(13) “Second Clement.” In: The Reception of Jesus in the First Three Centuries, Volume 2: From Gospel Additions to the Four-Fold Gospel: Receptions of Jesus in Christian Literature of the Second and Third Centuries CE, ed. Chris Keith, Helen K. Bond, Christine Jacobi, and Jens Schröter. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2019, 513–30

Second Clement is a noteworthy early witness to the reception and creative interpretation of Jesus’s sayings, as compared with sayings preserved in the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and Thomas. An unusual feature of its Christology is that, aside from “saving” believers, Christ is not said to play any role in their lives prior to the final judgment – for example, in guiding or protecting them.

(12) “The Ecclesiology of 2 Clement 14: Ephesians, Pauline Reception, and the Church’s Preexistence.” In: Receptions of Paul in Early Christianity: The Person of Paul and His Writings through the Eyes of His Early Interpreters, ed. Simon Butticaz, Andreas Dettwiler, and Jens Schröter, in cooperation with Clarissa Paul, BZNW 234 (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2018), 377–409, DOI 10.1515/9783110533781-015

Numerous reasons suggest that the Letter of Ephesians influenced the claim of 2 Clement 14 that the “church” was present with Christ before the creation of the world. The latter writing may, in turn, have been not only borrowing from Ephesians but also correcting its soteriology.

(11) “Faith and Righteousness in Second Clement: Probing the Purported Influence of ‘Late Judaism’ and the Beginnings of ‘Early Catholicism.’” In Glaube: Das Verständnis des Glaubens im frühen Christentum und in seiner jüdischen und hellenistisch-römischen Umwelt, ed. Jörg Frey, Benjamin Schliesser, and Nadine Ueberschaer. WUNT 377. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017, 683–720

Differences between the theology of Second Clement and Paul or the Synoptic Gospels should not be labeled as corruptions of earlier Christian tradition. Shedding the imprecise and pejorative categories of “Late Judaism” (H. Windisch), “Hellenistic asceticism” (R. Bultmann), and “Early Catholicism” (H. Koester) enables us to come to a more nuanced understanding of faith and righteousness in Second Clement, whose author repeatedly accentuates that faith(fulness) is reflected in a believer’s orthopraxis.

(10) “John the Baptist as an Abstainer from Table Fellowship and Jesus as a ‘Glutton’: (Non-)Participation in Meals as a Means for Gaining Social Capital That Can Confirm or Jeopardize a Person’s Standing in Society (Luke 7:31–35||Matt 11:16–19).” In: The Eucharist – Its Origins and Contexts, Vol. 1: Old Testament, Early Judaism, New Testament, ed. David Hellholm and Dieter Sänger. WUNT 376. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017, 313–29

The accusations that John the Baptist was asocial since he did not eat with others and that Jesus was a “glutton” who ate with the wrong people likely detracted from both prophets’ social capital: neither one would have been eating with powerful people who could have bolstered his prophetic legitimacy.

(9) “Der Verfolger als Gottes Widersacher in der Apostelgeschichte.” In: L’adversaire de Dieu – Der Widersacher Gottes, ed. Michael Tilly, Matthias Morgenstern, Volker Henning Drecoll, and Hendrik Stoppel. WUNT 364. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016, 135–45

This paper examines the killing of Stephen and the depictions of Paul as a former persecutor of the church and as a persecuted missionary of Christ, concluding that Lukan Heilsgeschichte does not differentiate between the enemies of God and the persecutors of the Jesus movement. For Luke, then, to persecute Paul is to become one of God’s adversaries. This “othering” of opponents in Acts requires ethical and hermeneutical reflection that could profitably animate interreligious dialogue today.

(8) “En svensk översättning av Eusebios ad Marinum I.1–II.1: Textkritik och harmonisering av bibeltexter i den tidiga kyrkan” [“A Swedish Translation of Eusebius ad Marinum I.1–II.1: Textual Criticism and Harmonization of Biblical Texts in the Early Church”]. In: Ad fontes: Festskrift till Olof Andrén på 100-årsdagen, ed. Carl Johan Berglund and Daniel Gustafsson. Stockholm: Artos, 2015, 243–51

An introduction to and the first Swedish translation of ad Marinum I.1–II.1 (see article 1, above).

(7) “If Second Clement Really Were a ‘Sermon,’ How Would We Know, and Why Would We Care? Prolegomena to Analyses of the Writing’s Genre and Community.” In: Early Christian Communities between Ideal and Reality, ed. Mark Grundeken and Joseph Verheyden. WUNT 342. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015, 83–108

Correcting widespread misunderstandings about Second Clement’s genre, community, and liturgical setting, the paper notes that over a century of scholarship has produced only dubious arguments for identifying the writing as a “sermon” or a “homily.” Further, proclamation in the early church did not have a fixed form. A focus on microgenre, rather than macrogenre, and a comparison of Second Clement’s features with those of certain early Christian letters holds promise for future inquiry.

