The study proposes an analysis of the concepts of ousia and hypostasis in the theology of the Council of Antioch which condemned Paul of Samosata in 268 CE. The authentic reports preserved from the assembly unveil the fact that the synodals who condemned Paul of Samosata employed the two terms interchangeably to denote the individual entity or person rather than the common essence or nature of the Father and Son. Additionally, they defended Christ's divinity before time and simultaneously assumed a certain subordinationism. The study additionally explores the Sitz im Leben of this theology, an accepted language embraced in the Eastern part of the Roman world in the third century. The article further traces the elements of this Antiochene theology in the fourth century in what was traditionally viewed as the “Arian” councils held in Antioch in 341 and 345 as well as in such authors as Eusebius of Caesarea and the Homoiousians. While Antioch 341 and 345 distanced themselves from Arianism, it is more coherent to interpret them, together with Eusebius and the Homoiousians, through this new hermeneutical lens, namely Antioch 268, rather than the traditional polarization between Nicaea and Arianism.

In Jewish philosophy, be it medieval or modern, a comprehensive Jewish theological discourse about Christianity is conspicuously absent. There are, however, two prominent exceptions to this rule in modern Jewish philosophy: The Italian Sephardic Orthodox Rabbi Eliah Benamozegh (1823–1900) and the German-Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig (1886–1929). In both men's thought, Christianity plays a pivotal (and largely positive) role, so much so that their Jewish philosophies would not be the same without Christianity, which has no precedent in Jewish thought. Though Rosenzweig was not aware of his Sephardic predecessor, there are some striking parallels in the two thinker's Jewish theologies of Christianity that have far-reaching interreligious implications. These parallels concern as well the basic paradigm for a positive evaluation of Christianity—the paradigm of the fire (particularist Judaism) and its rays (universal Christianity)—as well as the central flaw both of them attribute to Christianity: a built-in disequilibrium that threatens the success of its legitimate mission. These parallels are all the more striking as two thinkers arrived at their conclusions independently and by different paths: the one (Benamozegh) took recourse to Kabbalah, the other (Rosenzweig) to proto-existentialist philosophy. A comparative study of these two protagonists’ Jewish theologies of Christianity seems thus imperative.

An “interreligious epilogue” at the end of the article exposes the contemporary need for a reassessment of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity from a Jewish perspective—especially in light of the deep theological revision that characterizes the approach of the Catholic Church towards Jews and Judaism following “Nostra Aetate”—but at the same time delineates the theological limits of the current Christian-Jewish interreligious endeavor. In this light, the pioneering theology of Christianity in the works of Rosenzweig and Benamozegh might yield some relevant insights.

There are few social scientists who have done as much scholarly research on religion as Christian Smith. Over the past three decades, he has interviewed hundreds of people, fielded numerous surveys, and written dozens of books. And in recent years, he has pushed beyond the boundaries of empirical social research into the neighboring domains of social theory, philosophy, and theology. Anyone who studies or cares about religion will want to know what he has to say about it.

Two young teachers posted at an Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan, Canada, sought to act as whistleblowers regarding abuse there in 1952–53. Theologian Eugene R. Fairweather of Trinity College, Toronto, acted as their advocate and spiritual advisor. A significant correspondence, mostly purged from the official record, considered the reports of the whistleblowers, their fate, and the fraught place of the Residential Schools in Canadian Anglicanism in the decades before the era of Truth and Reconciliation. This article examines the relevant correspondence, retained only in the archival remains of Fairweather at Trinity. The correspondence, which adds to existing narratives of Anglican complicity in and responses to abuse at the Schools, suggests that future research must scrutinize official as well as previously overlooked sources of information, particularly the archival repositories of universities and theological schools, in search of the truth.

This article unearths the forgotten history of the first modern church planting scheme in the Church of England: an attempt to restructure parish ministry in Chester-le-Street, near Durham, in the 1970s and 1980s. This story of rapid growth followed by decline, and of an evangelical church’s strained relations with their liberal bishop, David Jenkins, has pertinence for contemporary Anglican antagonisms over ‘fresh expressions’ and other church planting programmes. A culture of mistrust is arguably apparent both then and now, between liberals and conservatives in ecclesiology, even as the same line divides those of the reverse tendency in broader, doctrinal theology: conservatives from liberals. Developments, decisions and, indeed, debacles in the story of Chester-le-Street parish point to the urgent need for liberals and conservatives in Anglican ecclesiology and theology to overcome their mistrust of each other by recognizing the other as valuable for the mutual strengthening and renewal of the Church.

The present paper offers a new interpretation of the three-clause reading of Jude 22–23 and demonstrates how Jude carries on the Jesus tradition by inverting the norms of invective. It is demonstrated that this interpretation is especially surprising given that the epistle follows many conventions of Greco-Roman invective. Given the character of invective, one would expect the writer to instruct the beloved to expel the ungodly from the community. Instead, Jude commands the beloved to ‘show mercy’ to the very ones with whom they contend (Jude 22), a profound reflection of Jude's understanding of mercy and faith.

A familiar feature in Pauline scholarship is the view that Sin as a power, and the concomitant forces of the flesh and death, are the dominant elements in Paul's account of the human plight. The present article seeks not to deny the significance of these elements, but to argue that equally important are ‘sins’ or individual infractions of the divine will. It is argued here that recent developments in Pauline studies have, in combination, led to an unwarranted downplaying of sins plural. In a number of key passages, Paul includes such acts of transgression in his account of the human plight.

Scholarship on Matt 5.25–6 has focused on the question of whether the saying offers mundane wisdom or threatens divine judgement, with the majority concluding that it refers to eternal punishment in hell. This article examines debt-prison and related phenomena before turning to the illuminating history of ancient interpretation. The article concludes that the ‘eternal damnation’ gloss widely favoured today is an overinterpretation first inspired by the exigencies of fourth- and fifth-century doctrinal controversy. Instead of eternal perdition, Matt 5.25–6 and its parallels suggest a time of straits followed by possible release.

These three short papers were delivered at the 72nd General Meeting of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, held in Pretoria, South Africa, on 8–11 August 2017. The ‘Quaestiones disputatae’ session was chaired by the President of the Society, Professor Michael Wolter. The first two papers engage with Teresa Morgan's book, Roman Faith and Christian Faith, and Professor Morgan responds to them in the third.

These three short papers were delivered at the 72nd General Meeting of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, held in Pretoria, South Africa, on 8–11 August 2017. The ‘Quaestiones disputatae’ session was chaired by the President of the Society, Professor Michael Wolter. The first two papers engage with Teresa Morgan's book, Roman Faith and Christian Faith, and Professor Morgan responds to them in the third.

Codex Bezae lacks the Greek text of Acts 10.4–14, but the Latin text survives on fol. 455a. Damage to the manuscript has caused traces of ink from the now-lost Greek text to be transferred onto the Latin page of Acts 10.4–14. They preserve a mirror image of text from fol. 454b, the facing page at the time of the damage. By reversing high-resolution images of fol. 455a with photo-editing software, the offset ink can be deciphered. As a result, the surviving Greek text from Acts 10.4–9 in Codex Bezae is published here for the first time.