, but on the other that he kept “a meaningful distance” from the cult (Pfeiffer). In other words, though his interest was intense, the ritual itself really meant very little to Ben Sira. The contradiction in this statement is evident. In a recent monograph, J. Marböck argued that although Ben Sira had a personal love for temple ceremony, he attributed to cultic law and ritual a very subordinate position. J. G. Snaith has made similar claims about Ben Sira's view of the cult.

This paper contains some thoughts about words. It is a modest undertaking and is meant to do no more than elaborate upon and set forth the reasoning underlying a proposal that I advanced some years ago regarding the meaning of Akkadian alaktu and its relation to the Jewish terms Hebrew hălāḵā and Aramaic hilḵĕṯā. In preparing this paper, I have had before me two distinct goals and have, accordingly, divided the paper into two separate sections. First, I try to establish an additional (and thus far unnoticed) set of meanings for alaktu (= Sumerian a.rá) and to track this meaning especially when alaktu appears in combination with the verb lamādu. Then, turning to halakhah, I set out some of the implications of our inner Assyriological examination for the origin of the Hebrew and Aramaic terms hălāḵā and hilḵĕṯā. In doing so, I register my dissent from a previous proposal of a particular Akkadian term (ilku) as the source of the word halakhah, and present a set of alternative hypotheses as to the derivation of the Jewish terms. The opinions expressed about even alaktu are tentative and in need of further refinement, and our thoughts on the relation of alaktu and halakhah remain perforce in the realm of conjecture.

Although conversion to Judaism in antiquity has been studied many times, the subject remains elusive. This essay is not a historical study of either ancient philo-Judaism or the relations between Jews and Gentiles in antiquity, but a historiographical study of one of the major bodies of relevant evidence, the writings of Josephus. I hope to answer two sets of questions. First, how does Josephus understand respect for Judaism by Gentiles? What forms does this respect take and what terminology is used to describe them? Second, what is Josephus's attitude towards respect for Judaism by Gentiles? Does his attitude change from his earliest works to his latest?

The relationship of the preaching and teaching of Jesus to apocalyptic has been a vexed one ever since Albert Schweitzer's assault on the liberal “Lives of Jesus” and his advocacy of consistent eschatology along with his characterization of Jesus’ teachings as interim ethics. While many of the details of Schweitzer's hypothesis failed to be persuasive, his insistence that Jesus’ activity be seen in the context of apocalypticism has made a profound impact on subsequent historical Jesus scholarship and, in spite of his own noncommital stance with regard to the Two Document Hypothesis, on the theological characterization of Q.

Sometime during the second decade of the second century CE, Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, was conveyed under guard to Rome where he expected to leave this world through the mouths of the beasts in the arena. Along his journey he stopped at Philadelphia and Smyrna. At each stop he received visitors from a number of churches in the area. He, in turn, wrote letters to those churches and to the church at Rome. The letters of Ignatius have been the subject of scholarly investigation for over a century. The authenticity of the middle recension of those letters is almost universally acknowledged. These letters have been studied for the light they can shed on church structure in Asia Minor at the beginning of the second century, the theology of Ignatius within its historical context, and the distinctive personality of Ignatius. One aspect of these documents which has implications for all other interests has not been satisfactorily explained, namely, how Ignatius understood his own letter writing activity. What gave Ignatius the audacity to interfere in the life of churches outside of Syria, and what kind of authority did he expect the admonitions contained in his letters to carry?

In a rather well-known article published half a century ago Michael Foster argued that modern science is rooted in the Christian doctrine of creation. Ancient science, on the other hand, was, according to Foster, the product of Greek metaphysics. The goal of ancient science was the definition of the essence of its object of investigation. The Greeks assumed that the essence of an object was its form and that the form of a thing was intelligible. The task of science, then, was to bring this intelligibility to light.

As is well known, the beginnings of biblical exegesis are to be found within the Hebrew Bible itself: later books or passages often comment on earlier ones, clarifying perceived ambiguities, at times harmonizing apparent contradictions, or seeking to bring an ancient text up to date, even rewriting history or trying to bring out some would-be esoteric meaning. Indeed, evidence of these interpretive concerns is to be found not only within the later parts of the Jewish canon, but among the biblical apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, in the Qumran documents, Hellenistic Jewish writings, the New Testament, rabbinic literature, and so forth. Sometimes we can do more than simply catalogue how a given verse or passage was interpreted in various sources—we can actually try to glimpse something of the history and evolution of its interpretation.

On the wall in the hallway directly outside the newly refurbished Sperry Lecture Room at Andover Hall, Harvard Divinity School, hangs an oil portrait of the older Willard Learoyd Sperry. It is somewhat dull with age but that probably does not matter to the students and visitors who pass it by. It is doubtful that they know who Sperry was, even though he served as Dean of the Divinity School from 1922 until 1953, longer than any other person. He was not only Dean of the Divinity School, but a preacher to Harvard University for a generation.

