The Synoptic Gospels contain traditions about Jesus which differ in some respects from Gospel to Gospel and, it is presumed, from the very earliest Christian traditions. Scholars often seek to establish the earliest form of each tradition and the methods and criteria they use are of the greatest importance. Dr Sanders here provides a reassessment of this whole problem. His study deals directly with the question of determining the reliability of the Synoptic Gospels.

Many interpreters of the Fourth Gospel detect allusions to biblical texts about marriage, but none offers a comprehensive analysis of these proposed allusions or a convincing explanation for their presence. Building on the work of Richard Hays, Donald Juel and Craig Koester, in this 2006 book Jocelyn McWhirter argues that John alludes to biblical texts about marriage in order to develop a metaphor for Jesus and how he relates to his followers. According to McWhirter, John chooses these texts because he uses a first-century exegetical convention to interpret them as messianic prophecies in light of an accepted messianic text. Specifically, he uses verbal parallels to link them to Psalm 45, a wedding song for God's anointed king. He then draws on them to portray Jesus as a bridegroom-Messiah and to depict Jesus' relationship with his followers in terms of marriage.

The present study focuses on the theology of the Book of Jeremiah. That theology revolves around themes familiar from Israel's covenantal faith, especially the sovereignty of YHWH expressed in judgment and promise. The outcome of this theological nexus of context, person, and tradition is a book that moves into the abyss and out of the abyss in unexpected ways. It does so, in part, by asserting that God continues to be generatively and disturbingly operative in the affairs of the world, up to and including our contemporary abysses (such as 9/11). The God attested in the Book of Jeremiah invites its readers into and through any and all such dislocations to new futures that combine divine agency and human inventiveness rooted in faithfulness.

Creative imitation (Gk., mimesis; Lt., imitatio) was the primary literary convention of the ancient world of the first century CE. The first part of the book demonstrates that it was the principal means by which classical authors, such as Virgil, Seneca, Plutarch, and Livy, composed their works. An examination of the use of sources in both Jewish and Christian Sacred Scriptures in the light of this convention provides a new and fruitful approach to scripture scholarship. The Book of Tobit and Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 8-10) are examined to demonstrate this thesis. This sets the context for an examination of Matthew's use of Mark as a literary source in the light of Graeco-Roman literary conventions in part two of the book. Such a use is entirely plausible when one considers that, "penned in Greek, probably to Diaspora audiences, the canonical gospels reflect Greco-Roman rather than strictly Palestinian Jewish literary conventions." Both the way in which Matthew incorporates his Markan source into his text, and the function and effect of this source in its new Matthean context are examined. This methodology provides compelling evidence that Matthew's use of Mark as a source was toward the Judaization of his Gospel.

This critically acclaimed series provides fresh and authoritative treatments of important aspects of Old Testament study through commentaries and general surveys. The authors are scholars of international standing.

Exploring the interrelated topics of Christology and discipleship within the apocalyptic context of Mark's Gospel, Henderson focuses on six passages: Mark 1: 16-20; 3: 13--15; 4: 1-34; 6: 7-13; 6: 32-44; 6: 45-52. Together, these passages indicate that the disciples failed to understand not just Jesus' messianic identity per se but the apocalyptic nature of his messiahship, as well as its implications for their own participation in God's coming reign. The implications of this for Mark's gospel as a whole ar situate Mark's Christological claims within the broader context of the apocalyptic 'gospel of God'. This lends coherence to Mark's bifocal interest in miracle and passion. It also illuminates the relationship between Mark's Jesus and his followers as those who carry forward his own mission: to demonstrate the coming kingdom of God, which is fully assured if not yet fully in view.

This book, first published in 1997, examines the influence of angelology on the christology of the Apocalypse of John. In the Apocalypse, Jesus appears in glorious form reminiscent of angels in Jewish and Christian literature in the period between 200 BCE and 200 CE. Dr Carrell asks what significance this has for the christology of the Apocalypse. He concludes that by portraying Jesus in such a way that he has the form and function of an angel, and yet is also divine, the Apocalypse both upholds monotheism and at the same time provides a means for Jesus to be presented in visible, glorious form to his Church.

