David D. M. King

Of the four canonical gospels of the New Testament, the one most concerned with poverty, wealth, and the ethics of possession is Luke. It contains more economic material and a sharper message than do Mark, Matthew, or John. A centuries-long debate rages over just how revolutionary Luke’s message is. This dissertation employs redactional, literary, statistical, historical, and theological methodologies to recover Luke’s radical economic message, to place it in its ancient context, and to tease out its prophetic implications for today. It argues that Luke has a radical message of good news for the poor and a call for resistance to wealth. God is shown to favor the poor, championing their struggle for justice while condemning the rich and recommending a sweeping disposal of wealth for the benefit of the poor. This represents a distinct break from the prevailing ethics of the ancient Roman Empire and a profound challenge to the economic systems of the modern world. Generations of interpreters have worked to file down the sharp edges of Luke’s message, from scribes copying ancient manuscripts, to authors from the first few centuries of the Christian movement, to contemporary biblical scholars. Such domestication disfigures the gospel, silencing its critique of an economic system whose unremitting drive for profit and economic growth continues to widen the gap between the rich and the poor while threatening life-altering, environmental change. It is time to reclaim the bracing, prophetic call of Luke’s economic message, a message that warns against the destructive power of wealth and insists on justice for the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized.

In his Quis Dives Salvetur, Who Is the Rich Man Who Shall Be Saved? Clement of Alexandria interprets the gospel story of the Rich Young Ruler (Mark 10:17-31, Matt 19:16-30, Luke 18:18-30). The pericope has one of the more radical economic messages in the gospels, suggesting that "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to be saved." Clement seeks to domesticate this message and make the church safe for well-to-do Christians. He does this through clever exegesis, but also through a very peculiar edition of the biblical text. Clement presents a unique version of the pericope, one that seems to be cobbled together with the goal of stripping the story of its radical edge. This paper examines Clement's literary techniques and shows that before he has even turned to exegesis, Clement has already significantly changed the meaning of the text through edition.

When biblical scholars talk about canon and canonicity, we implicitly define a binary opposition; a book is either in or out. Some scholars, including Lee Martin McDonald, attempt to nuance this binary by talking about canon 1-texts that are considered authoritative for a time, before the hard fixing of canons-and canon 2-a fixed list of authoritative books. Others talk about closed and open canons. These terms, though, undermine the meaning of canon, a concept which only makes sense once a fixed collection has been established. This paper proposes a new term for understanding texts that are on the bubble of canonicity, those which are not accepted into the fixed canon but are still considered good to read: pericanonical. They are not inside the canon, but they are near it, just outside it. Further, this paper uses Didache 1:2-6 as a case study of one pericanonical text, exploring how it may have come to be situated just outside the canon. Application of Richard Hays's criteria for intertextuality reveals a relationship between Didache and the canonical gospels of Matthew and Luke. Determining the direction of dependence between these texts is nearly impossible, though, since we do not know who may have access to whom. It is made all the more complicated because all three texts have their own sources and redactional history. However, based on a detailed analysis of Didache 1:2-6 and its parallels, it seems plausible that Didache, in its finished form, used Matthew and Luke as sources and commented on them. It may have been a sort of digest of the key concepts needed for instructing new Christians. This may help to explain how Didache made its way to its place, just outside the canon, as a pericanonical text.

Recent scholarly work on wealth and poverty in the Gospel of Luke, beginning with L. T. Johnson, has tended to focus on an inconsistency in Luke between passages that demand from the disciple total renunciation of possessions and passages that demand only almsgiving. This paper makes use of statistical analysis to challenge that framing of Luke’s economic ethic and suggests that the real tension in Luke is between: 1) a radical economic ethic that proclaims good news for the poor and warns against wealth and 2) a voice which seems to embrace the business-as-usual of absentee landlords and economic accumulation. After cataloguing every reference in Luke to economic issues, the author classifies those references into several categories and four main themes: A) good news for the poor, B) resistance to wealth, C) accommodation to wealth, and D) words against the poor. Cross-referencing this with data on source and voice, the author is able to show that: 1) Luke does not present a major contradiction between renunciation and almsgiving, 2) Luke does present a radical message of good news for the poor and warnings against wealth, and 3) the main challenges to that radical message come from Q material and parables, particularly the Parable of the Pounds. This new wide-angle analysis of Luke suggests a new direction for further study of economic themes in the third gospel.

This paper identifies a gap in many studies of wealth and poverty in Luke regarding economic themes in the parable of the pounds (Lk 19:11-27).  The parable, which features a cruel absentee landlord who encourages his slaves to use his capital to extract extraordinary profits, stands in stark contrast to Luke’s otherwise strong themes of divine favor for the poor and warning against wealth.  Many studies of the parable suggest an eschatological allegory that serves to spiritualize its economic elements.  Others, though, argue that its economic themes have economic import and suggest either that God encourages the making of monumental profits or that the landlord in the story should not be associated with God or Jesus, that the third slave is actually the hero of the story.  Despite this body of research, significant comprehensive studies of wealth and poverty in Luke either ignore the parable of the pounds altogether or fail to address its economic import.  In particular, they fail to explain the parable’s economic themes in relation to economic themes in the rest of Luke.  Through a critique of the methodology of these studies, this paper points to an opportunity to integrate the economic themes of the parable of the pounds into broader conceptions of wealth and poverty in the gospel as a whole.

