Updated text and new maps bring this standard introduction up to date.
Throughout Christian history, the works of Josephus have been mined for the light they shed on the world of the New Testament. Josephus tells us about the Herodian family, the temple, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. He mentions James the brother of Jesus, John the Baptist, and even Jesus himself. In "Josephus and the New Testament," an internationally acknowledged authority on Josephus introduces this first-century Jewish historian to readers who want to begin to explore his witness to environment in which early Judaism and Christianity took shape.

After a flurry of heated debates in the mid-twentieth century over the relationship between faith and history, the dust seems to have settled. The parties have long since dispersed into their separate camps. The positions are entrenched and loyalties are staked out. This New Explorations in Theology volume is a deliberate attempt to kick up the dust again, but this time as a constructive development of what is now being called "apocalyptic theology." Samuel Adams argues that any historiography interested in contributing to theological knowledge must take into consideration, at a methodological level, the reality of God that has invaded history in Jesus Christ. He explores this idea in critical dialogue with the writings of New Testament historian and theologian N. T. Wright, whose work has significantly shaped the current conversation on this problem. The Reality of God and Historical Method is a fresh, bold, and interdisciplinary exploration of the question: How is it possible to say that a particular historical person is the reconciliation of the world? Featuring new monographs with cutting-edge research, New Explorations in Theology provides a platform for constructive, creative work in the areas of systematic, historical, philosophical, biblical, and practical theology.

This fresh look at the Gospel of Matthew highlights the unique contribution Matthew's rich and multilayered portrait of Jesus makes to understanding the connection between the Old and New Testaments. Patrick Schreiner argues that Matthew obeyed the Great Commission by acting as scribe to his teacher Jesus in order to share Jesus's life and work with the world, thereby making disciples of future generations. The First Gospel presents Jesus's life as the fulfillment of the Old Testament story of Israel and shows how Jesus brings new life in the New Testament.

This book contains a methodological fundamental-dogmatic study, which frames a comprehensive overview of the Church in the light of reason and faith. The understanding of the Church in the history of Christianity was - and still is - a subject of numerous misunderstandings, either among the believers themselves or those who observe it from the outside. Presenting the post-conciliar approach of the integral ecclesiology, the author puts a stronger emphasis on biblical origins and nature of the Church and on the split between the synagogue and the young community of followers of Jesus Christ. He expands the hallmarks of the Church from the usual four to five (Marianity) and displays a growing communio in practice and in ecclesial self-awareness.

Originally published in 1911 for use in schools, this book contains the Revised Version text of the Book of Revelation with critical annotations by the then Bishop of Edinburgh, George Walpole. Walpole's introduction also provides the reader with some historical background on the authorship and writing of the book, as well as a list of recommended books for further study. This volume will be of value to anyone with an interest in Christianity.

This book breaks fresh ground in the interpretation of the Apocalypse with an interdisciplinary methodology called aural-performance criticism that assesses how the first-century audience would have heard the Apocalypse. First-century media culture is probed by assessing the dynamics of literacy, orality, aurality, and performance in the Gospels, parts of the Pauline corpus, and also Jewish apocalyptic literature. The audience constructs of informed, minimal, and competent assist the interpreter to apply the methodology. Sound maps and an aural-performance commentary of Revelation 1 and 11 are developed that analyze aural markers, sound style, identity markers, repetition, themes, and the appropriation of the message by the audience. The book concludes by examining the sociological, theological, and communal aspects of aurality and performance and its implications for interpreting the Apocalypse.

Wright's The New Testament and the People of God is the first volume of his acclaimed series 'Christian Origins and the Question of God' comprehensively addressing the historical and theological questions surrounding the origins of Christianity. The text outlines Wright's hermeneutical theory and discusses the history of the Jews stressing the close connection with Judaism and developing this to examine the treatment of early Christians. Wright's work has played a significant role in challenging prevailing assumptions relating to the religious thought of first-century Jews. On a more technical level, Wright provides a reappraisal of literary and historical readings of the New Testament.

