History of Reception of Biblical Texts

In this article, the author seeks to provide the first comprehensive typology of philosophical approaches to the book of Qohelet (Ecclesiastes). Six overlapping, yet functionally distinct, meta-philosophical categories are identified, namely (1) general philosophical profiling, (2) ancient philosophical comparisons, (3) modern philosophical comparisons, (4) topical philosophical exegesis, (5) philosophical reception histories and actualisations and antiphilosophical readings. The conclusion of the study is that research on Qohelet in relationship to philosophy is quantitatively more complex and multifaceted than traditional overviews tend to show.

Matt 1:17 indicates that Jesus' genealogy is formed by three series of fourteen generations; however, this total number of generations does not match the preceding list in Matt 1:2-16. Interpreters have proposed multiple ways to understand this inconsistency which have yet to be collected and evaluated. A double literature review displays the limitations of this seemingly insoluble biblical conundrum. This article presents the tension between verse 17 and verses 2-17 of Matthew's gospel as a puzzling reading experience that can best be described, in line with Stanley Fish, as a self-consuming artifact: an experience of incongruity in which the text and the reader are transformed through a process of negation. This approach also highlights other potential reversals in Matthew 1, such as Davidic traditions, that can yield a renewed outlook on this gospel.

The meaning of הֶבֶל is a crux interpretum for the book of Ecclesiastes. Notwithstanding some variation, Jerome’s vanitas reading of הֶבֶל in Ecclesiastes dominated scholarship for several centuries. Since the rise of modern biblical scholarship, הֶבֶל as ‘vanity’ has been largely rejected; however, little consensus has been reached regarding the word’s meaning. The result has been a rich history of interpretation as scholars develop various suggestions for how הֶבֶל should be understood in Ecclesiastes. This essay briefly sketches the history of interpretation of הֶבֶל, then surveys proposals for the meaning of הֶבֶל in Ecclesiastes during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

In late ancient Christian literature, King David is ubiquitous. Not simply cited as the famous author of many psalms, he almost always appears as a model of penitence, a foreshadow of Christ, or a paradigm of Christian virtues and values. But not always. In one fourth-century Christian text, King David appears in a striking and distinctive relief. This Latin text, known as De excidio Hierosolymitano (On the Destruction of Jerusalem), sometimes called Pseudo-Hegesippus, presents King David as a figure familiar from Judaeo-Christian tradition, but in a way that resonates most strongly with classical Greco-Roman literary norms. This text rewrites Josephus's Jewish War from a Christian perspective, and mentions David at a dozen points. In each case, David appears as an exemplum associated with a particular biblical episode or theme. Often, the treatment of these episodes in Josephus or other early Christian literature helps explain why Pseudo-Hegesippus presents David in particular lights. However, taking all of the appearances of David in De Excidio into view, this article shows that Pseudo-Hegesippus is not only beholden to biblical, Josephan, or early Christian precedents, but creatively constructs his own portrait of David within his historiographical framework. This article then suggests that this David's rhetorical valence and distinctive character are best explained vis-à-vis the traditional (Greek and) Roman use of exempla inasmuch as Pseudo-Hegesippus's David conspicuously lacks any of the theological, doctrinal, or ethical features so characteristic of his portrayal in most of ancient Christian literature. Pseudo-Hegesippus portrays King David in terms resonant of both Greco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian traditions.

Throughout the history of research, the topic of persecution has been one of the more heavily debated issues within the study of 1 Peter. At the moment, however, a general agreement has been reached concerning the nature of the readers’ problems. According to the modern consensus, the persecutions were localized and sporadic hostility consisting of verbal abuse and discrimination (i.e., “unofficial” persecution). The present article will survey exactly how this consensus was reached, focusing particular attention on a key oversight which took place very early in the discussion. Our review will explore some of the significant effects which this omission has produced in the subsequent debate, while examining how a few of the most recent treatments have worked towards rectifying the situation.

The similarities between 1 Peter and certain New Testament epistles (e.g., Romans, Ephesians) have long been recognized. According to the modern consensus, these affinities developed out of shared oral traditions which circulated within early Christianity and not through any direct literary borrowing. What has been overlooked in this discussion, however, is that the methods used to assess the linguistic and thematic parallels, by their very nature, have (virtually) excluded literary dependence as a potential explanation, and thus the denial of a literary relationship has been (essentially) guaranteed from the start. While not seeking to resolve the question of 1 Peter’s dependence on the Pauline corpus, this article attempts to expose some of the methodological problems surrounding the consensus view and to establish reliable criteria which can be used to determine literary relationships. The conclusions – while focused on 1 Peter – are applicable to the discussion of intertextuality more broadly.