This study refutes the allegation that the author of Luke-Acts showed no systematic thought about the significance of Jesus's death, that is, he has no theologia crucis. Peter Doble focuses sharply on the Gospel's death scene and explores those features which appear in Luke alone, then extends the results into the longer account of Jesus's final days in Jerusalem. In the final section Doble demonstrates how specific words and patterns from Wisdom shape and fill Luke's retelling of the story of Jesus's entrapment, trials and death. Luke wanted his readers to understand that what had happened to Jesus was not a humiliating rejection but in accord with scripture's presentation of God's plan for salvation, and he modelled traditional material about Jesus's road to the crucifixion around an explanatory model which he drew from Wisdom.

Paul's Second Epistle to the Corinthians poses exegetical problems of well-known difficulty. The structure and unity of the whole Epistle are in doubt, as is the meaning of many particular passages and references - for example, the identity of Paul's opponents. Dr Collange bases his solutions to these problems on a detailed study of 2,14 - 7,4. He argues that the obscurities of the Epistle can be explained by the particular circumstances of its composition; Paul's use of more primitive Christian materials gives us a measure of his own originality and genius. This book should be of interest to all New Testament scholars.

The aim of this book is to illuminate the manner in which Mark understood Jesus' death. That death forms the climax of the Gospel, and is all-important for the evangelist. Since it is central to every form of Christianity, much has already been written on the significance Jesus' death had for Mark. Most previous studies, like the first edition of this book, used redaction criticism to interpret Mark's viewpoint from the alterations he made to the form of the Passion narrative as he had received it from tradition. More recently the Gospels have been examined as continuous stories, and the author adopts this approach in the additional material of his new edition. By examining the general sweep of the narrative, and in particular of its last chapters, Professor Best attempts to show how Mark saw Jesus' death as both an atonement for sin and as creative of the new community of the Church.

This volume, which emerges from an SNTS seminar in 1985 1986, analyses one of the best-known, but also one of the most intriguing, of Jesus' discourses within the Fourth Gospel. Previous studies of the Shepherd Discourse have concentrated either on its historical setting in the life of Jesus (Simonis) or on the prehistory of its text (Bullmann and his school). The present study, consisting of essays written by an international team of specialists, adopts a more contextual approach. The Shepherd Discourse is here situated in the text of the Fourth Gospel, with particular emphasis on the preceding chapter and on the subsequent Passion narrative. The internal coherence of John 10 so becomes clearer, and it is seen that - in spite of its links with Gnostic ideas - the roots of the Discourse in Old Testament and Jewish texts about the shepherds of Israel become apparent.

This book considers the early history of Jewish-Christian relations focussing on traditions about the fallen angels. In the Book of the Watchers, an Enochic apocalypse from the third century BCE, the 'sons of God' of Gen 6:1-4 are accused of corrupting humankind through their teachings of metalworking, cosmetology, magic, and divination. By tracing the transformations of this motif in Second Temple, Rabbinic, and early medieval Judaism and early, late antique, and Byzantine Christianity, this book sheds light on the history of interpretation of Genesis, the changing status of Enochic literature, and the place of parabiblical texts and traditions in the interchange between Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. In the process, it explores issues such as the role of text-selection in the delineation of community boundaries and the development of early Jewish and Christian ideas about the origins of evil on the earth.

They're two men on a mission, some thirty years apart, and their time is running out. For Jesus, he has just three-and-a-half years to do all that was promised: Traveling. Teaching. Healing. Performing miracles. There's not a moment to waste. For his protege Peter, the sting of betraying his master has marked his life. His second chance is coming, and this time he will not fail. No Going Back includes the New Testament books of Mark, First Peter, and Second Peter. Paired together, you get a fast-paced and passionate account of Jesus' ministry and the effect it had on his most prominent disciple. Eternity Now reveals the history-shaping story of how Jesus Christ changed the world and what that means to you. This reader-friendly series presents the New Testament books across five paperback volumes to make it easy to carry anywhere and read anytime.

