We are called together here to mark the beginning of a new school year with a symbolic act—a convocatio. As cultural anthropologists tell us, such ritual symbolic acts function simultaneously to induct participants into the common lifeworld of a community and to hold up to them shared values and visions. The convocation address provides an opportunity to reflect critically on the ritual act itself and on the shared visions and values it embodies. Such exploration can uncover tensions and contradictions in how the community sees itself and the world, contradictions that provide openings and challenges for change. By reflecting on these tensions I seek to display the first step in a feminist theological practice. The inclusion of the previously excluded as theological subjects, I argue, calls for a paradigm shift from a value-detached scientism to a public rhetoric, from a hermeneutical model of conversation to a practical model of collaboration.

Who was a Jew in antiquity? How was “Jewishness” defined? How did a non-Jew become a Jew, and how did a Jew become a non-Jew? In their minds and actions the Jews erected a boundary between themselves and the rest of humanity, the gentiles, but the boundary was always crossable and not always clearly marked. A gentile might associate with Jews and observe Jewish practices, or might “convert” to Judaism and become a proselyte. A Jew might avoid contact with Jews and cease to observe Jewish practices, or might deny Judaism outright and become an “apostate.” Or the boundary could be blurred through the marriage of a Jew with a gentile.

The Greek terms Ἰουδαῖος/Ἰουδαία and their Latin equivalents Iudaeus/Iudaea have rarely posed serious translation problems for scholars. Whether in masculine or feminine form, singular or plural, regardless of declension, these terms have usually been taken as straightforward indicators of Jews, at least when applied to individual persons. Only recently A. T. Kraabel has suggested that these terms, uniformly translated “Jew” or “Jews,” might have other significance, in particular as indicators of geographic origin, that is, “Judaean(s).”

The following study on aspects of the form of apologetic literature in the early church and Judaism grows out of a previous analysis of themes in the apologist Athenagoras that reflect the manner of praising kings in the Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition. My argument was that, although Athenagoras's Legatio is correctly read as apologetic literature, the task of the orator to render the judge well disposed to his cause is carried out by Athenagoras by calling on familiar epideictic strategies known to us primarily from Menander's (or Ps.- Menander's) codification of them in the third century. Meanwhile, Robert M. Grant has reoriented my discussion of Athenagoras by reading it against the background provided by Fergus Millar in the latter's detailed investigation of the activities of the Roman emperors in meeting the appeals and requests of the people of the Roman empire. Here the fact that Athenagoras's apology is entitled “Embassy” is seen as significant in the light of the importance of embassies in presenting appeals and requests to the emperor. It seems natural to look at the kinds of addresses that ambassadors gave in such circumstances for more precise clues to the literary character of the Christian apologies. The following study is intended as a contribution to the inquiry that has been opened up by that suggestion.

Porphyry of Tyre, the disciple of Plotinus who composed his massive work Against the Christians under Diocletian, has attracted much attention in recent years as perhaps the most formidable intellectual opponent of the early church. Modern scholars continue to be impressed by Porphyry's knowledge, resourcefulness, and the evident respect shown him by such figures as Jerome and Augustine. Because his literary remains are both fragmentary and disputed, moreover, any new information about Porphyry's views is of considerable importance. Just such a discovery provides the occasion for this essay. Among the papyrus codices found in an ammunition dump near Toura, Egypt, during World War II, were several previously unknown works of Origen and Didymus the Blind.

A study of rabbinic legal rulings concerning the barren wife reveals the subordinate place of women in rabbinic Judaism's systematic vision of an ideal reality. Yet at the same time, aggadic texts demonstrate that demands of necessity and compassion often prevailed over halachic prescription, illuminating the rift which not infrequently separated rabbinic theory and actual practice. Moreover, a review of aggadic reflections on barren women also yields suggestive insights into the dilemma of suffering, and the efficacy of prayer, as well as examples of the ways in which biblical models could become paradigms and symbols of empowerment in women's lives.