Visions

Entry appears in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Ancient Mediterranean Religions; its scope extends from pre-historical antiquity in the third millennium B.C.E. through the rise of Islam in the seventh century C.E

Educating Early Christians through the Rhetoric of Hell: \u27Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth\u27 as \u27Paideia\u27 in Matthew and the Early Church

Meghan Henning explores the rhetorical function of the early Christian concept of hell, drawing connections to Greek and Roman systems of education, and examining texts from the Hebrew Bible, Greek and Latin literature, the New Testament, early Christian apocalypses and patristic authors. This work is a revised version of the author\u27s Ph.D. dissertation, which was successfully defended at Emory University in 2013. It is included in the series Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament II. She writes, Now that this work is finished, I am delighted to have the opportunity to thank those who have generously traveled with me on this journey through the hallows of early Christian hell. During the course of my work on the dissertation I was fortunate to receive funding for my research not only from the graduate school but also from the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship Program, and the Society of Biblical Literature. I am also extremely grateful to Jörg Frey, Tobias Nicklas, and the editorial team at Mohr Siebeck for their help, especially Dr. Henning Ziebritzki and his staff. I am indebted to Christian Bemmerl, Craig Dressler, Franziska Ede, and Megan Getman, who have tirelessly assisted in the preparation of the manuscript

Chreia Elaboration and the Un-healing of Peter\u27s Daughter: Rhetorical Analysis as a Clue to Understanding the Development of a Petrine Tradition

In a Coptic fragment associated with the Acts of Peter, Peter “heals” and then “disables” his own daughter as a demonstration of God’s power at work in him. The following article will compare Peter’s speech with the ancient rhetorical form of the chreia. When placed alongside other traditions that describe the life of Peter, a consistent pattern of anti-healings emerges, in which a display of apostolic power harms another character in order to provide a lesson for those watching. Taken together, the rhetoric and themes of the pericope suggest that it was composed as a way of explaining a difficult saying that was attributed to Peter

Son of My. . .?

Henning In Genesis 35, the beloved Jewish matriarch, Rachel, dies in childbirth outside of Bethlehem. Before her death, Rachel names her son Ben-Oni which means son of my sorrow. Hearing this, her husband Jacob says his son will be called Ben Yamin which means Son of my Right Hand or Son of the South. Scholars have long looked at this moment as a step in the process that turned the Israelites from tribal and matriarchal to monarchical and patriarchal. This article reimagines this story in a less domineering manner. In order to make her point, Henning first clarifies the importance and power of naming. Not only do names reflect upon those that receive them and take part in crafting identity, but the entire process is also linked to creation and divine power. To give someone or something a name is to participate in God\u27s work. Henning also notes that traditionally in Hebraic culture, the naming of the children was the duty of the mother and midwife. At the moment of Rachel\u27s death, however, Jacob steps into the process and asserts a new role. This has long been thought of as a domineering practice that has stolen one of Rachel\u27s few powers at the very moment of her demise. Henning, however, sees this moment as a gift of hope and comfort from Jacob to Rachel. By referring to Rachel\u27s son as the Son of my Right Hand, Jacob shows a preference for Rachel\u27s lineage that would have been a comfort after her long struggles with her own barrenness, and her competition with Leah. Henning\u27s reimagining turns this story from a tragic moment characterized by patriarchal insensitivity and domination, to a hopeful and loving moment between spouses and within the family structure

Hell as ‘Heterotopia’: Edification and Interpretation from Enoch to the Apocalypses of Peter and Paul

The volume in which this chapter appears is a comparative study of the processes of reception, rewriting and interpretation between canonical and apocryphal texts in early Jewish and early Christian literature

Devil

The scope of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Ancient Mediterranean Religions extends from pre-historical antiquity in the third millennium B.C.E. through the rise of Islam in the seventh century C.E