Max Weber's essay on the relationship of ascetic Protestantism and the spirit of capitalism, published in 1904/05, is certainly the most controversial and perhaps the most complicated piece he wrote. As we all know, two generations of scholars have discussed Weber's essay since 1905, filling the shelves of libraries with the fruits of their labors. Scholars in different fields have expressed their own version of what Weber supposedly wanted to say, often generalizing Weber's remarks and giving their own rather than Weber's original opinion.

When historical reconstruction of the nature of a person or a group is carried out under ideal circumstances, we should have two kinds of evidence: we should know the self description of the subject, and be able to compare this self description with the way the subject was seen by others. These two types of evidence give historians the perspective which should allow them to draw a wellrounded portrait of the nature of their subject. When viewed in this light, the problems presented in attempting a historical reconstruction of the nature of the Pharisees before 70 CE make this case a classic example of the problems of historical work. Virtually no documents have survived that come from the Pharisees themselves. We know them as seen by Josephus (who claimed to have been and to be a Pharisee, but who in fact shows little indication of Pharisaic belief or practice in his life or writings), as they appeared to the authors of the gospels, or as seen in the hindsight of their heirs, the rabbis. Thanks to Qumran texts we may learn how the Pharisees were viewed by members of a competing group. Paul claimed to have once been a Pharisee, but was writing his letters as a Christian. The first type of evidence discussed above is thus almost entirely lacking; the second is available in abundance.

A small but growing number of theologians have begun to call for the development of a “public theology.” Although the proposals vary, they are fueled by a common desire to counteract the cultural marginalization of contemporary theology. Having lost its former power to influence public debate about our beliefs and actions, theology has increasingly become a privatized form of reflection. Too often theologians have become comfortable with this state of affairs, abandoning all presumptions to speak to or for those outside their narrow communities. Theological arguments have degenerated into dogmatic assertions or confessional accounts of personal beliefs which lack the power or intent to persuade others. As David Tracy so aptly puts it, we have fled to local “reservations of the spirit” where we need not confront the wider indifference to and impotence of our work.

According to Goethe, “writing history is a way of getting the past off your back.” In the twentieth century, Protestant theology has a heavy burden on its back—the readiness of some of its most distinguished representatives to embrace totalitarian regimes, notably Adolf Hitler's “Third Reich.” In this matter the historian's task is not to jettison but to ensure that the burden on Protestants is not too lightly cast aside—an easy temptation if we imagine that the theologians who turned to Hitler did so with the express desire of embracing a monster. On the contrary: they did so believing their choice was ethically correct. How could this come to pass in the homeland of the Reformation?

Troeltsch studies, and new translations of his writings, have become increasingly prominent during the past fifteen years. Theologians reflecting a wide range of positions have begun to discover in Troeltsch their own issues and concerns. Some found in Troeltsch the prototype for a “fundamental theology,” grounding the particularity of Christian faith in a more universal philosophical framework. Others took up Troeltsch's role as “theologian of the history of religions school” as a model for the interaction of theology and religious studies in our own time. Theologians concerned with the status of Christian truth claims in the context of religious pluralism have grasped hold of Troeltsch as the pioneer in this endeavor, at least within the history of Christian theology. In brief, Troeltsch now seems to be very relevant, a nineteenth-century thinker who somehow anticipated a multitude of religious concerns prominent in the late twentieth century and hence, the subject of more interest and activity than at any time since his death.

My purpose in this article will not be to deal with the tradition history behind Matt 25:31–46 or with the actual eschatological identity of the nations, the sheep and the goats, and Jesus' least brothers, although some attention will need to be given to the latter. My primary purpose will rather be to inquire about the nature and quality of the stance or posture or self-understanding that constitutes the responses of the sheep and goats—which responses Matthew is implicitly calling his readers respectively to actualize and to reject. And what is required of human beings has implications for the possibilities and nature of human beings. The first order of business, however, will be to locate the text generically and in the context of Matthew 23–25.

The general concern of Austin Farrer's deservedly well-known approach to our discernment of God's activity in the world is to ground it in our knowledge of our own selves as agents, especially as we interact with God as Divine Agent. In his book The Glass of Vision, Farrer develops an account of how this overall approach applies to the concept of revelation and religious language. The “text” he chose for this book, “Now we see through a glass darkly,” sounds as promising as the title.

After Immanuel Kant the issue of whether there is life after death moved to the periphery in the writings of major Protestant thinkers. Of course, the great eschatological images have continued to play a role. There have been discussions of the resurrection of the body and the immortality of the soul showing the differences in the anthropologies underlying the two forms of hope. But it is usually difficult to determine what the theologian actually expects will happen after death. The focus is on the symbolic value of these images or on their existential meaning.