This book deals with the theology of the Church of Smyrna from its foundation up to the Council of Nicaea in 325. The author provides a critical historical evaluation of the documentary sources and certain aspects particularly deserving of discussion. He makes a meticulous study of the history of the city, its gods and institutions, the set-up of the Jewish and Christian communities and the response of the latter to the imperial cult. Finally, he undertakes a detailed analysis both of the reception of the Hebrew Scriptures and the apostolic traditions, as well as examining the gradual historical process of the shaping of orthodoxy and the identity of the community in the light of the organisation of its ecclesial ministries, its sacramental life and the cult of its martyrs.

Timothy was a close associate of Paul who was facing problems within the church that he was leading in Ephesus. In these personal letters, Paul gives practical pastoral instruction to his protege, highlighting godliness and holy living to help Timothy fulfill his calling and effectively carry out his important tasks in the church. "Let no one despise your youth," Paul encouraged, "but be an example to believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity" (1 Timothy 4:12). Paul's gentle encouragement in these letters challenges Timothy to persevere in his faith-a faith that might have been weakening under the pressure of the church and the persecution of the world. Paul's godly counsel was helpful not only to Timothy, a first-century Christian leader, but is also helpful to each of us as believers today. The MacArthur Bible Studies provide intriguing examinations of the whole of Scripture. Each guide incorporates extensive commentary, detailed observations on overriding themes, and probing questions to help you study the Word of God with guidance from John MacArthur.

In what remains a widely discussed issue in contemporary theology, J. Gresham Machen's The Virgin Birth of Christ acts as both an introduction to the subject, and a window into American 'Princeton' theology in the early twentieth century. Machen undertakes an encyclopaedic study of the different perspectives on the virgin birth. He begins with a close reading of the scriptural accounts, comparing and contrasting the stories of Jesus' birth told in Luke and Matthew. Secular historical accounts are then considered, as well as possible alternative theories, including the likelihood of the story being of early Jewish or Pagan origin. Machen's study was the definitive work on the virgin birth for the majority of the twentieth century, and remains an invaluable resource, both as an apologetic work and as a time capsule of theological progress.

From John of Apamea to Mark's Gospel: Two Dialogues with Thomasios: A Hermeneutical Reading of Horao, Blepo, and Theoreo combines two theological fields of investigation. The first is related to the Patristic theology of Eastern Syrian Christianity and the second resides in the field of Biblical theology. The research articulates the two fields, which complement each other through a logic exposition in that the theological conceptions of John of Apamea serve as the hermeneutical reading of the verbs of visual perception in the Markan Gospel. The first part expounds the problem related to the quest of the historical John of Apamea, an overview of the problem of his identity based upon the most important critical works attributed to him, proposing a plausible solution. The notion of the spiritual perception of the soul is intrinsically connected with the notion of "spiritual exegesis" and "spiritual senses", essential thoughts in the theology of the dialogues with Thomasios. Applying this methodological approach to the Scripture, the second part expounds the topic of the spiritual seeing in Mark's Gospel. The section follows four expositive stages. The first consists of the semantic analysis of the Markan terminology and its psychological implications; the second analyzes the narrative portrait of the seeing of Jesus; the third examines briefly the seeing of the demons; the last stage considers the contemplative attitude of the women in the context of Christ's passion, death, and resurrection. From John of Apamea to Mark's Gospel is essential reading for scholars in Eastern Patristic theology, Biblical theology, and spiritual theology.

Originally published in 1936, this book contains the text of Charles Harold Dodd's inaugural lecture upon taking up the position of Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in New Testament studies in the interwar period in Britain and in the work of Dodd more generally.

