Issues of identity and difference in the Letter of Paul to the Ephesians have provoked a long history of scholarly debate, particularly around the narrative of Jews and Gentiles becoming “one new humanity out of two” in 2:15, . Should one read this passage, 2:11–22, as “an attempt throughout to articulate [the identity of the] in relation to Jews and Gentiles in the Roman world,” that reflects “significant engagement with the life and fate of the Jewish people”? Or does the text “look back on an achieved unity between Jew and Gentile in the Church as the one body” that has left behind “heated struggles with rival groups”? Furthermore, how do these identity categories of “Jew” and “Gentile” relate to the theological distinctives of the epistle? While the deutero-Pauline status of the text remains widely accepted, this does not put to rest the question of the text's overall relationship to Pauline theology. Does the account of a single new humanity in Ephesians represent the apex of development in the ideas of the Pauline school, or does it stand in disjunction to Paul's original vision?

The destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E., and the concurrent loss of formal independence, was arguably the single most fundamental event affecting the future of the Jewish people during the subsequent centuries. The immediate reaction to the destruction of the Temple among the populace was one of despair and a feeling of a “loss of center,” as is evidenced in some of the post-destruction literature. This response was tempered and moderated to a certain degree by the subsequent rabbinic leadership, through moderation of the mourning practices, institution of formal commemoration rituals, and the substitution of other forms of worship and religious behavior in the wake of the loss of the Temple rituals. Nevertheless, the memory of the Temple as a defining element in the Jewish worldview retained a place of importance in post-destruction Jewish literature, in both legal corpora such as the Mishnah, and non-legal traditions, as exemplified by aggadic tales composed during the first centuries of the Common Era.

“The Ways that Never Parted” is the title of a recently published collection of articles that reflects an increasing tendency in scholarship. A significant number of scholars no longer interpret the emergence of Christianity from Judaism as a clear separation between the two religions either at the end of the first or the beginning of the second century. Instead, they envision a prolonged process which, according to some, may even have lasted until the late fourth century. This process is thought to have been shaped by both segregation and rapprochement, creating ambiguity and “fuzziness” rather than clear boundaries. A central notion is the idea of sororal relations between Judaism and Christianity. These scholars no longer see Judaism as the mother figure giving birth to the daughter religion, while remaining unchanged herself, but rather as a sister developing and changing during the first centuries of the Christian era. This interpretation then sees Jews as an integral part of the Roman Empire, which eventually became Christian and (im)posed certain religious challenges.

Patristic exegesis soared to sublime heights with the allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs. This nuptial tale, replete with evocative imagery and multivalent symbolism, supplied fertile ground for the mystical musings of Origen (ca. 185–254 C.E.) and Gregory of Nyssa (ca. 335–395 C.E.). Although its overt eroticism engendered some apprehension, the profound symbolic meanings deployed by the church fathers enabled the church to embrace fully the Song of Songs as a deep reservoir of theological insight. Always provocative and potentially scandalous, it perennially generates hermeneutical difficulties. Since exegesis invariably reflects the social and historical location of the interpreter, disparate themes and issues will resonate with different readers in different eras. For a generation of scholars attentive to the problem of racism, Song 1:5 merits particular attention because of its complex employment of racial imagery. In this verse the Bride proudly declares: “I am black and beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Qedar, like the curtains of Solomon” ( []; ). Both the Hebrew and Greek word for “black,” and , have negative connotations, and the ambiguous sense of the conjunction between and constitutes the grammatical crux of the hermeneutical debate.

Shortly after his death, the influential fourth century bishop, Athanasius of Alexandria, was recognized for introducing the contemplative traditions of the Egyptian monks to the urban Christians of Alexandria and for bringing the desert monks into communion with the Alexandrian episcopacy. Athanasius accomplished this by quite intentionally bridging the distance—physical and spiritual—between desert and city. Over time, with his tireless effort, the daily spiritual practices of the monks became those of the urban Christian and the monks came increasingly under the sway of the Alexandrian episcopacy. As a consequence of his commitment to bringing the desert closer to the city, Athanasius thoroughly integrated ascetic practice into his theology and it proved to be a decisive component of his ecclesiastical politics.2 A letter Athanasius wrote to a certain Marcellinus provides valuable insight into the shape of Athanasius's spiritual program, its relationship to previous Hellenistic philosophical traditions, and, especially, the crucial function of the psalms in the reformation of the self.

In the later Middle Ages, scholars frequently translated ancient and medieval Latin texts into various vernacular languages, and the text studied here provides an example of this. Widely copied and modifi ed throughout the Middle Ages, the little text, called an Ordinal of Christ, appears in over eighty versions and has a threefold significance. First, it turns up as the first reported example of an Ordinal of Christ in Catalan. Second, the version of the text does not belong to a high or late medieval tradition, such as one might expect in a late medieval manuscript, but goes back at least to the ninth and tenth centuries in the early Middle Ages. Third, the text parallels a version found largely in southern Italy and thus illustrates the contacts and connections between Catalonia and southern Italy throughout the Middle Ages.

The key question that Christoph Schwöbel raises in Christlicher Glaube im Pluralismus is one that has emerged as an imperative. A Christian theology responsible to the contemporary realities of pluralism must enter its theological analysis of the global situation of Christian faith into wider discussions of culture. Theologians cannot abdicate their role in articulating their distinctive ways of schematizing reality. They cannot shy away from making truth claims amid other competitors, and they cannot give up on the question of unity—whether metaphysical, ethical, or eschatological—while celebrating difference. Christoph Schwöbel, professor of systematic theology at the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Germany since 2004, dares to respond to this imperative. In this recent collection of essays, he enters into the pluralist conversation with a commitment to the trinitarian centerpiece of Christianity, which he fleshes out with considerable knowledge of the Western European Christian theological and philosophical tradition.