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New Testament and Christian Origins - Research Group

This Research Group aims at understanding the dynamics of texts and identities and seeks to understand these dynamics in past and present.

The twenty-seven writings known as the New Testament were all written in the first or early second century. They became authoritative Scripture in a process that resulted in the first mention of this list in the year 367. Bisshop Athanasius of Alexandria lists these particular writings as authoritative, and does so in his 39th Easter Letter. This research group studies the writings of the New Testament in their historical, cultural, and religious contexts and focuses on the ways in which these and other writings functioned within the formation of Christianity as a world religion. How did Christianity-in-the-making relate to Judaism-in-the-making? How did it relate to its pagan contexts? We study the New Testament from a variety of perspectives, with historical, but also hermeneutical and contemporary questions in mind. From textual criticism to reception history, from theological exegesis to philology, we practice it all.

Research Group - New Testament and Christian Origins

  • Team

    Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte (Teamleader)
    Peter-Ben Smit
    Arie Zwiep
    Silvia Castelli
    Helene Wuhrer
    An-Ting Yi

    Affiliated Researchers
    Bart Koet (TST)
    Jan Krans-Plaisier (PThU)
    Robert K. MacEwen (Tyndale Theological Seminary)
    Tom Marinello (Tyndale Theological Seminary)
    Annette Merz (PThU)
    Adriani Milli
    Marco Rotman (CHE)
    Drake Williams III (ETF Leuven)

    PhD students

    New Testament and Christian Origins

      • Wilson Bento - The Organizing Christ: The Role of Literary Representations of Jesus in the Organization of the Book of Revelation. Supervisors: Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, Arie Zwiep.
      • Thomas Bergen - Reading the Apostle Paul through Terror Management Theory. Supervisors: Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, Joke van Saane (UvH), Marion Carsons (IBTS)
      • Michael Buban - The Role of the Holy Spirit in Biblical Interpretation with Special Reference to Craig S. Keener, Anthony C. Thiselton, and Amos Yong. Supervisors: Arie Zwiep, Miranda Klaver
      • Filipe de Carvalho dos Santos - Salvation by Migration? The Message of Revelation 21:1-22:5 to a Rome Immigrant in the Second-Century AD. Supervisors: Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, Peter-Ben Smit.
      • Lynda Edwards-Burnhope, The Subduing of Sin: A Bakhtinian dialogue in Paul’s letter to the Romans, Supervisors: Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, Robert Beckford (Queen’s)
      • René Erwich, Gender Ambiguity in Revelation? A Study into Gender Construction in the Book of Revelation with a Special Emphasis on Revelation 5, 14:1-11 and 19:11-21. Supervisors: Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, Peter-Ben Smit.
      • Marie-Josée Fortin - Golden Thread: A Comparative Study of Composite Citations in the New Testament. Supervisors: Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, Silvia Castelli
      • Sonja Hanke - Examining Paul’s Rhetorical Use of Isaiah in Romans Using Semantic Hinge Discourse Analysis. Supervisors: Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, Helene Wuhrer.
      • Jacob Karels - Ὅτι causale in Koine Greek: A New Approach (with special reference to Luke-Acts). Supervisors: Rutger Allan (FGW), Arie Zwiep.
      • Inok Lee - Suffering and Death of Believers: Martyrdom and Persecution Discourse in the Book of Revelation in Its First-Century Setting. Supervisors: Henk Bakker, Arie Zwiep
      • Laura Pasterkamp - Hidden from the Wise and Understanding – Revealed to Little Children: Childist Perspectives on the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. Supervisors: Peter-Ben Smit, Arie Zwiep  
      • Ramy Shenouda - Samaritans in the New Testament: Narrative-Critical and Hermeneutical Explorations. Supervisors: Arie Zwiep, Silvia Castelli.
      • Tessema Forsido Gechera - Defined by Christ: Paul's Rhetoric of Suffering and Consolation in 2 Corinthians 1:3-11. Supervisors: Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, Ivar Vegge (EGST).
      • Elias Tranefeldt – Anointed Kingship, Jesus, and the Gospel Tradition. Supervisors: Arie Zwiep, Marco Rotman (CHE)
      • Victor van der Meer - She is Fallen. The exegetical-literary approach to Revelation 18:1-8.  Supervisors: Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, Jan Willem van Henten (UvA), Pieter de Boer.
      • Willem van Klinken - Mapping The Moral World of First Peter. Supervisors: Arie Zwiep, Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte
      • Henk Veldhuijzen - What does the exhortation to “go outside the camp” in Hebrews 13:13—14 tell us about the circumstances of the receiving community and the purpose of the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews? Supervisors: Arie Zwiep, Silvia Castelli
      • William Wortman - Misjudging the Adulteress: The checkered history of a Gospel story. Supervisors: Peter-Ben Smit, Arie Zwiep
      • Yimenu Adimas Belay - Paul's View of the Law in Romans and the Ethiopic Tradition.  Supervisors: Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, Desta Heliso (EGST).

