The current study attempts to move beyond the fashionable scholarly opinion that apocalyptic literature is essentially posed “against empire” by critically analyzing the ideologies evaluated and advanced by the Testament of Moses. The author employs a theoretical framework derived from the work of the Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser to argue that the schematization of history in the Testament of Moses exposes and criticizes the domination of national rulers and foreign rulers, but for different reasons. While ideology is depicted as a strategy of domination used by both types of rulers, repressive physical violence is typically only associated with foreign domination. Yet, the text is not simply “against empire.” Rather, the ideology of the Testament of Moses is primarily opposed to the priestly ruling class of Judaea, the group thought to be responsible for the socioeconomic hardships experienced by the Judaean masses in the early first century C.E.

The story about the “Good Samaritan” in the gospel of Luke appears in the midst of a halakhic discussion between Jesus and a Judaean “lawyer” over who constitutes a “neighbor” (Luke 10:25-37). While scholars have often interpreted this pericope as a call for social inclusivity, the ways that Luke relies on and perpetuates prejudicial Judaean stereotypes about Samaritans have seldom been analyzed. This study draws on social-scientific and critical theory on ethnicity and the plethora of recent scholarship on Samaritan-Judaean interactions in order to explore the ways in which Luke’s text conveys prevalent ethnic stereotypes about Samaritans. It argues that Luke, like earlier and contemporaneous Judaean sources, appropriates an ethnographic representation of Samaritans as “proximate others” as part of a process of identity formation.

The Hellenistic Judaean historian known as Eupolemos embedded four fanciful epistles in his history of the kings of Judaea: two letters from Solomon to the kings of Egypt and Tyre, and the two responses of those kings. The letters to and from the king of Tyre are closely modeled on an exchange between Solomon and Hiram of Tyre in 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles. The letters involving the Egyptian king, however, are Eupolemos's invention. This article demonstrates through a close reading of Eupolemos vis-à-vis its sources, and in light of contemporaneous Greek letters, that the author used Hellenistic epistolary conventions as a medium for rewriting the traditional history of Solomon's reign. It is argued that he did so apologetically in order to characterize the foreign kings as ‘friends', that is, subordinate vassals, of the Judaean king. The historical context reflected in this epistolary re-characterization reflects political conditions in Hasmonean Judaea in the late second century bce, and thereby is offered as evidence against the consensus date of Eupolemos (158/57 bce) and the related assumption that this author can be identified as the ambassador Eupolemos mentioned in 1 Macc. 8.17 and 2 Macc. 4.11.

No abstract

Whereas 2 Cor. 3.1–4.6 is traditionally understood as a polemic against Judaeans and the Mosaic law, a close examination of its rhetoric of moral freedom in light of nearly contemporaneous philosophers, and Philo of Alexandria in particular, necessitates a different conclusion. As part of his self-depiction as a sophos, Paul critiques Moses’ mediation of the law by invoking Stoic philosophical traditions which relativize slavery and freedom and assert that written codes of law are insufficient for freedom in order to claim that Moses limited divine revelation. In this way, Paul casts Moses’ mediation as a foil for his mediation of the gospel, which allegedly does not limit revelation but affords freedom apart from the written law. Paul never castigates the law or Judaeans; instead, he critiques Mosaic mediation in order to bolster his own authority as a mediator of divine revelation.