Exploring the theme of friendship in Scripture, the book highlights how divine relationships shape our understanding of friendship with God. It examines biblical instances, such as God speaking to Moses and Jesus calling his disciples "friends," to illustrate the depth of this connection. By reflecting on personal relationships with family and friends, the text encourages readers to recognize how these bonds contribute to their spiritual journey and foster a closer relationship with the divine.
The author of Luke-Acts constructs a portrait of the Roman military that relies on a variety of literary stereotypes, anticipating that his authorial audience, familiar with the stereotypes, will bring their experience to bear in the process of more fully characterizing the soldiers. Expecting their antipathy, Luke upsets his authorial audience's expectations. Laurie Brink demonstrates that the soldiers, in fact, do not wholly live up to their bad reputations. Engaging, contradicting and transcending the literary stereotypes, Luke creates a progressive portrait of the Roman soldier that demonstrates the attitudes and actions of a good disciple, and that serves as a critique of the authorial audience's original response.
The distinctions and similarities among Roman, Jewish, and Christian burials can provide evidence of social networks, family life, and, perhaps, religious sensibilities. Is the Roman development from columbaria to catacombs the result of evolving religious identities or simply a matter of a change in burial fashions? Do the material remains from Jewish burials evidence an adherence to ancient customs, or the adaptation of rituals from surrounding cultures? What Greco-Roman funerary images were taken over and „baptized“ as Christian ones? The answers to these and other questions require that the material culture be viewed, whenever possible, in situ, through multiple disciplinary lenses and in light of ancient texts. Roman historians (John Bodel, Richard Saller, Andrew Wallace-Hadrill), archaeologists (Susan Stevens, Amy Hirschfeld), scholars of rabbinic period Judaism (Deborah Green), Christian history (Robin M. Jensen), and the New Testament (David Balch, Laurie Brink, O. P., Margaret M. Mitchell, Carolyn Osiek, R. S. C. J.) engaged in a research trip to Rome and Tunisia to investigate imperial period burials first hand. Commemorting the Dead is the result of a three year scholarly conversation on their findings.
Exploring the intersection of science and spirituality, this book examines the implications of the New Cosmology on traditional Christian concepts such as original sin and redemption. It challenges readers to rethink the completeness of creation and the role of Jesus within this evolving framework. Special attention is given to the unique perspectives of women religious, prompting a reevaluation of their vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in a context where redemption and Jesus' significance are redefined.
