Books by Arco Den Heijer
OPEN ACCESS: Portraits of Paul's Performance in the Book of Acts Luke's Apologetic Strategy in the Depiction of Paul as Messenger of God (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2021)
https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/book/portraits-of-pauls-performance-in-the-book-of-acts-9783161608... more https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/book/portraits-of-pauls-performance-in-the-book-of-acts-9783161608605?no_cache=1
In the Book of Acts, Paul is portrayed as a messenger who brings the good news of God to the world. He is a commanding orator who captivates his audiences, including a Roman senatorial proconsul and a Jewish king, with his gestures, appearance, and speeches. His performances appeal to both Greco-Roman and Jewish cultural scripts alike. But why does Luke portray Paul in this way? Using insights from both modern performance studies and ancient rhetoric, Arco den Heijer analyses five episodes from Acts (in Paphos, Pisidian Antioch, Lystra, Athens, and before Agrippa in Caesarea) to suggest that Luke's portraits of Paul's performance served to counter negative views of Christians in both Roman and Jewish circles, views that circulated in the social network of Theophilus, the addressee of the book.
Samenvatting Proefschrift by Arco Den Heijer
Portretten van Paulus Optreden, 2021
This is the Dutch summary of my PhD thesis, defended at the Theological University Kampen on 19 M... more This is the Dutch summary of my PhD thesis, defended at the Theological University Kampen on 19 March 2021. The thesis will be published in the WUNT 2 series by Mohr Siebeck in Tübingen.
Journal Articles by Arco Den Heijer
Journal of Gospels and Acts Research, 2021
The expression ‘the way (of the Lord/of God)’ is often understood as a self-designation of the ea... more The expression ‘the way (of the Lord/of God)’ is often understood as a self-designation of the early Christians and interpreted against the background of Isaiah 40:3–5. This article argues that the expression is used metaphorically in Luke and Acts in two distinct ways. In the quotation from Isaiah 40 in Luke 3:4–5, the way denotes the way on which the Lord comes to Jerusalem. This way is to be distinguished from the way on which the Lord wants his disciples to walk, as a metaphor for what he teaches them through his apostles. The extensive usage of way-metaphors serves the Lukan presentation of the teaching of Jesus and his disciples as instruction in the way of life that has been taught by the God of Israel since ancient times. It emphasises the continuity between the ancient people of Israel and the Jewish and non-Jewish disciples of Jesus.
Damaris (Acts 17:34) and an Aristocratic Family from Sparta: Neglected Epigraphic Evidence on the Name of a Female Disciple
Novum Testamentum, 2021
This article surveys epigraphic evidence for Damaris, Damares and Damari(o)n to show that these a... more This article surveys epigraphic evidence for Damaris, Damares and Damari(o)n to show that these are distinctively Spartan or Laconian names. It rejects the hypothesis that Damaris is a Lukan construction from Homeric δάµαρ (wife) or a typical name for a courtesan. Positively, it suggests that the woman named Damaris in Acts 17:34 could be imagined as a member of the Voluseni family, a prominent Spartan family connected with the Athenian elite. Finally, it examines the rhetorical force that a recognizably Spartan name could have in the narrative of Acts.
, European Journal of Theology, 2018
This article aims to show that worship in the Book of Acts takes place within a Jewish matrix of ... more This article aims to show that worship in the Book of Acts takes place within a Jewish matrix of sacred space and time. Within this framework, sacred spaces become sites of contest between the Jesus movement and the Jewish establishment, in a re-enactment of the conflict between the prophets and the people of Israel recorded in Israel's Scriptures. The Nazarean haeresis appears in the book of Acts as a prophetic movement that calls the people of Israel and the nations to join in the eschatological worship of God. The conflict concerning the temple does not point forward to its abandonment in favour of a superior form of house church worship, but rather to its destruction, regarded by Luke as a lamentable act of divine judgement. Beyond its destruction, Luke expects the restoration of all things as the final fulfilment of Israel's Scriptures.
In a number of passages, Philo of Alexandria calls wisdom “mother” with respect to the cosmos. Th... more In a number of passages, Philo of Alexandria calls wisdom “mother” with respect to the cosmos. The background of this expression has been sought in Plato’s description of the Receptacle as “mother,” in the Hellenistic cult of Isis or in the Pythagorean dyad as the primary mother-goddess in Xenocrates’s theological fragment. In this article, I will argue that these parallels do not explain Philo’s depiction of wisdom as mother adequately. Instead, I will turn to the use of the expression “mother of all things” or “mother of the universe” in Neopythagorean descriptions of Justice and of the Tetractys or Decad and examine the value of these parallels for understanding Philo’s description of Wisdom.
Boethius' “Consolation of Philosophy” combines a philosophical dialogue with the use of prosimetr... more Boethius' “Consolation of Philosophy” combines a philosophical dialogue with the use of prosimetrum. This mixture of prose and poetry in several meters originally served a satirical criticism of high culture literature and/or philosophy. With regard to the “Consolation”, however, the interpretation of the prosimetrum is a matter of controversy. This article uses insights from modern genre theory to understand the processes of genre transformation active in the “Consolation”, and highlights Martianus Capella as an important mediator between earlier prosimetric satires and Boethius' “Consolation”. Then, the article analyses how philosophical dialogue and prosimetric satire are evoked throughout the “Consolation” to create a generic hybrid in which both genres are assigned a proper function in relation to the aim of the “Consolation”: to assure the reader of the existence of a cosmic moral order.
