Search

This article reviews recent claims that the Acts of the Apostles should be dated in the second century, not in the first century as most scholars currently argue. It notes a range of works that make such claims in passing, but focuses on the multi-authored work Acts and Christian Beginnings, and on some of the publications on which its authors depend. Particular attention is given to the work of Richard Pervo and his case that Acts used both Josephus and a collection of Paul’s letters, and his claim that this requires a second-century date for Acts. The article notes the strength of the case for Luke’s use of both Josephus’ Antiquities and some of Paul’s letters, but questions whether this requires a second-century date, and reflects on the wider issues that are at stake.

Background: There is a relative paucity of research examining the sport-specific injury epidemiology of high school and collegiate volleyball athletes. Moreover, differences in study methodology frequently limit our ability to compare and contrast injury data collected from selected populations. Hypothesis: There are differences between the injury patterns characteristic of high school and collegiate female volleyball athletes. Study Design: Retrospective clinical review. Level of Evidence: Level 3. Methods: We statistically analyzed injury incidence and outcome data collected over a 4-year interval (2005-2006 to 2008-2009) by 2 similar injury surveillance systems, the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Injury Surveillance System (NCAA ISS) and the High School Reporting Injuries Online (HS RIO). We compared diagnoses, anatomic distribution of injuries, mechanisms of injury, and time lost from training or competition between high school and collegiate volleyball athletes. Results: The overall volleyball-related injury rate was significantly greater among collegiate athletes than among high school athletes during both competition (injury rate ratio, 2.9; 95% CI, 2.5-3.4) and practice (injury rate ratio, 3.5; 95% CI, 3.1-3.9). Collegiate athletes had a higher rate of ankle sprain, knee injury, and shoulder injury. Concussions represented a relatively high percentage of injuries in both populations (5.0% of total NCAA ISS injuries vs 4.8% of total HS RIO injuries, respectively). Conclusion: The data suggest that although similar, there were distinct differences between the injury patterns of the 2 populations. Compared with high school volleyball players, collegiate athletes have a higher rate of acute time loss injury as well as overuse time loss injury (particularly patellar tendinosis). Concussions represented a significant and worrisome component of the injury pattern for both study populations. Clinical Relevance: The injury data suggest that important differences exist in the injury patterns of female high school compared with collegiate volleyball athletes. Consideration of the specific injury patterns may be helpful in future prevention efforts.

Context: Chronic lower leg pain in athletes can be a frustrating problem for patients and a difficult diagnosis for clinicians. Myriad approaches have been suggested to evaluate these conditions. With the continued evolution of diagnostic studies, evidence-based guidance for a standard approach is unfortunately sparse. Evidence Acquisition: PubMed was searched from January 1980 to May 2011 to identify publications regarding chronic lower leg pain in athletes (excluding conditions related to the foot), including differential diagnosis, clinical presentation, physical examination, history, diagnostic workup, and treatment. Results: Leg pain in athletes can be caused by many conditions, with the most frequent being medial tibial stress syndrome; chronic exertional compartment syndrome, stress fracture, nerve entrapment, and popliteal artery entrapment syndrome are also considerations. Conservative management is the mainstay of care for the majority of causes of chronic lower leg pain; however, surgical intervention may be necessary. Conclusion: Chronic lower extremity pain in athletes includes a wide differential and can pose diagnostic dilemmas for clinicians.

This article offers a brief introduction to the quotations in certain Church Fathers that are usually identified as Jewish-Christian gospel tradition, and addresses the question of the number of gospels to which they should be attributed. It includes a discussion of a selection of these extracts, and some comments on what may be concluded about the two or three gospels from which they might come. The article also addresses the question of how these texts might be witnesses to Jesus, and the relationship of their content to that of the canonical gospels.

This article argues that Irenaeus and the author of the Muratorian Fragment each read Luke and Acts as two elements of one literary whole, but that Irenaeus's understanding of what this literary unity entails appears to have been different from that of many modern scholarly readings of Luke—Acts. It also argues that there is reason to believe that Luke intended his two volumes to circulate together, and offers hermeneutical reflections on the fact that they have not always been read in this way. Two different approaches to the reception of Luke and Acts are identified and the merits of each are discussed.

Decisions about how texts are classified and presented affect the way in which they are interpreted. This is particularly evident in the study of the often fragmentary remains of many early Christian gospels, as can be seen in the decisions about which texts are included in the standard collections and the way in which they are arranged. In this article I argue that the term ‘Jewish-Christian gospel’ is positively misleading if taken to refer to a class of writings which share particular formal characteristics (or indeed distinctive theological tendencies) that might set them apart from other gospels, and I suggest that the time has come to reconsider this dubious category. Since these writings need to be understood as texts before they may be used as sources for historical phenomena, it seems better to classify them either according to their literary form or according to the way in which they have been transmitted, not on the basis of a theological evaluation that has little support in the texts themselves.

This article offers a critical introduction to the early Christian letter known as 1 Clement. It focuses on its text, influence, authorship, occasion, purpose and genre, date, and the authorities and sources on which its author drew.

Le but de cet article est de mettre en evidence deux aberrations astronomiques majeures qui ont rarement ete reconnues mais ont eu de serieuses consequences, l'une concernant Aristote, et l'autre Platon

Objectives: When managing sport-related concussions (SRC), sports medicine physicians utilize serial neurocognitive assessments and self-reported symptom inventories when evaluating athlete recovery and safety for returning to play (RTP). Since post-concussive RTP goals include symptom resolution and return to neurocognitive baseline, clinical decisions rest on an understanding of modifiers of baseline performance. Several studies have reported the influence of age, gender and sport on baseline neurocognitive performance, but few have assessed the potential effect of sleep. We hypothesized that: 1) athletes receiving less sleep prior to baseline testing would perform worse on neurocognitive metrics; and 2) decreased sleep would have no association with the quantity of reported symptoms. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed 3,704 non-concussed athletes, 2,385 male, 3,321 high school and 383 college-aged, with baseline symptom and neurocognitive scores on Immediate Post-concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing (ImPACT). Subjects were stratified into three groups based on self-reported sleep duration the night prior to testing; 1) short < 7 hrs, 2) intermediate 7−9 hrs; and 3) long ≥ 9 hrs). Multivariate analysis assessed the influence of categorical sleep duration on the baseline number of reported symptoms and ImPACT performance, with alpha level of 0.05. Results: When controlling for age, gender and sport as covariates, the multivariate analysis of covariances showed a significant association between shorter sleep duration and poorer verbal memory scores (p=0.019), visual memory scores (p=0.035), and reaction time scores (p=0.044), but not for visual-motor scores. Significance was found between shorter sleep duration and increased number of reported symptoms (P < 0.0001). Subsequent pairwise comparisons revealed these associations to be most significant when specifically comparing the short and intermediate sleep groups. Conclusion: Our results indicate that athletes sleeping less than 7 hours prior to testing perform worse on 3 out of 4 neurocognitive ImPACT scores and endorse more symptoms. Because concussion management and RTP decisions hinge on the comparison to a reliable baseline evaluation, sports medicine physicians should strongly consider amount of sleep prior to neurocognitive testing in the assessment of athletes’ recovery.