John S Kloppenborg
Biographic Data
| ID | 1039232 |
|---|---|
| NAME | John S Kloppenborg |
| GIVEN NAMES | John S |
| FAMILY NAME | Kloppenborg |
| SIGNATURE | KLOPPENBORG J S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Toronto |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8770-4558 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 42 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 4 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 39 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1982 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
The Catena to James: Reading the Letter of James in the Ancient Greek Commentary Tradition, written by Martin C. Albl
Der Brief des Jakobus, written by Oda Wischmeyer
The History and Prospects of the Synoptic Problem
The Synoptic Problem owes its birth to the complex array of agreements and discrepancies that exist among the Synoptic Gospels: two, and sometimes three, of the Synoptics display a very high degree of verbatim agreement in the telling of some stories or sayings. In other cases, the agreement is very low. Matthew and Luke, for example, agree almost completely on the wording of the saying on God and Mammon (Matt 6:24 // Luke 16:13) but show wide di…
Cultic Space for Private Associations: Texts and Architecture
In keeping with the theme of this volume, texts and architecture, this paper discusses the interplay between textual representations of space and architecture, beginning with instances in which we have both text and architecture, and then proceeding to cases in which architecture is missing but where sufficient textual signs exist to draw some conclusions about architecture. These two data sets allow for a construction of the complex history of t…
James among the Classicists: Reading the Letter of James in Light of Ancient Literary Criticism, written by Sigurvin Larus Jónsson
On Using Sources in Graeco-Roman, Jewish and Early Christian Literature
Urchristentum, Primitive Christianity, Early Christianity, the Jesus Movement
Markus Öhler, Geschichte des frühen Christentums, Uni-Taschenbücher 4737 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck + Ruprecht, 2018), 366 pp., ISBN 978–3-8252–4737–9. – Udo Schnelle, Die ersten 100 Jahre des Christentums, 30–130 n. Chr.: Die Entstehungsgeschichte einer Weltreligion, 2nd ed., Uni-Taschenbücher 4411 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck + Ruprecht, 2016), 589 pp., ISBN 978–3-8252–4606–8
Recruitment to Elective Cults: Network Structure and Ecology
During the first and second centuries of the Common Era the Christ cult spread from rural Palestine to the large cities of the Empire. This article draws insights from social network theory and from epidemiology, arguing that the Christ cult was not a simple contagion, spread by simple contact, but a ‘complex contagion’ that required persuasion, especially because adherence to the Christ cult entailed potential social costs and demanded high sign…
Ptolemaic and Early Roman Egypt
Private associations organized around a common cult, occupation, ethnic identity, neighborhood or family were among the principal means of organizing social and economic life in the ancient Mediterranean. They offered opportunities for sociability, cultic activities, mutual support and contexts in which to display and recognize virtuous achievement. This volume collects 140 inscriptions and papyri from Ptolemaic and early Roman Egypt, along with …
Social Networks and the Dissemination of Elective Cults
generierten und ihnen Möglichkeiten und Kontakte verschafften, welche ohne die Mitgliedschaft nicht erreichbar waren. Entsprechend lassen sich die Mitglieder als »Knotenpunkte« betrachten, die miteinander verbunden sind, und zwar üblicherweise in mehrfacher Hinsicht - durch Verwandtschaft, Herkunft, Beruf, Nachbarschaft, kultische Praxis, Patronatsverhältnisse, materielle Verbindungen usw. Auf dieser suburbanen, lokalen Ebene verbreiteten sich au…
Christ’s Associations: Connecting and Belonging in the Ancient City
A groundbreaking investigation of early Christ groups in the ancient Mediterranean As an urban movement, the early groups of Christ followers came into contact with the many small groups in Greek and Roman antiquity. Organized around the workplace, a deity, a diasporic identity, or a neighborhood, these associations gathered in small face-to-face meetings and provided the principal context for cultic and social interactions for their members. Unl…
Cynicism and Christianity in Antiquity
The Gospels and Their Stories in Anthropological Perspective
How can social-scientific approaches to the gospels advance biblical studies? This volume offers the proceedings of a conference that brought together a number of expert biblical scholars, specialists of ancient religious practices, and proponents of an anthropological approach to ancient Christian and Greco-Roman religious tradition.