Luke's two-volume work begins with a formal preface unlike anything else in the New Testament, and it has long been academic orthodoxy that Luke's choice of style, vocabulary, and content in this short passage reveal a desire to present his work to contemporary readers as 'History' in the great tradition of Thucydides and Polybius. This study challenges that assumption: far from aping the classical historians, Dr Alexander argues, Luke was simply introducing his book in a style that would have been familiar to readers of the scientific and technical manuals which proliferated in the hellenistic world. The book contains a detailed study of these Greek 'scientific' prefaces as well as a word-by-word commentary on the Lucan texts. In her concluding chapters, Alexander seeks to explore the consequences of this alignment both for the literary genre of Luke-Acts (is it meant to be read as 'history'?) and for the social background of the author and the book's first readers.

Spanning a variety of disciplines, this 1995 enquiry focuses on one particular Pauline characteristic: the apostle's habit of making matters of faith the object of logical appraisal. A tracing of the elliptical patterns of argument in Romans 1-8 illustrates this habit and, at the same time, displays how Paul's vigorous persistence in it seems often not to be matched by the solidity, or at any rate the lucidity, of his logic. By viewing Paul against the background of semiology, more especially the semiological theory of Umberto Eco, new light is shed on the genesis of Paul's reasoning. The discussion which ensues is marked by an interesting and productive combination of modern linguistics and classical logic. Moreover, the singular potential of today's techniques of 'fuzzy' logical analysis for measuring the intellectual muscle of Paul's argumentation is brought out dramatically by the uniqueness of his semiological situation. His rationality takes on a new face.

A study of the authenticity and interpretation of the last twelve verses of St Mark's Gospel. These verses are omitted from at least one important manuscript tradition and queried in most modern translations (though not from the NEB). Professor Farmer traces the history of the text tradition for omission back to Egypt, and argues that one important factor contributing to their omission was the dangerous teaching they seemed to contain: they appear to encourage Christians to handle deadly snakes and drink poisons to prove their faith, a practice which has been revived today by some Christian sects who accept the scriptural authority of these verses. The teaching of these verses has, however, never become established in orthodox Christianity and indeed most Christians are unaware of their doctrinal significance. Professor Farmer reviews all the textual and patristic evidence and examines the most plausible solutions that have been canvassed. This is another substantial contribution to a series that has set the highest standards of scholarship in biblical and New Testament studies.

St Mark's Gospel was put together from oral and perhaps written source material, which the redactor-editor edited and linked together by seams' or joining phrases. The evangelist is thus regarded as a translator/editor of sources, and also as a creative artist in his shaping of the material and in his editorial writing which moulds the disparate sources into an integrated narrative. Dr Pryke tests some eighteen syntactically unusual features of 'Markan usage' statistically to see if they are mainly source material (S) or redactional (R). Objective criteria are provided for distinguishing redactional passages, and the linguistic method is used to see if residual S passages might be converted to R. Appendixes analyse the vocabulary for a list of the most frequently used words in R passages, annotate unusual syntax and special vocabulary of R verses, and provide a complete redactional Greek text. Dr Pryke's methods and conclusions will be of great value to those concerned with the analysis of St Mark's Gospel, and of interest to all concerned with linguistic studies of New Testament texts.

It has often been suggested that Luke's two volumes were written as an apology for Christianity, to demonstrate to the Roman authorities that the new faith was not a dangerous and subversive innovation, a threat to the Pax Romana and to Roman rule. This book reviews the development of the 'traditional perspective', then raises some questions, e.g. if Luke was writing an apologia pro ecclesia, why does he include so much material politically damaging to the Christian cause? Is it possible that the approach has been made from the wrong angle, that Luke was writing an apologia not pro ecclesia but pro imperio, to assure his fellow Christians that Church and Empire need not fear or suspect each other? This conclusion is then supported by an investigation of the text of Luke-Acts, particularly the trials of Jesus and Paul. This challenging volume will be of interest to students and scholars of the New Testament and to ecclesiastical and Roman historians.

