Currents in Biblical Research

This article surveys trends in Chronicles scholarship from 1994 to 2007. Most of the trends established by 1993 have continued with more depth and focus, although with a few challenges. These trends include: refining the distinctions between Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemia as coming from separate authors/editors; recognizing the integral role of the genealogies; and examining the literary artistry of the Chronicler. Newer trends include: pursuing the interplay between orality, on the one hand, and textuality and literacy, on the other; and bringing insights from an increasing sociological understanding of the Persian and Hellenistic periods in general. Recent years have also seen a wealth of new commentaries.

This article focuses on works that have been produced within the last 25 years which attempt to provide a holistic approach to the understanding and interpretation of 1 Thessalonians, such as: epistolary, rhetorical, theological, linguistic, and various combinations of the above. Proponents of each view and their perspectives will be outlined along with their structural division of the text. This article attempts to provide a general map of particular approaches to 1 Thessalonians, but also provides a brief outline of some of the critiques and weaknesses of the different methodologies. This article concludes with a brief statement regarding the trajectory of current studies.

In the last thirty years there have been significant developments in the application of orality studies to the Gospels. The objective of this article is to provide an overview of the field through a survey of its leading proponents, including Werner Kelber, Joanna Dewey, Paul Achtemeier, Peter Botha, Richard Horsley and Jonathan Draper, Kenneth Bailey, James Dunn, Richard Bauckham, David Rhoads and Whitney Shiner. The essay begins with a discussion of several foundational studies, before turning specifically to the reconception of orality and the implication of this research for the Gospels. The study concludes that, while an appreciation of orality has made inroads into certain segments of Gospels research, it remains a neglected and underexploited dimension of NT interpretation.

Recent years have seen a steady rise in the scholarly interest in Jewish magic. The present paper seeks to take stock of what has already been done, to explain how further study of Jewish magical texts and artifacts might make major contributions to the study of Judaism as a whole, and to provide a blueprint for further progress in this field. Its main claim is that the number of unedited and even uncharted primary sources for the study of Jewish magic is staggering, and that these sources must serve as the starting point for any serious study of the Jewish magical tradition from antiquity to the twenty-first century. Such a study must both compare the Jewish magical texts and practices of each historical period with those of the contemporaneous non-Jewish world, and thus trace processes of cross-cultural contacts and influences, and compare the Jewish magical texts and practices of one period with those of another, so as to detect processes of inner-Jewish continuity and transmission. Finally, such a study must flesh out the place of magical practices and practitioners within the Jewish society of different periods, and within different Jewish communities.