The fourth century of the Common Era was a period significant for witnessing the effective birth of Christian historiography and the (putatively) definitive separation of 'Jew' and 'Christian' as distinctive identities. A text emerged, known as Pseudo-Hegesippus or De Excidio Hierosolymitano (On the Destruction of Jerusalem). This text illustrates how Christian historiography and Christian anti-Jewish ideology at that time could engage with the traditions of classical antiquity. In particular, this article argues that Pseudo-Hegesippus deploys figures from the Hebrew Bible in the mode of classical exempla and that it does so within the largely classical conceptual framework of national decline. For Pseudo-Hegesippus, biblical figures presented as classical exempla serve to illustrate the historical decline of the Jews until their effective end in 70 CE (when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple). One passage, De Excidio 5.2.1, and its enlistment of five Hebrew heroes illustrates this point particularly well. The use of exemplarity and the theme of national decline employed there help us appreciate De Excidio as a distinctive contribution to early Christian historiography and anti-Jewish literature in late antiquity; this expands our ability to imagine the ways in which fourth-century Christian authors could conceive of and articulate Jewish history in classical terms.

Looking at some illustrative examples of the reception of Jeremiah in modern Hebrew literature, this article explores how both the prophet and the book named after him were reworked by modern Hebrew authors and poets in the body of literary works in Hebrew that emerged during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Europe in the wake of the Enlightenment

... of Gospel Genre,” in The Four Gospels, 1992: Festschrift Frans Neirynck (ed. F. van Segbroeck, Christopher M. Tuckett, Gilbert van Belle, and J ... 21 The theory received some development from Heinz Becker, Die Reden des Johannesevan-geliums und der Stil der gnostischen ...

The last sixty years have witnessed quite different results on the topic of the reception of the Fourth Gospel in the second century. It is however at hand to notice that these significantly differing results are indebted to the dissimilar methodological approaches assumed by each scholar. The main aim of this paper is to reassess methodologically the bibliography on the reception of John in the second century. Given that we are far from having a consensus on the question of how to seek for John in the earliest Christian texts, some concluding considerations are offered on future possible development of the topic.

Published in From Qumran to Aleppo : a discussion with Emanuel Tov about the textual history of Jewish scriptures in honor of his 65th birthday (ed. Armin Lange, Matthias Weigold and József Zsengellér; FRLANT 230; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009),156-175

With the example of Aceldama, this paper shows that reception history must not
be confined to ideas or stories, but may take an interest in places. It should not
simply explore art or literature, but also envisage geography. The site purchased
by Judas with the blood of Jesus in Acts .– has suffered, once identified (or
at least defined), from this terrible acquisition. At the same time, a legend has
grown around the land, which is supposed to devour corpses while a sinister
reputation was established making ‘Aceldama’ the paradigm of a scary place.
This Wirkungsgeschichte should lead us to revise an initial preconception according
to which historical work should stop at the writing of the text, and a second
mistaken notion according to which the work of the exegete ends with ‘defining’
the ‘meaning’ of the text. There are potentialities in texts that only the study of
their effects can perceive.

Jacob's blessing of his youngest son Benjamin (Gen 49.27) was widely understood in the early Church as a prophecy of that most (in)famous Benjaminite, the apostle Paul. This exegesis enjoyed enduring popularity and can be traced to every corner of the Roman world. It is also early: it was already well established by the time of its earliest surviving witnesses at the end of the second century. But if it predates the late second century, when did it originate? While we can only speculate, this paper offers reasons for supposing that this exegesis may reach back into the first century.

The meaning of a text does not reside alone in the creative genius of its author; there is a complex correlation between a text and the contexts in which a text has been read and reread, including various dynamic interrelations between creator and contemplators, past and present. Vernon Robbins's socio-rhetorical interpretation provides a powerful interpretive analytic to explore these dialogic interrelations among authors, texts and readers/interpreters. Correspondingly, studies of reception history, through their investigations of significant additional voices that join the heteroglossic chorus of interpreters, provide critical insights for more comprehensive socio-rhetorical analyses of texts.This article chronicles the birth and development of socio-rhetorical interpretation, introduces major components of a socio-rhetorical approach, and provides examples of how socio-rhetorical interpretation and reception history can mutually inform each other.