The author of this lucid and interdisciplinary study of Mark's Gospel believes that - when applied to Gospel texts - sociological analysis and literary criticism may be far closer together in purpose and intent than is often supposed. Professor Camery-Hoggatt therefore begins his work with an exploration of the social functions of narrative in general, and of ironic narrative in particular. He then turns to the literary functions of the internal elements of the narrative, and draws the two discussions together into a single framework that can be used as a lens through which Mark's Gospel can be read. The author's claim is that irony - especially dramatic irony - thoroughly permeates the Gospel, and that this evinces a rhetorical strategy central to Mark's whole narrative. The second half of the book shows that the presence of irony is especially powerful when the deeper level of meaning is somehow hidden from the story's characters.

Among the problems which Hebrews poses for interpretation, its use of sacrificial terminology must cause it to seem remote and obscure. Although the recent work of social anthropologists on the nature of religious systems has been applied by Old Testament scholars to the laws and symbols of the Pentateuch this is the first sustained study of Hebrews to take account of these theories. Building on the work of such writers as Mary Douglas, Victor Turner, and Claude Levi-Strauss, Hebrews is approached here as a 'structure of symbols', in which the symbol-system of the Old Testament covenant is re-presented and transposed. Motifs explored by the author include sacred time and space; liminality; the sacrificial function of blood, death, oaths, and blessings; and the narrative traditions of election and exclusion. Dr Dunnill assesses Hebrews, not as an argument, but as an act of symbolic communication expressing the possibility of direct communion with God.

The authorship of the Pastoral letters has been a matter of intense scholarly debate for almost two hundred years. The letters clearly purport to be written by Paul, but perceived differences in the literary style, vocabulary and theology of the Pastorals when compared with that of the genuine Pauline letters suggests that this was not so. The arguments have centred primarily on the question of whether Paul or a disciple of Paul - a gifted pseudonymist - composed these letters. It is the 'either/or' nature of the debate that is brought into serious question in this book. Dr Miller argues that the Pastorals reflect a compositional history that was commonplace throughout the ancient Near East. He takes the reader on a wide-ranging tour of biblical and extra-biblical sources, examining their literary histories, and arguing that the Pastorals are composite documents, not unlike many Jewish and early Christian works.

This book was first published in 1996. Matthew uniquely highlights Jesus as 'Emmanuel', but almost wholly overlooked are the deeper implications of this 'presence' motif for Matthean Christology, as well as its centripetal force on his readers. With regard to the rhetorical, historical and theological dimensions of the text, Dr Kupp takes a multi-disciplinary approach. The three verses commonly cited are only the starting point for the weaving of the Emmanuel Messiah into the story-telling, redaction and Christology of the Gospel. Kupp employs the lenses of both narrative and historical criticism to produce the first monograph in English on the subject of divine presence in Matthew. After giving primacy to a whole-story reading, Kupp finds its roots in the familiar social and literary contexts of Sinai, Jerusalem and the Jewish scriptures. Matthew's Gospel is a story that compels, a text with a history and a Christological treatise.

This book is a study of Paul's response to the financial help he received from the church in Philippi whilst he was a prisoner in Rome. Philippians 4.10-20 has always puzzled commentators because of its seemingly strained and tortured mode of thanks. Word studies, psychological studies and literary studies have all failed to provide insight into the text, which is unique in the Pauline corpus. Using contemporary sources Dr Peterman re-examines this difficult passage in the light of Greek and Roman practices and language regarding the exchange of gifts and favours in society. He concludes that 'gift exchange' or 'social reciprocity', with its expectations and obligations, permeated every level of society in Paul's day, and that Paul's seemingly ungracious response was an attempt to create a new, Christian attitude to gifts and to giving.

This programmatic socio-rhetorical investigation approaches the Epistle of James as an instance of written deliberative rhetoric, and it seeks to ascertain the social texture of James 2.5, a rhetorical performance of language that in other contexts is explicitly attributed to Jesus. Utilizing the conventions of Greco-Roman rhetoric, Dr Wachob successively probes the inner texture, the intertexture, the social and cultural texture, and the ideological implications of the rhetoric in James 2.1-13. He analyses James' activation of antecedent texts in the LXX, common conceptions and topics in the broader culture, and also sayings in the Jesus tradition. He concludes that James emanates from the same milieu as the pre-Matthean Sermon on the Mount and shows James 2.5 to be an artful performance of the principal beatitude in that early epitome of Jesus' teachings.