An up-to-date discussion of early Christian paraenesis in its Graeco-Roman and Hellenistic Jewish contexts in the light of one hundred years of scholarship, issuing from a research project by Nordic and international scholars.

The concept of paraenesis is basic to New Testament scholarship but hardly anywhere else. How is that to be explained? The concept is also, notoriously, without any agreed-upon definition and it is even contested. This volume reassesses the scholarly discussion of paraenesis - both the concept and the phenomenon - since Paul Wendland and Martin Dibelius and argues for a number of ways in which it may continue to be fruitful.

First published in 2004 as vol. 125 of Beihefte für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZNW).

Autorentext

James M. Starr is Lecturer of Exegetic Theology (New Testament) at Johannelund Theological Seminary, Uppsala, Sweden. Troels Engberg-Pedersen is Professor of New Testament at the Faculty of Theology, Copenhagen University, Denmark.

Inhalt

I. What is Paraenesis? Contributors: Wiard Popkes ; Troels Engberg-Pedersen ; James M. Starr ; Diana Swancutt; II. Paraenesis in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World Contributors: Johannes Thomas ; Stephen Westerholm ; Hans Dieter Betz; III. Paraenesis in the New Testament Contributors: Reidar Aasgaard ; Anders Klostergaard Petersen ; Abraham J. Malherbe ; Walter Übelacker ; Lauri Thurén ; Karl Olav Sandnes ; Jonas Holmstrand; IV. Early Christian Paraenesis after the New Testament Contributors: Clarence E. Glad; David Hellholm and Vemund Blomkvist ; Samuel Rubenson