    Contextual Biblical Interpretation

      • Troy Bierma - Pursuing Embodied Ecotheology: David Holmgren’s Permaculture as a Comporting Ecotheological Vision. Supervisors: Peter-Ben Smit, Steve Bouma-Prediger (Western Theological Seminary).
      • Pieter Dirk Dekker - Favoured by the Gods: An Inquiry into Theories of Divine Election relating to Poverty and Wealth. Supervisors: Peter-Ben Smit, Stephan van Erp (KUL), Hans Burger (TUU), Beatrice de Graaf (UU).
      • J.A. Haasnoot  - Context Matters. An Analysis of Some Hermeneutical Insights as a Result of Comparing the Interpretation of Three Bible Passages of ‘Ordinary Readers’ of the Episcopal Church in South Sudan with a Mainstream Western exegesis. Supervisors: Peter-Ben Smit, Klaas Spronk (PThU)
      • Alexander Lopez Diaz - Acts, The Baptism of the Holy Spirit, and Pentecostal Hermeneutics:  An empirical study in the Dominican Republic. Supervisors: Peter-Ben Smit, Helene Wuhrer, Linda van der Zwaan.
      • Emily Plank - How can a social imagination animate the presence and role of children in first century house churches in ancient Corinth, and how do these fictive children sharpen sociocritical interpretations of 1 Corinthians? Supervisors Peter-Ben Smit, Klazina Staat (FGW).
      • Fyodor Raichynets - Ukrainian Revolution and Evangelical Churches of Ukraine: The use of Romans 13 in the context of conflict in the course of Revolution of Dignity. Supervisors: Peter-Ben Smit, Katja Tolstoj, P.R. Parushev (IBTS)
      • Daniel Ernest Richards - “How can Jesus be understood and be communicated in a meaningful way to the Tamil people, in the present-day contemporary era of the Tamil culture?” Supervisors: P.B.A. Smit, G. John Samuel.
      • Solomon Abebe Gebremedhin - Jeremiah’s New Covenant in Hebrews 8:7-13: Contours of the Ethiopic Orthodox Reception Tradition. Supervisors: Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, Sofanit Abebe (EGST).
      • Ilse Swart - A Queer and Prefigurative Reading of (Deutero-)Pauline Literature. Supervisors: Peter-Ben Smit, Jeremy Punt (Stellenbosch), Mariecke van den Berg.

    Outside NT & CCBI

      • Wendy Geuverink, Heritable Genome Editing - Exploring the Worldview-Based Values of Patients and their Families, Counselors for Prenatal Anomaly Screening and Religious Leaders, (Together with MED) Supervisors: Martina Cornel, Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, Linda Martin, Carla Gitsels-van der Wal
      • J.G. Raimondo - "THE 1992 SPIRITUAL REVIVAL IN ARGENTINA: A historical-theological investigation of the phenomenon of the anointing ('unción')". Supervisors: Peter-Ben Smit, Miranda Klaver

  • Disciplines

    New Testament Studies, Greek Language, Early Christianity, Biblical Hermeneutics, World of the New Testament, Early Judaism, Greco-Roman Studies

  • Possible thesis and PhD topics
    • The Historical Jesus in Perspective
    • The Formation of the Synoptic Gospels
    • Research Method and the New Testament
    • Paul and the Spread of the Christ Movement
    • The Textual History of the Greek New Testament
    • Reception of Early Christian Writings
    • New Testament Hermeneutics
    • Gender (from feminist, queer and critical masculine perspectives)
    • Ritual in early Christianity
    • Food in early Christianity
    • Canonical criticism
    • Early Judaism
    • Greco-Roman and Jewish backgrounds of the New Testament

  • Collaboration Senior and Junior Researchers

    Senior and junior researchers collaborate on a variety of topics in this group. The bi-weekly sessions of the Amsterdam NT Colloquium, e.g., are frequented also by colleagues from other institutions and foster collaboration within an open scholarly climate. The academic habitus that this leads to is important for the formation of scholarly expertise as well as collaboration. In meetings of the two centres attached to this team experts on diverse topics exchange their insights in order to foster academic discussion. Annually, the Tjitze Baarda Memorial lecture is organized by the group.

  • Connection with education

    Each of the steering committee members of this team participates in undergraduate courses (BA) as well as graduate programmes (MA and PhD).

    BA

    • Greek 1 (G_BATRSAL003; 6 EC; Year 2 TRS; P1)
    • Grieks 1 (G_BATHE3S201; 6 EC; Year 2 TRS; P1)
    • Greek 2 (G_BATRSAL025; 6 EC; Year 2 TRS; P2)
    • Grieks 2 (G_BATHE3S203; 6 EC; Year 2 TRS; P2)
    • Greek 3 (G_BATRSAL077; 3 EC; TRS; P3)
    • Grieks 3 (G_BATHE3S205; 3 EC; Year 2 TRS; P3)
    • Introduction NT (G_BATRSAL078; 3 EC; TRS; P3)
    • Exegesis NT (G_BATRSPC203; 6 EC; TRS; P4)
    • Paulus, de reformatie en wij (G_BATHE4S210; 6 EC; joint BA with PThU; P4)
    • Jezus volgens de evangelisten (G_BATHE4S214; 3 EC; joint BA with PThU; P6)

    MA

    • Exegesis of the NT Gospels (G_RMBS14; 6 EC; P1 2024)
    • The Invention of Religious Traditions (G_TIRT; 6 EC; P2 2024)
    • Exegesis Pauline Epistles (6 EC; P1 2025)
    • Judaism and Hellenism (6 EC; P2 2025)
    • Exegesis Revelation (6 EC; P1 2026)
    • The Text of the New Testament and its Translations (6 EC; P2 2026)

    PhD

  • Valorisation

    The academic and societal relevance of this team lies in the fact that questions concerning the origins of Christianity, its scriptures, and their meaning are of the utmost importance to faith communities and individuals. The current societal state of religious illiteracy leads to more and more questions with regard to the field studied by this team, and hence the need for academic expertise on this field increases by the day.

  • Connection with centers/institutes

    The centre connected to this team:

    • Centre for the Study of Early Christianity (with the Tilburg School of Catholic Theology)

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