Academic reviews by Arco Den Heijer
European Journal of Theology, 2019
Review summary: This conference volume contains stimulating essays on ancient cities as settings ... more Review summary: This conference volume contains stimulating essays on ancient cities as settings for early Christianity and early Christian reflection on cities. Interaction with other disciplines and engagement with spatial theory give a new impetus to existing scholarship on this topic. The essays are a pleasure to read and occasionally reflect on the significance of their observations for Christians in urban contexts today.
Theologia Reformata, 2018
Theologia Reformata, 2017
A.P. Bos en G.P. Luttikhuizen (red.), Waar haalden de gnostici hun wijsheid vandaan? Over de bron... more A.P. Bos en G.P. Luttikhuizen (red.), Waar haalden de gnostici hun wijsheid vandaan? Over de bronnen, de doelgroep en de tegenstanders van de gnostische beweging (Budel: Damon, 2016), 364 p., € 34,90 (ISBN 9789463400428).
Review of Görge K. Hasselhoff, Meret Strothmann (ed.), "Religio licita?": Rom und die Juden. Studia Judaica, 84. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter, 2017.
Bwyn Mawr Classical Review, 2017
(Research) Master Theses by Arco Den Heijer
![Research paper thumbnail of Mother of the Universe and Archetype of the Sun. How Philo of Alexandria interpreted the Jewish concept of personified Wisdom within the context of Greek philosophy [Thesis HLCS Research Master Literary Studies]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/35968419/thumbnails/1.jpg)
In this master thesis, I investigate how Philo of Alexandria (ca. 15 BCE - 45 CE), as a Jewish ph... more In this master thesis, I investigate how Philo of Alexandria (ca. 15 BCE - 45 CE), as a Jewish philosopher, interpreted the Jewish figure of Wisdom (a personification that Proverbs 8 describes as having been present with God when he created the world) in the Platonic/Pythagorean philosophical context in which Philo operates. To this end, I examined the personification of Wisdom in the Hebrew wisdom literature (Proverbs, Job, Baruch & Ben Sira). Then, I searched through Plato's dialogues for similar ways of conceptualizing the world order and its relation to the divine. In my third chapter, I review the tradition of the early Academy and of neo-Pythagoreanism, which forms the hermeneutical paradigm for Philo's understanding of Plato. Then, I turn to the Greek translations of the Jewish wisdom literature, and to Aristobulus and Wisdom of Solomon, to look for attempts to relate Wisdom to Greek philosophy before Philo. Finally, I discuss a select number of passages in which Philo speaks about wisdom.
Research Master Papers by Arco Den Heijer
Conference Presentations by Arco Den Heijer
The debates of disciples of Christ with Jewish and non-Jewish antagonists, narrated in the Book o... more The debates of disciples of Christ with Jewish and non-Jewish antagonists, narrated in the Book of Acts, are not polite exchanges of different views in an academic setting. Rather, they are disputes acted out in public space, on streets and markets, in porticoes and synagogues, where protagonists of either side seek to trump each other with powerful rhetoric and dramatic gesturing, often provoking a violent response. They are, in other words, performances, in which the words spoken should not be isolated from the bodies of the speakers: their gestures and gazes, their movements, and the physical space in which they moved. Taking a social-scientific approach, this paper will analyze the disputes of disciples of Christ in the book of Acts using Jeffrey C. Alexander's theory of cultural pragmatics and his model of social performance. Insights from performance studies and the sociology of performance will be used primarily to provide a new perspective on the narrative world of Acts. Within the space of this paper, questions concerning the historical reliability of the narrative account cannot be dealt with. In the conclusion, however, some remarks will be made on the impact of the text on the earliest communities of readers or hearers.
Papers by Arco Den Heijer
Soothing Songs and the Comfort of Philosophy
Hermes
An Unbearable Yoke?
Troubling Texts in the New Testament
Cosmic Mothers in Philo of Alexandria and in Neopythagoreanism
The Studia Philonica Annual XXVII, 2015
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Books by Arco Den Heijer
In the Book of Acts, Paul is portrayed as a messenger who brings the good news of God to the world. He is a commanding orator who captivates his audiences, including a Roman senatorial proconsul and a Jewish king, with his gestures, appearance, and speeches. His performances appeal to both Greco-Roman and Jewish cultural scripts alike. But why does Luke portray Paul in this way? Using insights from both modern performance studies and ancient rhetoric, Arco den Heijer analyses five episodes from Acts (in Paphos, Pisidian Antioch, Lystra, Athens, and before Agrippa in Caesarea) to suggest that Luke's portraits of Paul's performance served to counter negative views of Christians in both Roman and Jewish circles, views that circulated in the social network of Theophilus, the addressee of the book.
Samenvatting Proefschrift by Arco Den Heijer
Journal Articles by Arco Den Heijer
Academic reviews by Arco Den Heijer
(Research) Master Theses by Arco Den Heijer
Research Master Papers by Arco Den Heijer
Conference Presentations by Arco Den Heijer
Papers by Arco Den Heijer