In ancient Israel, the tribe of Levi was deemed to have a special connection with the service of God. Numerous biblical texts speak of the Levites as the priestly tribe or attribute to them certain special functions connected with cultic worship. But why exactly had the Levites been selected for such honors, and how did their selection come about? Several biblical narratives appear to have been designed in order to answer this question. Thus, the selection of the Levites is at one point connected with their zealousness following the Golden Calf incident (Exod 32:25–29), while elsewhere God's choice of the Levites seems to follow as a natural consequence after the death of the Levite Aaron (see Deut 10:8) or, possibly, to be the result of Moses' words in his final blessing of this tribe before his death (Deut 33:8– 10).

Although it was discovered in 1962 and its excavation was completed by the mid-1970s, the synagogue of ancient Sardis in western Asia Minor, with its nearly eighty Greek inscriptions, remains the single most important archaeological source for our knowledge of western diasporan Judaism and its relationship to the wider Greco-Roman world. Despite its historical importance, however, scholars have rarely questioned the assumptions and conclusions of its original interpreters, Andrew Seager and Thomas Kraabel. Yet, for example, on the crucial question of dating (that is, when the building actually became a synagogue) these authors clearly disagreed among themselves, as is evident from a careful reading of their jointly written analysis, published in 1983. Their long-awaited report on the Sardis synagogue may clarify this question as well as other important issues. At present, however, confusion abounds in the secondary literature, because in general this literature continues to accept uncritically Kraabel's selection and interpretation of the relevant evidence. Although I have reexamined the major aspects of the question of dating in a previous article, as has Helga Botermann independently and in more detail, the analysis of the building history reflected in this present article is also indebted to John H. Kroll's excellent but still unpublished manuscript of the Greek inscriptions.

This article discusses one aspect of matrimonial practice in second-century CE Judea: whether a man and a woman could or would cohabit before they were officially married. I shall examine a marriage contract from the Babatha archive discovered in the Judean desert; this contract contains a clause that specifies that a couple had lived together for some time before the marriage contract was drawn up. This statement may be perceived as contradicting the picture of matrimonial practices derived from Jewish legal sources. In dealing with such contradictions it is possible to adopt either an apologetic or a provocative approach. This article professes to apply a provocative approach to the problem by accepting the content of this clause at face value and suggesting a fresh interpretation to a passage from the Mishnah. This mishnah attests different matrimonial practices in Galilee and Judea and suggests that premarital cohabitation was sometimes practiced in Judea, but certainly not in Galilee. The Palestinian Talmud interprets the mishnah, obviously apologetically, by assigning the Judean practice of premarital cohabitation to the aftermath of the Bar Kokhbah revolt, as a result of the imposition of the jus primae noctis (“the right of the first night”). The contract from the Babatha archive predates the Bar Kokhbah revolt, however, and thus attests a Judean practice of premarital cohabitation that is not connected to the Roman decree. In the article I shall suggest two possible interpretations for this practice. I shall conclude by arguing that the jus primae noctis in Jewish sources belongs, as has been shown for all other instances of the motif, to folklore and not to history.

In 1964, the Elenchus Bibliographicus Biblicus, which until that time had listed together works treating Colossians and Philemon, provided Colossians with its own heading and introduced a new rubric: “Philemon; Slavery in the NT.” So firmly established is the interpretation of the epistle as a “cover letter” addressed to the master of a repentant runaway slave that any discussion of slavery in the New Testament invariably alludes to Paul's Epistle to Philemon; all recent commentators on the epistle include in their treatments at least a brief disquisition or excursus on ancient slavery. Even in his methodologically sophisticated study of the “narrative world” of Philemon, Norman Petersen began his summary of the “story” behind the letter as follows: “Once upon a time there was a runaway slave named Onesimus.…” Furthermore, the epistle is universally construed as a delicate and canny intervention on the part of the apostle Paul into the problematic of Christian relations under the Roman slave regime, despite the concession on the part of modern exegetes that Philemon fails to elucidate Paul's attitudes toward either slaves in particular or the institution of slavery in general.

William Durand's (ca. 1230–1296) Rationale divinorum officiorum (ca. 1292/1296) is unquestionably the longest and most thorough commentary on the liturgy produced by a medieval liturgiologist. From the time of its appearance at the end of the thirteenth century to the Catholic Restorationist liturgical revival in mid-nineteenth-century France, it was hailed by admirers as the quintessential expression of the medieval church's understanding of the divine offices. The bishop of Mende's Rationale treats, among other things, the various parts of the church building, the ministers of the church, liturgical vestments, and the Mass and the canonical hours. It thus stands as the epitome of a four-hundred year tradition of allegorical liturgical exposition which was inaugurated in the West with the extended liturgical commentaries of the Carolingian bishop, Amalarius of Metz (died 852/853).