Gospels and Their Stories in Anthropological Perspective
Back cover: How can social-scientific approaches to the gospels advance biblical studies? This volume offers the proceedings of a conference that brought together a number of expert biblical scholars, specialists of ancient religious practices, and proponents of an anthropological approach to ancient Christian and Greco-Roman religious traditon.
Fiscal Aspects of Paul's Collection for Jerusalem
Die Kollekte des Paulus für »die Armen unter den Heiligen in Jerusalem« wird zumeist ohne hinreichende Rücksicht auf die Abgabenpraxis in den Städten und kleinen Vereinen des griechischen Ostens betrachtet. Dieser Artikel trägt zusammen, was über die Geldbeschaffung und -verwendung anderer Gruppen in dieser Zeit bekannt ist, und stellt die damit verbundenen Probleme dar. Vor diesem Hintergrund erscheint die Kollekte des Paulus in einem anderen Li…
Gaius the Roman Guest
The usual understanding of Gaius in Rom 16.23 as a ‘host’ of the Corinthian Christ group (or the host of travellers to Corinth) is fraught with several difficulties: it implausibly renders ξένος as ‘host’ rather than the much more common ‘guest’; it fails to explain why a ‘host’ would have been named so far down Paul's list of those sending greetings; and it fails to explain why Paul refers to this person by his praenomen instead of the more comm…
Associations, Christ groups, and their place in the Polis
Early Christ groups, like Greek and Roman associations, engaged in mimicry of various civic institutions, and for similar reasons: to facilitate the integration of sub-altern groups into civic structures; to create “communities of honour” in which virtue was recognized and rewarded; and to produce small social structures in which the democratic values of autonomy could be performed. While mimicking civic structures, early Christ groups also displ…
Honor among Thieves: Craftsmen, Merchants, and Associations in Roman and Late Roman Egypt by Philip F. Venticinque
BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 421 it allows him to “play the Gaul” (231). The editors of ILA-Bordeaux 146 identify him as dressed in a “tunique à col roulé,” which changes appreciably how one might interpret the portrait image incorporated into his tombstone. In a similar vein, it is surprising that no maps of the Gallic and Hispanic provinces are provided. For the discussion of Ausonius’ identity (mentioned above), for instance, it would have been…
Encounters with Jesus: The Man in His Place and Time, written by Destro, Adrianna and Mauro Pesce
Synoptic Problems: Collected Essays
This volume contains a collection of twenty-one essays of John S. Kloppenborg, with four foci: conceptual and methodological issues in the Synoptic Problem; the Sayings Gospel Q; the Gospel of Mark; and the Parables of Jesus. Kloppenborg, a major contributor to the Synoptic Problem, is especially interested in how one constructs synoptic hypotheses, always aware of the many gaps in our knowledge, the presence of competing hypotheses, and the theo…
Membership Practices in Pauline Christ Groups
Der Aufsatz geht von der Einsicht aus, dass mit griechisch-römischen Assoziationen »gut zu denken« ist. Auf dieser Basis vertritt er die These, dass es gute Gründe gibt anzunehmen, christliche Gruppen, wie sie in den paulinischen Korrespondenzen repräsentiert sind, hätten griechisch-römische Praktiken zur Organisation von Mitgliedschaft übernommen, einschließlich des Führens von Mitgliedschaftslisten.