The story of Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman has been perennially problematic.The portrayal of Jesus’ character, the way he treats this woman, seems inconsistent with his larger identity, both in the minds of believers and in the context of the gospel narrative.Why is it that the Jesus who seems to offer grace and healing to just about anyone who asks is found in this pericope to refuse a request for healing and to hurl insults at the requester?How can these actions by Jesus be reconciled with his identity as gracious healer?This paper uses reader-response and narrative methods to explore varying and diverse solutions to this problem.Specifically, the work of six scholars is explored, each writing for a non-professional audience.Six possible solutions are identified: 1) Jesus is on vacation, 2) Jesus is playing, 3) Jesus has a more important mission, 4) Jesus is bested in debate, 5) Jesus is racist, and 6) Jesus is sexist.  Each of these solutions is evaluated for whether it can satisfactorily answer all of three
questions: 1) why does Jesus refuse the Syrophoenician woman’s request for exorcism? 2) why does Jesus indirectly refer to her as a dog? 3) why does Jesus change his mind and grant her request?Each of these six solutions is shown to be lacking.In the end, there is no satisfying way to square Jesus’ identity and characterization in this pericope with his identity and characterization in the rest
of the gospel narrative.However, the fact that no interpreter can leave it unsquared says something about Jesus’ identity.

Of the four canonical gospels of the New Testament, the one most concerned with poverty, wealth, and the ethics of possession is Luke. It contains more economic material and a sharper message than do Mark, Matthew, or John. A centuries-long debate rages over just how revolutionary Luke’s message is. This dissertation employs redactional, literary, statistical, historical, and theological methodologies to recover Luke’s radical economic message, to place it in its ancient context, and to tease out its prophetic implications for today. It argues that Luke has a radical message of good news for the poor and a call for resistance to wealth. God is shown to favor the poor, championing their struggle for justice while condemning the rich and recommending a sweeping disposal of wealth for the benefit of the poor. This represents a distinct break from the prevailing ethics of the ancient Roman Empire and a profound challenge to the economic systems of the modern world. Generations of interp...

In this paper, I will look specifically at one section of Didache that contains gospel parallels, Did. 1:2-6. I will argue that Didache, at least this section of it, shows dependency on both Matthew and Luke. This dependency begins to explain two things: why Didache fails to make the cut of official canon and why it still remains close to the canon, in a group of pericanonical texts which are not canon but are still good to read. The later date of Didache, and its derivative nature, exclude it from the canon on the grounds of apostolicity. At the same time, this same dependence on, harmony with, and commentary on Matthew and Luke ensures that Didache will remain “good to read.”

Constantine the Great was the first Roman emperor to be a Christian. However, his ascension to the purple did not automatically make Christianity the official religion of the empire, nor did it outlaw paganism. However, Constantine’s rise did begin a process by which Christianity went from being a marginal and persecuted group to being the religion of the empire. As Christianity proceeded from outlawed, to permitted, to official, it transformed from being defined in opposition to the Roman empire to being nearly one and the same with it.
One episode in this gradual transition is the controversy in the late fourth century over the Roman Altar of Victory. As a result of the events surrounding this episode, public funding was removed from pagan cults in Rome and the senate was redefined so as to no longer be a pagan institution. As most scholars tell the story, one of the major players in this decision, and perhaps the most important player, was not the emperor, not a senator, not a court official, but a Christian bishop: Ambrose of Milan. The church became an active force in imperial politics, and in so doing, developed its own new imperialistic identity.
In this paper, we will explore the relationship between Christianity and empire in relation to the 384 CE Altar of Victory controversy. After reviewing some introductory information on the Altar of Victory and Ambrose of Milan, we will explore the details of the 384 controversy before examining more directly the two most important primary documents involved: the 3rd Relatio of Symmachus and the 17th Epistle of Ambrose. Finally, I will show how Ambrose uses the rhetoric of martyrdom and persecution in support of imperial power and Christian supremacy.

In her 2005 article, “Portraying the Temple in Stone and Text: The Arch of Titus and the Epistle to the Hebrews,” Ellen Bradshaw Aitken argues that the Christology of Hebrews can be correlated with Roman imperial history, specifically with the triumph of the Flavians — Emperor Vespasian and his sons, the future emperors Titus and Domitian — and the propaganda campaign that secured their legitimacy. She concludes that Hebrews uses the details of the triumph in order to subvert imperial claims and, by juxtaposing them with the actions of Jesus, to show that Christ is the true and superior imperator.1 In this essay, I intend to build on her work by giving additional arguments for the validity of her thesis and by showing that the Melchizedek material of Hebrews also fits into the context of this connection between Jesus and the Flavians. I will show that Melchizedek, Jesus, and the Flavian emperors can be correlated in Hebrews, and that they can all be described as King and Priest of Salem. I am not arguing that Hebrews was written purely as an anti-imperial tract, but rather that Hebrews hits certain notes that would likely have raised Flavian associations for its first audience.

In this paper, I will explore how Paul constructs Abraham and his unwavering faith and compare that with the Abraham story in Genesis. I will argue that the details of the Abraham narrative in Genesis are indeed problematic, both for Paul’s construction in Romans 4 of Abraham as a paragon of unwavering faith, and for the conceptions of later Pauline interpreters. We will find, though, that Paul has the weight of Second Temple tradition on his side when he chooses to ignore these details in order to make his theological point.

This study will take as a working assumption that John knew at least part of the synoptic tradition, if not all of it, but intentionally chose to make a change. If that is the case, for what purpose did John offer an alternative to the synoptic story? What significance do John's changes have?
Chapters 12 and 13 of John offer an opportunity for us to explore this question in miniature. This section contains several passages that parallel Matthew, Luke, and especially Mark, while at the same time having a plentitude of uniquely Johannine material. We will use it as a case study.