Within a literary ontology, YHWH in the Hebrew Bible is technically also a fictional entity or object. In Hebrew Bible scholarship, a variety of philosophical issues surrounding fiction have received sustained and in-depth attention. However, the mainstream research on these matters tends to focus on the philosophical foundations of or backgrounds to a particular literary theory, rather than on metaphysical puzzles as encountered in the philosophy of fiction proper. To fill this gap, the present article seeks to provide a meta-theoretical overview of the main contemporary philosophical perspectives on the metaphysics of fictional objects. Three views (and their sub-currents) are discussed, namely possibilism, (neo-)Meinongianism and (literary) creationism. Each view’s theory is introduced and critically appropriated with reference to what is implied to be an answer to the question of what exactly the biblical character YHWH can meaningfully be said to be in the context of the metaphysics of fictional objects. In this way, the present study also goes beyond the traditional concern with the nature of God in Old Testament theology.

The paper deals with the reception history of Phil. 3 of two representative exegetes of the Old Church, John Chrysostom in the east and Augustine in the west. Paul serves as an outstanding model for Christian life for both. At the same time it shows that John is closer in some points to the new perspective than Augustine, with whom the so-called old perspective begins to develop.

This article explores the ways Chinese Protestant intellectuals, when facing up to the challenge of socialism, interpreted and appropriated Chinese Gospel texts to refashion the image of Jesus. It argues that Protestant intellectuals’ political use of the Chinese Bible remade a socialistic Jesus with some religious qualifications. Both the reading of the Chinese Bible and the interaction of Chinese biblical texts with the socio-political milieus dramatically influenced the textual practice of Chinese Protestant communities in the Republican era.

This article examines the relationships between adornment, gender and honour in the Graeco-Roman world in order to provide a broad context for understanding the attempts to curtail women's adornment in  Tim . and  Pet .. It argues that while many male writers criticize women who adorn themselves, often accusing such women of luxuria, not all women shared such a perspective. Rather, women may well have valued jewellery, fine clothes and elaborate hair as means of conveying status and honour, and as important forms of economic power. These factors require consideration when attempting to understand why the authors of  Timothy and  Peter counsel women to avoid gold, pearls, braided hair and fine clothing.  For a translation, see Marvin W. Meyer, The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook (San Francisco: Harper, ) -. Meyer translates the Greek text based on the version preserved in Dittenberger (Syll  ), but the inscription is also found in IG V/  and LSCG . In addition, the Hellenistic Texts Seminar (Toronto) translated it in the s. It is not clear when these mysteries first began, but the Rule indicates that they were reinstated in / BCE. The geographer Pausanias (second century CE) also describes the cult in the fourth book of his Description of Greece.  New Test. Stud. , pp. -. Printed in the United Kingdom  The women officers are called ἱ1ραὶ γυναȋκ1ς. Meyer translates it as 'sacred women' while the Hellenistic Texts Seminar chose 'women officers'.  Borders, trim and stripes were significant signs of status. The Roman equestrian tunic, for example, had a thin stripe while that of the senatorial tunic was much thicker. Judith Lyn Sebesta ('Women's Costume and Feminine Civic Morality in Augustan Rome', Gender and the Body in the Ancient Mediterranean [ed. Marie Wyke; Oxford: Blackwell, ] )

This article examines the sensory dimension of religious publicity, focused on the case of an evangelical museum in the United States. Washington D.C.’s Museum of the Bible (MOTB) was envisioned and funded primarily by conservative Protestants, and is a revealing case of religion in public life because most of the creative labor of design was conceived and executed by secular firms who do not typically work for faith-based clients. The professional expertise of these firms, “experiential design,” informs a sea change in contemporary museology and the expansion of the experience economy in late modernity. Ultimately, I argue that MOTB’s engagement with experiential design indexes the power of entertainment in late modern life, as the sensory repertoire at play operates with largely unquestioned legitimacy and presumed efficacy. By mobilizing the cultural capital of design, an evangelical museum makes a claim for diverse audiences in a deeply public setting.

The 2008 SBL meeting in Boston included a panel review session on James R. Royse's book, Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri (NTTSD 36; Leiden: Brill, 2007). A number of the reviews of this important work are presented here, along with Royse's response. The papers were produced as oral presentations and have been kept in their original shape, except for some straightforward corrections.