Part one of this article examined the Jewish sources that record the story of four individuals who “entered pardes,” three of whom came to grief while R. Aqiba, alone, survived unscathed. The story is preserved within a talmudic compilation of materials concerning maʿaśeh merkabah (an esoteric, visionary-mystical tradition associated with Ezekiel I), in Song of Songs Rabbah, and in two “merkabah-mystical” hekhalot compilations: Hekhalot Zuṭarti and Merkabah Rabbah. Several scholars have adopted the suggestion, first offered by Wilhelm Bousset, that this story indicates the background in Jewish mystical tradition of Paul's account of his ascent to paradise (2 Cor 12:1–12).

The fifth-century mosaics of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome represent the oldest surviving program of mosaic decoration in a Christian church. Its political context includes the steady drain of political authority and power to the Eastern empire from the early fourth century forward, the proscription of paganism at the end of the fourth century, and the massively disruptive Sack of Rome by Alaric in 410 CE. In the vacuum of political power in the West, the papacy under Sixtus III made a strong claim for a new basis of Roman power—the religious primacy of the city of Peter and Paul under papal leadership. The building and decoration of Santa Maria Maggiore played an important role in the consolidation and public announcement of papal power.

Talmudic literature applies the term min to persons who espoused various forms of heresy, including denial of the world to come or resurrection, Gnostic views, or belief in “two powers in heaven.” In addition, the tannaim designated unacceptable halakhic and liturgical practices, which they believed revealed heretical beliefs, as derekh ha-minut, “sectarianism.” Finally, some allusions to mini/minim in the Babylonian Talmud can be shown to refer to Gentiles.

As archbishop of Canterbury after 1691, John Tillotson (1630–1694) guided the Church of England in the years following the accession of William and Mary in 1688. Whether he guided the church wisely has always been a matter of contention, because Tillotson not only took the oaths to the new monarchs but also helped to fill the vacated offices and sees of those who had not. Although apparently of a genial disposition, with personal gifts of generosity and piety, Tillotson made many enemies because of his church politics. The theological importance of his writings and their place in intellectual history have also provoked controversy. I believe that he is one of the great, yet much misunderstood, writers of late seventeenth-century England; this article offers a new model for interpreting his intellectual significance.

In her admirable study of autobiography, Janet Varner Gunn argued that the religious significance of the form “lies not in its literary function but in its anthropology,” that is, in its role in articulating and creating human experience. She also stated that much literary discussion of autobiography serves to conceal its “strangeness” and “unruly behavior.”

The theory that the background of Paul's rapture into paradise (2 Corinthians 12) is indicated by the rabbinic story of four men who entered a garden, park, or orchard (pardes), which is found in collections of traditions associated with “merkabah mysticism,” is by no means new. First proposed by Wilhelm Bousset, the theory was developed by Hans Windisch and Hans Bietenhard, but has come to be associated with Gershom G. Scholem. Although a few scholars have subsequently referred to Jewish mysticism in their interpretations of Paul, the subject on the whole has figured only at the periphery of the map of Pauline studies as a puzzling and little explored terra incognita of marginal or, at best, uncertain relevance to the whole. Growing recognition of the importance of apocalyptic for our understanding of Paul now makes it imperative that this unknown territory be explored. Following the publication of Alan F. Segal's recent book, it is clear that Jewish mysticism must occupy a more central place than has previously been the case in any reconstruction of the matrices of Paul's experience and thought.

From the standpoint of marketing and sales, Henry David Thoreau's first major publishing venture, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, was something of a fiasco, a fact hardly mitigated by his famously stoic, as well as humorous, avowals of failure. When, four years after its first appearance, he finally acquiesced to his publisher's petitions to accept the seven hundred and six unsold copies piled in the warehouse, he noted wryly in his journal, “I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself.” Besides the commercial disappointment, Thoreau must have found the book's critical reception somewhat disheartening also.