Paralysis and Sexuality in Medical Literature and the \u27Acts of Peter\u27

This paper focuses on the story of Peter’s daughter that is found in the Berlin Coptic papyrus BG 8502.4 and is associated with the apocryphal Acts of Peter. Research on the story of Peter’s daughter has primarily focused on its interpretation of the theme of chastity, or whether the story was originally included in the Acts of Peter. In the course of these investigations, scholars have taken for granted the curious assumption of the text that paralysis renders Peter’s daughter unfit for marriage, and thus safe from Ptolemy’s unwanted advances. This paper explores the underlying understandings of paralysis and sexuality that would have enabled ancient Christian audiences to make this leap from paralysis to sexual inviolability. Using data from ancient medical texts, this work demonstrates that both paralysis and infertility were understood as symptoms of excessive cooling and insufficient blood flow. Thus, for the ancient audience a paralyzed female body was incapable of bearing children and an undesirable candidate for marriage. When read in light of these findings, Peter’s daughter is not only a model of early Christian chastity, but of early Christian story telling—using common cultural assumptions about disability to redefine normativity

Substitutes in Hell: Schemes of Atonement in the Ezra Apocalypses

This book is one of the first modern collections of studies on important aspects of the Ezra figure that combines both Jewish and Christian traditions. The volume opens with a study of Ezra in rabbinic literature and continues with four chapters on 4 Ezra, discussing its dimensions of time, future agents and visionary practices as well as reminiscences of 4 Ezra in the Armenian Script of the Lord\u27s Infancy. The following chapters study the relationship of 4, 5 and 6 Ezra, the nature of 5 Ezra and dissimulation strategies in 6 Ezra. The last chapters concentrate on the important discovery in 1984 of a longer version of the Vision of Ezra. Studies of its place, date, tour of hell as well as its scheme of atonements make a start with integrating this text in the study of early Christianity. Analyses of the Apocalypse of Sedrach and of anxieties of discontinuity in the Testament of Abraham and in Ezra traditions further contribute to a better understanding of this text. The final chapter offers the first German translation of this exciting discovery. As has become customary, the volume concludes with an extensive bibliography and detailed index.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/books/1102/thumbnail.jp

Metaphorical, Punitive, and Pedagogical Blindness in Hell

What is the role of the blind body in hell? Does it gesture to broader cultural conceptions of physical impairment? Can the blind be healed in places of eternal punishment? Does this ‘healing’ function similarly to the understandings of blindness available in contemporaneous medical texts? This article will examine the depictions of the blind in the extra-canonical apocalypses that describe hell. We will begin with a discussion of the apocalyptic tours of hell that describe blindness, paying special attention to the different roles (metaphorical, punitive, and pedagogical) that blindness plays in each text. We will also consider the impact that these understandings of the disabled body have upon the readers of apocalyptic texts when placed alongside other impaired and disfigured bodies in hell. We will compare the distinct approaches to blindness that we find in the apocalyptic tours of hell with other ancient attitudes toward blindness found within both Greek and Roman depictions of Hades and broader culture. By comparing these different ancient depictions of hell we will observe the ways in which blindness is used to depict both eternal punishment and spiritual enlightenment. We will reflect upon the ways in which early Christians appropriated and modified Greek and Roman understandings of blindness in Hades in their own visions of hell. Finally, we will use our analysis to draw conclusions about the role of sight and blindness within apocalyptic theology.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/books/1101/thumbnail.jp

Eternal Punishment as Paideia: The Ekphrasis of Hell in the Apocalypse of Peter and the Apocalypse of Paul

Much of the history of scholarship on “hell” has been devoted to tracing genetic relationships between older texts and more recent ones, typically based upon generic elements or the specific features of hell’s landscape. This paper suggests a new direction for classics and New Testament study, focusing instead on the rhetorical function of hell in antiquity. This paper argues that the ancient conventions of descriptive rhetoric were at work in the depictions of Hell that we find in the Jewish and early Christian apocalypses. It begins with a definition of these rhetorical devices by examining the Progymnasmata as well as Quintillian’s work on rhetoric and discusses the role of the rhetoric of description in the overall Greek and Roman programs of paideia. Next, this paper demonstrates that these rhetorical devices were at work in various ancient depictions of Hades (with examples chosen from Greek and Latin authors such as Homer, Plato, Virgil, Lucian and Plutarch). Finally, this paper shows that this rhetorical technique was also at work in the early Christian apocalypses and concludes that apocalyptic authors, like the Greeks and Romans before them, used these rhetorical techniques to “emotionally move” their audiences toward “right behavior.