Browsing by Subject "Bar Kokhba"

Epistle of Barnabas, included in the collection of Apostolic Fathers, is an early christian text composed betweed \AD 70–135, today mostly known for its anti-Judaism. It enjoyed some popularity in the early church, being for example included in Codex Sinaiticus. The purpose of this work is to treat in depth a set of introductory questions, which rarely receive in-depth treatments: unity, form, dating and provenance. In the past interpolatory theories have been proposed to explain some incoherencies in the text. There's also an abrupt transition in \ibibleverse{Barnabas}(17:) from theological to ethical teaching, a section known as the Two Ways, and an ancient Latin verion omits the Two Ways section. Nevertheless the text shows highly unified style and the Two Ways themes are present throughout. The Latin version is clearly secondary. The text should be treated as unity. Despite clear epistolary features, it's often been suggested that the text isn't a true letter but a treatise. The epistolary features have been explained as fiction, pseudepigraphy or following literary conventions. As the epistle is anonymous but includes repeating personal references, no clear parallel exists. The explanations given for the epistolary features are unsatisfactory, and today the text is often recognized as a real letter. Various more precise datings have been suggested based on allusions in chapters \ibibleverse{Barnabas}(4:) (10 kings) and \ibibleverse{Barnabas}(16:) (temple). When evaluated, all the suggestions are revealed to be problematic, including the lately popular ones based on the Hadrianic temple of Jupiter, which might have never existed. Its best to settle with the range \AD 70–135. Various locations have been suggested as the origin of the epistle with many different lines of evidence. These are handled in detail, including the more exotic ones. The insight that a letter has both an origin and a destination makes it possible to settle one of these: The destination must have been in Egypt based on the early reception of the text there. The main contributions of this work are settling the destination of the epistle and bringing the problems of the dating based on the Hadrianic temple to light. Evaluating these questions is an important basis for reconstructing the purpose of the epistle. Also a couple of interesting subjects for future study were noticed along the way.