The idea of mystical union with God or a higher being is universal in theological systems, although it may take many forms, metaphorical and moral as well as metaphysical. In Hinduism this concept is expressed in the saying Tat twam asi (“This is thou”); a human being, by finding his or her true immortal self (atman), becomes united with Brahman and, in so doing, achieves nirvana. In Buddhism, similarly, humans must strive to recognize the unity of all within the eternal Buddha, the dharmakaya, the absolute truth or reality that transcends human perception. Jewish mysticism teaches devekut, commonly translated as adhesion, cleaving, or union with God. Christian mysticism refers to Jesus' words “Abide in me and I in you” (John 15:4) as pertaining to divine union, which has its concrete expression in baptism and the Eucharist. Even Islam, which insists on the absolute transcendence of God, has developed the mystical doctrine of tawhid (“union”).

If metaphysics seems today to have buried its undertakers, then negative theology may soon silence its critics. Having established a significant if sometimes recessive presence in Western theism, negative theology is again an important element in contemporary philosophical theology. While Anglo- American philosophy of religion remains dominated by analytic neoscholasticism, in the last decade a countercurrent has emerged that makes common cause with the apophatic tradition. The Gifford lectures of Stephen R. L. Clark are examples of this development, as are the works of Leszek Kolakowski. Each thinker has attempted to expand discussion beyond the scholastic parameters of the field and make connections with important historical figures who are often neglected in the literature. Neoplatonism has featured prominently this development; as the principal philosophical foundation for apophatic theology in the West, it has been invoked in both its original Greco-Roman guise and its subsequent manifestation within the Abrahamic tradition (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam).

This article analyzes some of the ecclesiological issues raised in Anglican-Orthodox ecumenical dialogue, particularly in the Dublin Agreed Statement of 1984, one of the documents produced by the international discussions between these two communions. It also examines the theological background to these issues. How Anglicans and Orthodox Christians understand the nature of the church is an interesting question in its own right; perhaps more important, however, is the fact that ecclesiological concerns have formed a critical, if not always explicit, backdrop to the unsteadiness of Orthodoxy's ecumenical relations with Anglicans and other Christian churches in recent years.

In her recent book Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, Susan Faludi pointed out the violence endemic to the Wild Man paradigm set forth in Robert Bly's Iron John:

For months, Bly has refused requests for an interview—his media interviews are largely with men—but today he accedes to a brief conversation over lunch. Between man-size bites of a sandwich, the poet says he bars women from most of his events because men need a sanctuary from a female-dominated world. “There's no place for the warrior in this country. The feminists have taken over from the Catholic priests.” And this is only the start of the female incursion. “I just see it getting worse and worse. Men will become more and more insecure, farther from their own manhood. Men will become more like women.…” What evidence does he have that all this is happening, or that feminism is actually turning men “soft”? The venerable poet flies into a sudden rage. “I don't need evidence. I have brains, that's how I know.”

Our generation celebrates its freedom from the constricting yoke of the imperial age of grand systems. It joyfully rebels against abstract thinking and disavows preoccupation with systematicity, which none epitomized better than Immanuel Kant, according to whose daily routine the women of Königsberg allegedly set their clocks. Contemporary liberal theology claims that we can no longer believe in a universal disembodied reason that is free from the constraints of particular circumstances. Our thinking, it alleges, reflects interests and desires. Theories serve our will to power and are to be interpreted not by appeal to an aloof rationality, but through analysis of our needs and inclinations. Freedom, however, produces new trepidations. Confronted with radical implications of their convictions, very few are willing to regard their theologies as relatively valid. Tending to reject the past yet wary of anarchy, contemporary liberal theology seeks a method that is attuned to contingent circumstances and avoids the pitfalls of unbridled relativism. I suggest that in our haste to defy and overthrow past masters, we deprive ourselves of profound insights that could guide a quest for resolution. As a case in point, I propose that if we are willing to look afresh at Kant and explore central elements of his system that have been obscured by an overzealous portrayal of his thought as a rigoristic abstract formalism, we shall find clues for escaping the impossible choice between absolutism and relativism.

In an article in the fall 1991 issue of the Harvard Theological Review, David Steenburg proposes “to consider the potential significance of chaos theory for modern culture.” This important issue has not received adequate attention because the understanding of math and the physical sciences necessary to be able to speak cogently about chaos theory can be intimidating for nonscientists. Those who are not scientists, however, have at their disposal the popular and effective summary of chaos theory by James Gleick. While Gleick's work is solid, it has led some to be captivated by chaos theory's fecund metaphorical terminology and elegant computer-aided graphical images. Although those images, particularly the logistic map, show striking instances of order hidden within chaotic systems, too often they are used to forward the thesis that there are other systems, ranging from modern literary theory to stock market fluctuations, that also house deep structure amid their apparent disorder. The result is, on occasion, analysis that is based only upon metaphor.