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[German Version] I. Literary Theory – II. Old Testament – III. New Testament I. Literary Theory Gen…

[German Version] Arimathea serves to indicate Joseph's place of origin. The location Arimathea is not attested. However, the Old Testament knows a place with the Hebrew form Ramathaim (1 Sam 1:1) and Eusebius of Caesarea equates Rontis, 14 km north of Lydda, with Arimathea ( Onomastikon, 32.21ff.; 144.27ff.). Joseph appears in Mark 15:42– 46 parr.; John 19:38–41. He is a councilor ( bouleutēs, Mark 15:43; Luke 23:50), a member of the Sanhedrin. Contrary to political realities, Luke 23:51 declares Arimathea a polis so that later the erroneous, historicizing interpretation…

[German Version] The term “apotheosis” (ἀποθέωσις/ apothéōsis) is a coinage of the Hellenistic period. Important individuals like Alexander the Great were said to have been elevated to divine status (Polybius). Apotheosis belongs to the extensive semantic field that associates deities with human beings (Gen 6:1–4). Divine kingship, the Egyptian pharaoh, and the Greek hero cult are the closest analogies. The beginnings of apotheosis in the narrow sense appear in the 6th and 5th centuries bce. The heroization of Greek figures like Homer and Hesiod developed into the deification or heroization of actual historical individuals (military leaders, city rulers, priests, poets, seers, sages, artists, and athletes). At the turn of the 4th century bce, local heroization came to include living benefactors. Around 404 bce, the island of Samos bestowed divine honors on Lysander of Sparta for his victory in the Peloponnesian War (Plutarch, Lys. 18, 3f.). Philip II of Macedonia (Pausa…

[German Version] (Aram. בַּר אַבָּאַ, “son of the father”, Gk Βαραββᾶς) is an unspecified patronymic, commonly used according to the Talmud ( b. Ber. 18b) and also attested in Greek inscriptions ( SEG I 7,489,1). In the story of the Passion, Barabbas appears 11 times in the context of the Passover amnesty…

[German Version] I. Methods of Biblical Criticism applied to the Old Testament – II. Methods of Biblical Criticism applied to the New Testament See also Effective History/Reception History I. Methods o…