In the biblical theophanies of Isaiah 6 and Daniel 3, divine condescension and human ascent constitute reciprocal ecstatic moves towards a divine–human encounter. The christological interpretation, widespread in early Christian reception history, further discerns in Isaiah 6 and Daniel 3 an anticipation of the radical condescension of the Logos-made-human and, conversely, an anticipation of the deifying ascent of humanity in Christ. Finally, the early Christian reading of Isaiah 6 and Daniel 3 as ‘christophanies’ – that is, as manifestations of the Logos-to-be-incarnate – also allows us a glimpse into the performative aspect and experiential claims of early Christian exegesis, broadly construed to also incorporate hymnography, iconography and ritual.

A review of literature over the last two decades suggests that the letter to Titus is inching away from the suffocating influence of the Timothean correspondence. Caged together with 1 and 2 Timothy, the individual voice of Titus went largely unappreciated. This trend is in decline. For example, scholars are now investigating the theology and structure ‘of Titus’ rather than of ‘the Pastorals’. Furthermore, even in terms of methodological interests, there seems to be a transition with at least one article applying rhetorical analysis to the text. This overview surveys these trends by engaging critically with the literature, highlighting the burgeoning appreciation for the individuality of the letter independent from 1 and 2 Timothy. While the trends are encouraging, the study reveals that comparatively little has been done. Put differently, it is hoped that this overview will stimulate further interest in the letter to Titus.

Nietzsche’s writings on the Old Testament have been the subject of in-depth research in various academic disciplines. This article’s original contribution to the ongoing discussion lies in its exclusive focus on Nietzsche’s philosophical reception of Genesis 2:4b–3:24 in particular. The objective is to provide an extensive overview of the related data by way of thematically correlated representative samples in the philosopher’s German writings. As background, the relevant aspects of Schopenhauer’s reception of Genesis 2:4b–3:24 are noted before identifying two types of philosophical criticism discernible in Nietzsche’s consistent and frequent recourse to the text’s memorable mythological motifs. Based on the sheer quantity and quality of associated content involved, the study concludes that Nietzsche’s critical and creative interactions with Genesis 2:4b–3:24 represent

The article identifies roles and conditions for the Bible within modern politics in the West. By comparing the official Norwegian response to the terror attack in Oslo July 22, 2011 with the similar response in the US on September 11, 2001 it is explained why the Bible is nearly absent in the official discourse of Norwegian Prime Ministers. While religion resurfaced in the process of national recuperation with the Cathedral of Oslo as a center for mass ritualization and national grief, the biblical legacy played no part in the Prime Minister’s speech. The primary political leader of the Norwegian state has rarely bolstered his argument with the Bible, although this state has officially adhered to a Protestant confession from its Constitution in 1814. The Liberal Bible that appears to be operative in US presidential discourse is not playing a major role on a comparable political level in Norway.

This essay seeks to sketch the profile of Martin Bucer's views on the doctrine of justification as developed in his 1536 commentary on Romans, focusing in particular on his idiosyncratic language of 'threefold justification' in his comments on Rom. 2:13. This text is taken as a vantage point from which to survey the history of interpretation of the Pauline concept of justification within the Augustinian tradition, giving extended consideration to exegesis by Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Bucer's initial discussion of the Pauline usage of dikaioAn in the praefata to his commentary is examined next, and it is concluded that his understanding of justification falls more or less within the trajectory charted by previous medieval interpreters. Turning then to Bucer's comments on Rom. 2:13, it is argued that the notion of 'threefold justification' arises as an attempt to integrate the early evangelical appropriation of the Scotist language of 'divine acceptation' within a traditional Augustinian account of justification as both event and process. The resulting formula collapses predestination into justification, making the latter the unifying concept in Bucer's soteriology. It is hoped that this essay will contribute to deepening our understanding of an oft-neglected reformer while at the same time broadening our understanding of early evangelical teaching on a central doctrinal locus.

Paul writes that we are justified by faith apart from 'works of the law', a disputed term that represents a fault line between 'old' and 'new' perspectives on Paul. Was the Apostle reacting against the Jews' good works done to earn salvation, or the Mosaic Law's practices that identified the Jewish people? Matthew J. Thomas examines how Paul's second century readers understood these points in conflict, how they relate to 'old' and 'new' perspectives, and what their collective witness suggests about the Apostle's own meaning. Surprisingly, these early witnesses align closely with the 'new' perspective, though their reasoning often differs from both viewpoints. They suggest that Paul opposes these works neither due to moralism, nor primarily for experiential or social reasons, but because the promised new law and covenant, which are transformative and universal in scope, have come in Christ.

