Features

The Arian Controversy—How It Divided Early Christianity

22The city of Ravenna has endured as a shimmering monument to late antique art and civilization—the imperial tombs, the palace churches, the oratorios (prayer chapels) and the baptisteries all glisten with the mosaic makers’ art. One of the most interesting buildings—and perhaps the one with the most intriguing story—in this northern Italian city is […]

The Undiscovered Symmetry of the Bible—An Interview with David Noel Freedman—Part II

Readers of our December issue will recall David Noel Freedman’s analysis of the organization of the Hebrew Bible and his insights into when the Hebrew Bible assumed its final shape (“How the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament Differ—An Interview with David Noel Freedman—Part I,” BR 09:06). In this concluding half of the […]

Jesus and the Teacher of Righteousness—Similarities and Differences

The similarities between the Jewish Dead Sea Scroll community and early Christianity are sometimes striking. The public has been fascinated by these similarities, often forgetting the differences, which are in many ways greater. In this article, I will compare the leaders, or founders, of these two religious organizations—the Teacher of Righteousness and Jesus. Their […]

Re-creating the Tablets of the Law

49 How should we imagine the Tablets of the Law that Moses twice brought down from the mountain? Whether the story is legend or history is irrelevant to this question. However we, are to appreciate the story, we should try to understand these tablets in the context of their time. In Cecil B. de […]

Departments

Jesus Before Pilate
The questions of the Roman prosecutor and Jesus’ answers in the Gospel of John epitomize the conflict of the early Christian church with the representatives of the Roman government. By Helmut Koester
The Changing Scene in Biblical Theology
The Old Testament/Hebrew Bible has an independence that should not be compromised by either Christianizing or Judaizing it. Together, we need to discuss what it says about God and God’s relationship to human beings and the world. By Bernhard W. Anderson