The end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first centuries have involved much discussion on overhauling and refining a scholarly understanding of the verbal system for first-century Greek. These discussions have included advances in verbal aspect theory and other linguistic approaches to describing the grammatical phenomena of ancient languages. This volume seeks to apply some of that learning to the narrow realm of how prohibitions were constructed in the first-century Greek of the New Testament. Part 1 "The Great Prohibition Debate" seeks to demonstrate that verbal aspect theory has a better explanation than traditional Aktionsart theory for authorial choices between the negated present imperative and the negated aorist subjunctive in expressing prohibitions in the Greek New Testament. Part 2 "All the Prohibitions in the Greek NT" continues to examine prohibitions, but is more of an exercise in functional linguistics. That is, rather than apply verbal aspect theory to the grammar of prohibition constructions, Part 2 seeks only to survey the (initially surprising) wide variety of ways prohibitions can be expressed in koine Greek: more than a dozen different constructions. To do this, the NT prohibitions are grouped in their varying grammatical-syntactical and/or pragmatic constructions, all of which function - in varying degrees - in a prohibitory fashion. This taxonomy may prove to be the beginnings of further investigations into how biblical Greek communicates commands.

It is widely accepted by New Testament scholars that the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles probably originated as two parts of one work by a single author. In spite of this, the books have been assigned to very different genres: Luke is traditionally viewed as a biography of Jesus, and Acts as a history of the early church. Comparing in detail the structure and content of Acts with the formal features of history, novel, epic and biography, Sean A. Adams challenges this division. Applying both ancient and modern genre theory, he argues that the best genre parallel for the Acts of the Apostles is in fact collected biography. Offering a nuanced and sophisticated understanding of genre theory, along with an insightful argument regarding the composition and purpose of Acts, this book will be of interest to those studying the New Testament, Acts, genre theory and ancient literature.

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This commentary demonstrates that the Gospel of Mark is a result of a consistent, strictly sequential, hypertextual reworking of the contents of three of Paul's letters: Galatians, First Corinthians and Philippians. Consequently, it shows that the Marcan Jesus narratively embodies the features of God's Son who was revealed in the person, teaching, and course of life of Paul the Apostle. The analysis of the topographic and historical details of the Marcan Gospel reveals that they were mainly borrowed from the Septuagint and from the writings of Flavius Josephus. Other literary motifs were taken from various Jewish and Greek writings, including the works of Homer, Herodotus, and Plato. The Gospel of Mark should therefore be regarded as a strictly theological-ethopoeic work, rather than a biographic one.

The book refers to universal eschatology contained in the Letters to the Thessalonians (1 Thess 4, 13-5, 11; 2 Thess 2, 1-12). The whole material is divided in two groups (eschatological motifs and apocalyptic motifs). Each of the motifs is analysed in the Biblical context and in the Intertestamental Literature context (the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and the Qumran Literature). The exegetical analysis and the comparative analysis show similarity and diversity of the way Paul used the motifs. They also show which motifs were created or extensively modified by Paul in order to contribute to the creation of Christian eschatology. After presentation of the importance of eschatological topics in the 1-2 Thess (chapter I), the analyses of prodroms (chapter II) and events connected with the parousia (chapter III) indicate the way of using each of the motifs in different traditions. Based on results of the analyses, the Jewish background and Paul's original contribution to the New Testament eschatology are presented in chapter IV.

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Content Benefits:

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• 16 pages of full-colour maps locating and identifying Jesus' birth, early years, ministry, and last days, major New Testament stories, every epic journey of the Apostle Paul, the missions of Philip and Peter, the early church and seven churches of Revelation, political background to New Testament event, the territory of the Roman Empire, the Holy Land today and in the time of Jesus
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This book is a reading of the text of the Gospel of John in light of a tradition of Johannine authorship represented by the Muratorian Fragment, Papias of Hierapolis, and the Anti-Marcionite Prologue, all which are taken to reflect the influence of a common tradition represented by Jerome, Clement of Alexandria, and Victorinus of Pettau. Taken together these suggest that the Gospel of John was the work of the late first- or early second-century John the Presbyter who mediated the tradition of a distinctive group of Johannine disciples among whom Andrew was most important.