The present study explores the performative nature of the Bible as a sacred text in the Korean context. Drawing on the theory of scriptural performance advocated by James W. Watts, I investigate its character as words and contents. First, I delve into the scriptural performance of thoroughly reading (and listening to) the Bible at the level of words. Second, I scrutinize the scriptural performance of singing and dramatizing the Bible at the level of contents. The specific context of South Korea-whether religious, cultural, or social-alerts us to the performed transformation of the semantic range of the long-standing Christian tradition. Given the cultural differences between Western and Eastern Christianity, I contend that the adaptation of Christianity to Korean soil renders the performative dimension of the scriptures all the more semantic. In other words, the Korean ways of performing the Bible are essentially deeply rooted in those of signifying it. In the long term, Christianity turns out to be such a global religion that it provokes a more complex analysis of its scriptural performance in its widely differing range of semantics.

The Christian Bible is now available in thousands of digital forms, re-imagined for electronic reading on mobile, tablet and desktop screens. This article introduces findings from an online survey of digital Bible users with more than 250 responses, analysing their demographics, reading practices, motivations and experiences. Survey responses are analysed in conversation with recent debates among Christian commentators and broader arguments in the study of e- reading in education and other contexts. Religious e-reading shows some distinctive and unexpected features, in comparison to reading in other contexts, and this article proposes initial hypotheses about the impact of digital media on sacred text.

Ein meister las has been regarded an »eigentümliches Gemisch« by scholars who have questioned its authenticity. Those critics who have (in the opinion of the present author, rightly) rehabilitated the poem as part of Walther’s »authentic« corpus have generally overlooked the nonetheless perceptive observations that underlie this critical discomfiture. The present essay reads the poem as the locus of a uniquely Waltherian dialogue between the genres of Spruchdichtung, Minnesang, and the devotional lyric in order to account for the critics’ unanimous perception of it as a »problematic« poem.

Die Literaturwissenschaft hat die Authentizität von Ein meister las mehrfach infrage gestellt und das Gedicht sogar als »eigentümliches Gemisch« abgelehnt. Diejenigen Kritiker, die wiederum die Zuschreibung an Walther (m.E. rechtens) befürworten, sind diesem – trotzdem aufschlussreichen – kritischen Unbehagen jedoch nicht gerecht geworden. Um dieses Unbehagen sowohl zu erörtern als auch zu beheben, wird das allgemein als »problematisch« angesehene Gedicht hier als einzigartiger Waltherischer Dialog zwischen den Gattungen Spruchdichtung, Minnesang und geistlicher Lyrik interpretiert.

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Von streunenden Katzen und plündernden Soldaten. Eine Spurensuche zur Herkunft des Wortes „marodieren“, in: Sebastian Grätz, Axel Graupner, Jörg Lanckau, Ein Freund des Wortes. Festschrift Udo Rüterswörden, Göttingen 2019, 100-109.

In diesem Kurzbeitrag möchte ich als Möglichkeit vorschlagen, das
nach wie vor in seiner Herkunft umstrittene Verb „marodieren“ mit
dem Althebräischen in Verbindung zu sehen. Ob es sich tatsächlich
um ein Lehnwort aus dem Hebräischen handelt, das über die jüdische
Bibelrezeption in die französische Sprache und darüber in das
Deutsche eingedrungen ist, wird sich nicht zweifelsfrei
wahrscheinlich machen lassen. Es gibt jedoch Hinweise, die auf einen
Zusammenhang hindeuten könnten. An die umstrittene Frage, ob es
einen sprachgeschichtlichen Zusammenhang des Adjektivs „marode“
mit dem Verb gibt, soll dabei nicht gerührt werden. Hier wird die
Mehrheitsmeinung zugrunde gelegt, dass das so ist.

S. Brent Plate's introductory essay orients the reader to the academic move toward material text studies, a wide range of research questions and pedagogical practices that includes attention to the history of the book, book technologies, the social habits of readership especially in relation to print culture, and issues raised in media studies about differences in verbal communication. This introduction is followed by a series of one-page Teaching Tactics that prompt students to ask about the material conditions in and through which scriptures acquire meaning. Students are challenged to become aware of the sensorial nature of sacred texts, and of communication itself. They touch, see, and hear in new ways, learning with their bodies.