(6) “Hapless Disciples and Exemplary Minor Characters in the Gospel of Mark: The Exhortation to Cross-Bearing as Both Encouragement and Warning.” In: Texts and Traditions: Essays in Honour of J. Keith Elliott, ed. Peter Doble and Jeffrey Kloha. New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents 47. Leiden: Brill, 2014, 95–136, DOI 10.1163/9789004273931_007

It is commonly recognized that the Markan disciples’ unwillingness to suffer for, and with, Jesus functions as an exhortation that Mark’s readers not emulate the disciples’ perfidious behavior. This study takes the (contested) minority view that an overlooked corollary of that exhortation is the implicit warning to any who would regard Jesus’s experiences of suffering as incidental to their own calling as disciples. Thus, Mark’s presentation of the disciples should be interpreted as not only hortatory but also admonishing.

(5) “Improvising Two Different Responses to Persecution: First Peter’s Innovations and Relationship to the corpus Paulinum.” In: Bedrängnis und Identität. Studien zu Situation, Kommunikation und Theologie des 1. Petrusbriefs, ed. David S. du Toit. BZNW 200. Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2013, 263–80, DOI 10.1515/9783110302318.263

First Peter is indebted to certain Pauline letters but also reflects developments beyond those letters, one of which is First Peter’s remarks on persecution: the faithful are to persist in “good works,” inspired by the (possibly naïve) hope that doing so will culminate in the persecutors’ conversion.

(4) “The Relevance of Revelation’s Date and the Imperial Cult for John’s Appraisal of the Value of Christians’ Suffering in Revelation 1–3.” In: Die Johannesapokalypse: Kontexte – Konzepte – Rezeption,
ed. Jörg Frey, J. A. Kelhoffer, and F. Tóth. WUNT 287. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012, 553–85

In his prophetic oracles to the seven churches, John praises the value of the martyr Antipas’s faithful witness and resistance unto death, and extols the necessity of every Christian’s resisting the imperial cult, heretical leaders, and seductive vices. The tribulation and reward that John promises to the faithful replicate the pattern of Antipas and Christ’s endurance and subsequent enthronement. (Revised and updated in Kelhoffer, “Gospel” and Legitimacy, chapter 12)

(3) “A Tale of Two Markan Characterizations: The Exemplary Woman Who Anointed Jesus’ Body for Burial (14:3–9) and the Silent Trio Who Fled the Empty Tomb (16:1–8).” In: Women and Gender in Ancient Religions: Interdisciplinary Approaches, ed. S. P. Ahearne-Kroll, P. Holloway, and J. A. Kelhoffer. WUNT 263. FS Adela Yarbro Collins. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010, 85–98

This essay develops two theses: (1) Mark presents as a laudatory example of discipleship the anonymous woman who anointed Jesus, in contrast to the twelve apostles and, in particular, to Judas and (2) the women’s failure to announce the resurrection at the end of Mark is a continuation of the apostles’ many failures earlier in Mark. Rhetorically, those failures call upon readers to evaluate their own commitment to discipleship.

(2) “‘Gospel’ as a Literary Title in Early Christianity and the Question of What Is (and Is not) a ‘Gospel’ in Canons of Scholarly Literature.” In: Jesus in apokryphen Evangelienüberlieferungen, ed. Jörg Frey and Jens Schröter. WUNT 254. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010, 399–422

Questioning N. T. Wright’s criteria for the classification of “gospel” literature, this essay argues that scholars should avoid arbitrary theological criteria for genre classification. Also discussed are when “gospel” became a literary designation, Basilides’s witness to gospel materials in the mid-second century, and whether Basilides himself wrote a Gospel.

(1) “Early Christian Ascetic Practices and Biblical Interpretation: The Witnesses of Galen and Tatian.” In: The New Testament and Early Christian Literature in Greco-Roman Context, ed. John Fotopoulos. NovTSup 122. FS David E. Aune. Leiden: Brill, 2006, 439–44, DOI 10.1163/ej.9789004143043.i-465.114

The testimonies of the physician Galen (d. ca. 199/216 CE) and the Syrian Christian Tatian (fl. 165–172 CE) to early Christian asceticism predate the ascetic interpretations of biblical texts by Clement of Alexandria (d. ca. 211/216 CE) and others. The temporal proximity of Galen and Tatian to Clement of Alexandria suggests that ascetic practices may have informed biblical interpretation (and vice versa). (Revised and updated in Kelhoffer, “Gospel” and Legitimacy, chapter 16)