Aposteldekret und Antikes Vereinswesen: Gemeinschaft und Ihre Ordnung – Edited by Markus Öhler
Memory, Performance, and the Sayings of Jesus
Much has been made in recent years of the oral/aural context in which the early Jesus movement was born, as both a needed adjustment to earlier models for understanding early Jesus tradition based principally on models of literary transmission and often as a surreptitious means to insinuate the faithfulness of oral transmission. This paper begins by reviewing recent memory studies, both cognitive and anthropological, and then assesses the proposa…
The Parable of the Shepherd and the Transformation of Pastoral Discourse
Der Aufsatz zeigt, dass die weithin gleichen Gleichnistexte in Q, Matthäus, Lukas und im Thomasevangelium, die sich auch in den meisten sprachlichen Merkmalen entsprechen, abhängig von ihrem jeweiligen Kontext eine sehr unterschiedliche soziale Wertigkeit und Funktion aufweisen. Das Gleichnis in Q spielt auf lokale Wissensbestände über die Schafhaltung als eine sozial randständige Tätigkeit und an das damit gegebene ökonomische Denken an. Matthäu…
The Tenants in the Vineyard: Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 195
»Brilliant is not too strong a word to describe John Kloppenborgs treatment of the parable of the tenants in the vineyard. [...] what is certain is that the discussion will be more stimulating and better informed because of the immense scholarship that Kloppenborg has brought to bear on such questions in this thoroughly magnificent treatment.«Paul Foster in The Expository Times 118 (2007), p. 286
Ptolemaic and Early Roman Egypt
Private associations organized around a common cult, occupation, ethnic identity, neighborhood or family were among the principal means of organizing social and economic life in the ancient Mediterranean. They offered opportunities for sociability, cultic activities, mutual support and contexts in which to display and recognize virtuous achievement. This volume collects 140 inscriptions and papyri from Ptolemaic and early Roman Egypt, along with …
Associations, Christ groups, and their place in the Polis
Early Christ groups, like Greek and Roman associations, engaged in mimicry of various civic institutions, and for similar reasons: to facilitate the integration of sub-altern groups into civic structures; to create “communities of honour” in which virtue was recognized and rewarded; and to produce small social structures in which the democratic values of autonomy could be performed. While mimicking civic structures, early Christ groups also displ…
The Growth and Impact of Agricultural Tenancy in Jewish Palestine (III BCE-I CE)
Although there is little evidence of private farm tenancy in the Tanak, examination of documents from the third century BCE to the early second century CE suggests that this economic system became an important instrument of agricultural exploitation in Jewish Palestine sometime in the third or second century BCE. The growth of large estates, the implementation of tenancy, and shifts from polyculture to export-oriented monoculture had important ef…
Isis and Sophia in the Book of Wisdom
If the book of Wisdom (Wisdom of Solomon) was written in Alexandria in the Late Ptolemaic or early Imperial period, as seems most probable, it is a priori likely that its author and intended audience were familiar with the Egyptian goddess Isis, at least in her hellenized form. This is all the more likely since, as many critics have acknowledged, the author of Wisdom was cognizant of other aspects of Hellenism and was able to adopt some of these …
Symbolic Eschatology and the Apocalypticism of Q
The relationship of the preaching and teaching of Jesus to apocalyptic has been a vexed one ever since Albert Schweitzer's assault on the liberal “Lives of Jesus” and his advocacy of consistent eschatology along with his characterization of Jesus’ teachings as interim ethics. While many of the details of Schweitzer's hypothesis failed to be persuasive, his insistence that Jesus’ activity be seen in the context of apocalypticism has made a profoun…
Φιλαδελφια, Θεοδιδακτος and the Dioscuri: Rhetorical Engagement in 1 Thessalonians 4.9–12
