Table of Contents

1. Introduction Guy G. Stroumsa; Part I. Paradises of Second Temple Judaism and Christian Origins: 2. The Messiah in the Garden Joachim Schaper; 3. Philo's scholarly inquiries into the story of Paradise Maren R. Niehoff; 4. Paradise in the Biblical Antiquities of Pseudo-Philo Richard Bauckham; 5. Paradise, gardens and the afterlife in the first century CE Martin Goodman; 6. Paradise in the New Testament Grant Macaskill; 7. Quis et Unde? Heavenly obstacles in Gos. Thom. 50 and related literature Simon Gathercole; Part II. Contemporizing Paradise in Late Antiquity: 8. Tertullian and the law of Paradise Sabrina Inowlocki; 9. The language of Paradise: Hebrew or Syriac? Linguistic speculations and linguistic realities in late antiquity Yonatan Moss; 10. The Tree of Life and the turning sword: Jewish biblical interpretation, symbols and theological patterns and their Christian counterparts Menahem Kister; 11. Erotic Eden: a rabbinic nostalgia for Paradise Galit Hasan-Rokem; 12. Augustine on Virgil and Scripture Gillian Clark; 13. Paradise as political theme in Augustine's City of God Emile Perreau-Saussine; 14. Locating Paradise Markus Bockmuehl; Epilogue: a heaven on earth Alessandro Scafi; Bibliography; Index.

Promotional Information

The essays in this volume highlight the multiple perspectives on Paradise from Second Temple Judaism and Christian origins to Augustine and rabbinic literature.

About the Author

Markus Bockmuehl is a Fellow of Keble College and Professor of Biblical and Early Christian Studies at the University of Oxford. He is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Jesus (Cambridge, 2001) and the co-editor (with Don Hagner) of The Written Gospel (Cambridge, 2005). Guy G. Stroumsa is Professor of the Study of the Abrahamic Religions and a Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall at the University of Oxford, and Martin Buber Professor of Comparative Religion, Emeritus, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of The End of Sacrifice (2009) and the co-editor (with Graham N. Stanton) of Tolerance and Intolerance in Early Judaism and Christianity (Cambridge, 1998).

Reviews

'… the following papers included in this collective volume are most closely related to biblical studies: J. Schaper, The Messiah in the Garden: Joyhn 19:38–41, (royal) gardens and messianic concepts, Philo's scholarly inquiries into the story of Paradise; R. Bauckham, Paradise in the Bibical antiquities of Peseudo-Philo; M. Goodman, Paradise, gardens and the afterlife in the first century CE.' International Review of Biblical Studies

'… this is a significant volume which successfully communicates the wide variety of interpretations of Paradise in Late Antiquity and makes a valuable contribution to an already rich field of study.' Theology

'Collections of this kind stand or fall on the ability of their essays to cover their subject meaningfully and intelligently. This volume succeeds.' H-Judaic (h-net.org/~judaic)