This article demonstrates the overlooked contribution of the ancient Near East to the development of constitutional law. The legal corpus of Deuteronomy provides a utopian model for the organization of the state, one that enshrines separation of powers and their systematic subordination to a public legal text—the “Torah”—that delineates their jurisdiction while also ensuring their autonomy. This legislation establishes an independent judiciary while bringing even the monarch under the full authority of the law. Deuteronomy’s implicit model for a political constitution is unprecedented in legal history. Two of its cornerstones are fundamental to the modern idea of constitutional government: (1) the clear division of political powers into separate spheres of authority; and (2) the subordination of each branch to the authority of the law. This legislation was so utopian in its own time that it seems never to have been implemented; instead, idealism rapidly yielded to political pragmatism. Nonetheless, Deuteronomy’s draft constitution provides an important corrective to standard accounts of constitutional legal history.

Keywords:
Constitutional theory; rule of law; separation of powers; Deut 16:18-18:22; Laws of public officials; Law of the king; independence of the judiciary; Deut 17:14-20; Ämtergesetze; Verfassungstheorie; Torah monarchy; Sophocles Antigone law; Herodotus Demaratus; Greek kingship; Mishnah King; mishnah Aboth 1:1; American constitution; Josephus πολιτεία [politeia]; origin of judicial system; Hammurabi; founding myth; independent judiciary.

What is the bond between a cultural icon and the surrounding culture? Using Joshua as an exemplar, this book investigates the presentation of his character in the Bible and explores the continuities and discontinuities in his reception among classical interpreters, Jewish, Christian and Samaritan. The study of a hero shared by several cultures sheds light on the elements that bind these cultures together as well as those that keep them apart.

In the Book of Acts, Luke adapts masculinity according to different narrative contexts, and in the process, ultimately ends up destabilizing masculine norms. To demonstrate Luke’s depiction of an adaptable, yet destabilizing, masculinity, this article focuses on two key episodes involving Paul: (1) Paul’s conversion as recounted in Acts 9, 22, and 26, and (2) Paul’s transition from “Saul” to “Paul” in Acts 13 and its early reception history. In this brief foray into Acts and beyond, we shall see that, according to Luke, being a “man” of God involves reneging self-control and serving a persecuted “Lord.”

Orthographic variation within the manuscripts of the Greek NT is seldom a cause célèbre beyond the ranks of diehard textual critics. Even among these most will concede that orthographic irregularities amount to little more than evidence of scribal incompetency or inconsistency in their spelling practices. To find the same word both spelled correctly and misspelled with a single manuscript b the same scribe is not uncommon. It approaches the  norm. The critical editions of our Greek NTs have therefore opted, on good grounds, to exclude textual variants displaying non-standardized spelling. To include them would make it impossible for anyone to use the critical apparatuses in a meaningful way. The deluge of senseless errors would drown out variants of demonstrable textual significance.

This study provides a new account of how the Song of Songs became one of the most popular biblical texts in medieval Western Christianity, through a close and detailed study of its interpretation by late antique Latin theologians. It has often been presumed that early Latin writers exercised little influence on the medieval interpretation of the poem, since there are so few extant commentaries from the period. But this is to overlook the hundreds of citations of and allusions to the Song in the writings of influential figures such as Cyprian, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine as well as the lesser-known theologian Gregory of Elvira. Through a comprehensive analysis of these citations and allusions, it is argued that contrary to the expectations of many modern scholars, the Song of Songs was not a problematic text for early Christian theologians, but was a resource that they mined as they debated the nature of the church and of the virtuous life. The first part of the volume considers the use of the Song in the churches of Roman Africa and Spain, where bishops and theologians focused on images of enclosure and purity invoked in the poem. In the second part, the focus is late fourth-century Italy, where a new ascetic interpretation, concerned particularly with women’s piety, began to emerge. This erotic poem gradually became embedded in the discursive traditions of Latin Late Antiquity, which were bequeathed to the Christian communities of early medieval Europe.

From the Introduction:
"Part III starts out with a chapter by Tim Hutchings on the contemporary interplay between traditional sacred texts and digital technologies. Hutchings explores how the YouVersion Bible App is transforming the relationships among Bible readers, their pastors and the Christian publishing industry, with important implications for religious agency and traditional modes of religious authority and hierarchy structures. The chapter explores the changing environments and modes of traditional religious practice that have emerged following the development and proliferation of digital media technologies and their penetration into traditional religious settings."