Recent investigation of the Pauline corpus has brought into focus several important facets of Paul's rhetorical skill. It is now generally recognized that Paul knew and used the forms and techniques of classical rhetoric. Various analyses of 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Corinthians 1–4, Galatians, for example, have reinforced the conviction that Paul consciously constructed his letters using rhetorical patterns and appeals. This type of investigation d…
Mirrors, Not Windows: Semiotic Approaches to the Gospels
The Sayings Gospel Q and the Quest of the Historical Jesus
Since the earlyliterature on the1980s we have witnessed an extraordinary resurgence of historical Jesus. It is not entirely clear why Jesus scholarship has again become so important following the collapse of the first quest and the relatively meager results of the New Quest; the differences between this most recent quest and its two predecessors, however, are immediately evident. Key among the differences is the role played by scholarship on the …
Critical histories and theories of religion: A response to Burton Mack and Ron Cameron
Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World
Professor Heinz O. Guenther (1926-2003)
On Dispensing with Q: Goodacre on the Relation of Luke to Matthew
The case against Q depends logically on the plausibility of Luke's direct use of Matthew. Goodacre's carefully argued book contends (a) that none of the objections to the Mark-without-Q hypothesis is valid; (b) that given certain assumptions about Luke's aesthetic preferences, it is plausible that he systematically reordered the ‘Q’ material from Matthew; (c) that Luke's rearrangement of Matthew shows as much intelligence and purposefulness as Ma…
Self-Help or Deus ex Machina in Mark 12.9
The conclusion to the parable of the tenants in Mark (12.1b–9) involves the vineyard owner killing the refractory tenants and re-letting his vineyard to others. In legal terms the man employs ‘self-help’ – the satisfaction of a real or pretended claim without the permission of the defendant or the intervention of a court. Most advocates of a metaphorical approach to the parable (Pesch, Snodgrass, Evans, Hultgren), and some who argue that Jesus sp…
The Tenants in the Vineyard: Ideology, Economics, and Agrarian Conflict in Jewish Palestine
John S. Kloppenborg gives a detailed analysis of one of the most difficult of Jesus' parables, the parable of the Tenants (Mark 12:1-12; Gospel of Thomas 65). He examines the ways in which Christians have typically read and mis-read the parable, and places the parable firmly in the context of the practices of ancient viticulture. The author models a new approach to the interpretation of the parables of Jesus. First, he critically engages the hist…
Holtzmann's Life of Jesus according to the ‘A’ Source: Part 1
H.J. Holtzmann's Die synoptischen Evangelien(1863) is not only regarded as having established Markan priority and the basic contours of the Two Source hypothesis; it also offered a sketch of the life of Jesus based on a Mark-like source that represents a starting point for the so-called ‘Liberal Lives of Jesus’ which prevailed from 1863 until the early 1900s. Holtzmann's ‘Life’ portrayed Jesus as an exemplary personality, and posited psychologica…
Holtzmann's Life of Jesus According to the ‘A’ Source: Part 2
H.J. Holtzmann's Die synoptischen Evangelien(1863) is not only regarded as having established Markan priority and the basic contours of the Two Source hypothesis; it also offered a sketch of the life of Jesus based on a Mark-like source that represents a starting point for the so-called ‘Liberal Lives of Jesus’ which prevailed from 1863 until the early 1900s. Holtzmann's ‘Life’ portrayed Jesus as an exemplary personality, and posited psychologica…
Associations in the Ancient World
Diaspora Discourse: The Construction of Ethos in James
If we take the address of James ‘to the twelve tribes in the diaspora’ seriously and conclude that James represents itself as a letter to Diaspora Judaeans, it becomes easier to account for the fact that James lacks references to most of the beliefs and practices distinctive of the Jesus movement. In that case, James is framed as a letter written to an outsider, much like 4QMMT, in which the (fictive) writer must construct ethos not by reference …
Variation in the Reproduction of the Double Tradition and an Oral Q
