Nestled beneath the 'pointed peaks' of the legendary Tmolos Mountains, the temple and sanctuary of Artemis at Sardis is one of the most impressive monuments of classical antiquity. Dating to the Hellenistic period, it was undertaken, not by a king, but by Stratonike, a 'fiery' Hellenistic queen, and redesigned under the Roman emperor Hadrian, when it became the center of an imperial cult. In this volume, Fikret Yegül and Diane Favro explore the Temple of Sardis from multiple perspectives. Offering a close archaeological analysis of the temple, they also provides new insights into its unique design; the changing nature of religious and cult practices at the temple; the relationship to its setting; and its benefactors. Attention is paid to place this extraordinary temple in the larger context of Greek and Roman religious architecture in Asia Minor. Richly illustrated with over 200 color images, including historical paintings and drawings, it also includes digital reconstructions of the temple are published here for the first time.

In this book, Matthew Pawlak offers the first treatment of sarcasm in New Testament studies. He provides an extensive analysis of sarcastic passages across the undisputed letters of Paul, showing where Paul is sarcastic, and how his sarcasm affects our understanding of his rhetoric and relationships with the Early Christian congregations in Galatia, Rome, and Corinth. Pawlak's identification of sarcasm is supported by a dataset of 400 examples drawn from a broad range of ancient texts, including major case studies on Septuagint Job, the prophets, and Lucian of Samosata. These data enable the determination of the typical linguistic signals of sarcasm in ancient Greek, as well as its rhetorical functions. Pawlak also addresses several ongoing discussions in Pauline scholarship. His volume advances our understanding of the abrupt opening of Galatians, diatribe and Paul's hypothetical interlocutor in Romans, the 'Corinthian slogans' of First Corinthians, and the 'fool's speech' found within Second Corinthians 10-13.