Recent critics of the thesis that Q was a documentary source have pointed to the variability in verbatim agreements between Matthew and Luke and argued that instances of low verbatim agreement point to an oral rather than a written 'q'. Careful examination of the ways in which ancient authors reproduced written sources, however, fails to demonstrate that authors had a consistent pattern of source-replication; in fact high variability is well atte…
The Growth and Impact of Agricultural Tenancy in Jewish Palestine (III BCE-I CE)
Although there is little evidence of private farm tenancy in the Tanak, examination of documents from the third century BCE to the early second century CE suggests that this economic system became an important instrument of agricultural exploitation in Jewish Palestine sometime in the third or second century BCE. The growth of large estates, the implementation of tenancy, and shifts from polyculture to export-oriented monoculture had important ef…
The Parable of the Shepherd and the Transformation of Pastoral Discourse
Der Aufsatz zeigt, dass die weithin gleichen Gleichnistexte in Q, Matthäus, Lukas und im Thomasevangelium, die sich auch in den meisten sprachlichen Merkmalen entsprechen, abhängig von ihrem jeweiligen Kontext eine sehr unterschiedliche soziale Wertigkeit und Funktion aufweisen. Das Gleichnis in Q spielt auf lokale Wissensbestände über die Schafhaltung als eine sozial randständige Tätigkeit und an das damit gegebene ökonomische Denken an. Matthäu…
The Tenants in the Vineyard: Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 195
»Brilliant is not too strong a word to describe John Kloppenborgs treatment of the parable of the tenants in the vineyard. [...] what is certain is that the discussion will be more stimulating and better informed because of the immense scholarship that Kloppenborg has brought to bear on such questions in this thoroughly magnificent treatment.«Paul Foster in The Expository Times 118 (2007), p. 286
Aposteldekret und Antikes Vereinswesen: Gemeinschaft und Ihre Ordnung – Edited by Markus Öhler
Memory, Performance, and the Sayings of Jesus
Much has been made in recent years of the oral/aural context in which the early Jesus movement was born, as both a needed adjustment to earlier models for understanding early Jesus tradition based principally on models of literary transmission and often as a surreptitious means to insinuate the faithfulness of oral transmission. This paper begins by reviewing recent memory studies, both cognitive and anthropological, and then assesses the proposa…
Membership Practices in Pauline Christ Groups
Der Aufsatz geht von der Einsicht aus, dass mit griechisch-römischen Assoziationen »gut zu denken« ist. Auf dieser Basis vertritt er die These, dass es gute Gründe gibt anzunehmen, christliche Gruppen, wie sie in den paulinischen Korrespondenzen repräsentiert sind, hätten griechisch-römische Praktiken zur Organisation von Mitgliedschaft übernommen, einschließlich des Führens von Mitgliedschaftslisten.
Synoptic Problems: Collected Essays
This volume contains a collection of twenty-one essays of John S. Kloppenborg, with four foci: conceptual and methodological issues in the Synoptic Problem; the Sayings Gospel Q; the Gospel of Mark; and the Parables of Jesus. Kloppenborg, a major contributor to the Synoptic Problem, is especially interested in how one constructs synoptic hypotheses, always aware of the many gaps in our knowledge, the presence of competing hypotheses, and the theo…
Encounters with Jesus: The Man in His Place and Time, written by Destro, Adrianna and Mauro Pesce
Fiscal Aspects of Paul's Collection for Jerusalem
Die Kollekte des Paulus für »die Armen unter den Heiligen in Jerusalem« wird zumeist ohne hinreichende Rücksicht auf die Abgabenpraxis in den Städten und kleinen Vereinen des griechischen Ostens betrachtet. Dieser Artikel trägt zusammen, was über die Geldbeschaffung und -verwendung anderer Gruppen in dieser Zeit bekannt ist, und stellt die damit verbundenen Probleme dar. Vor diesem Hintergrund erscheint die Kollekte des Paulus in einem anderen Li…
History (26 works) · Biblical Studies and Interpretation (23 works) · Philosophy (23 works) · Art (16 works) · Political science (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Literature (11 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Archaeology and Historical Studies (10 works) · Historical and Linguistic Studies (10 works)