The very essence of the existential relationship between the human and the divine is communicated by the English word, 'worship'. Although the word appears to carry a univocal meaning in English, no such word per se exists in the Greek New Testament. The English word at best explains but does not adequately and completely define the dynamics involved in the relationship between humanity and God. Worship and the Risen Jesus in the Pauline Letters approaches the subject of Christian worship in respect to its origins from the perspective of the earliest New Testament writer: Paul. This book seeks to address the relative absence in scholarship of a full treatment of worship in the Pauline Letters. Closely related to the theme of Christian worship in the Pauline Letters is the person of the risen Jesus and the place he occupies in the faith community. This work proposes a proper working definition of, including criteria for, 'worship'. Paul employed an array of Greek words as descriptors to communicate the various nuances and dimensions related to one's relationship with God. 'Worship' also functioned for Paul as a boundary marker between believers and unbelievers vis-a-vis baptism and the Eucharist. The eschatological and teleological aspects of worship are also examined through a study of the Carmen Christi (Phil 2: 6-11). This study maintains that worship in Paul is not defined by any one word but is rather a composite and comprehensive personal religious relationship between the worshipper and God.

Michael Peppard examines the social and political meaning of divine sonship in the Roman Empire. He begins by analyzing the conceptual framework within which the term ''son of God'' has traditionally been considered in biblical scholarship. Then, through engagement with recent scholarship in Roman history - including studies of family relationships, imperial ideology, and emperor worship - he offers new ways of interpreting the Christian theological metaphors of ''begotten''and ''adoptive'' sonship. Peppard focuses on social practices and political ideology, revealing that scholarship on divine sonship has been especially hampered by mistaken assumptions about adopted sons. He invites fresh readings of several early Christian texts, from the first Gospel to writings of the fourth century. By re-interpreting several ancient phenomena - particularly divine status, adoption, and baptism - he offers an imaginative refiguring of the Son of God in the Roman world.

Arator's Historia Apostolica, published with papal approval and to great acclaim in 544, is an enthralling epic poem which retells the story of the Acts of Apostles, following clearly in the stylistic footsteps of Vergil and Lucan. On the other hand, it is also a detailed commentary on what Arator perceived to be the hidden meaning of the biblical text, divined and revealed through the technique of allegorical interpretation and drawing upon the exegesis of Origen, Ambrose, Augustine, and others. Narrative and commentary alternate throughout the work to enthralling effect, as the apostles Peter and Paul embark on their separate missionary adventures, eventually to be reunited in martyrdom in Nero's Rome. The translation is preceded by an introduction which begins with a re-evaluation of the sources which detail Arator's life, in particular taking a fresh look at his relationship with his mentor Ennodius. There follow an examination of the poet's aims, methods and inspirations and a discussion of his attitudes to heresies both past and present. The introduction ends with a ground-breaking examination of the 'afterlife' of Arator's poem, mapping the extent of his influence, as evident in quotation and allusion, the copying of manuscripts, and inclusion in medieval libraries from the sixth century to the eleventh. Arator's influence on several later authors, most notably the Venerable Bede, is explored in more detail in a number of appendixes. Arator's combination of epic verse and mystical commentary was a heady and potent mix and ensured the poem's popularity, not least among the monks of Anglo-Saxon England and the Carolingian continent.

Liberation from Empire investigates the phenomenon of demonic possession and exorcism in the Gospel of Mark. The Marcan narrator writes from an anti-imperialistic point of view with allusions to, yet never directly addressing, the Roman Empire. In his baptism, Jesus was authorized by God and empowered by the Holy Spirit to wage cosmic war with Satan. In Jesus' first engagement, his testing in the wilderness, Jesus bound the strong one, Satan. Jesus explains this encounter in the Beelzebul controversy. Jesus' ministry continues an on-going battle with Satan, binding the strong one's minions, demonic/unclean spirits, and spreading holiness to the possessed until he is crucified on a Roman cross. The battle is still not over at Jesus' death, for at Jesus' parousia God will make a final apocalyptic judgment. Jesus' exorcisms have cosmic, apocalyptic, and anti-imperial implications. For Mark, demonic possession was different from sickness or illness, and exorcism was different from healing. Demonic possession was totally under the control of a hostile non-human force; exorcism was full deliverance from a domineering existence that restored the demoniac to family, to community, and to God's created order. Jesus commissioned the twelve to be with him, to learn from him, and to proclaim the kingdom of God by participating with him in healing and exorcism. Jesus expands his invitation to participate in building the kingdom of God to all those who choose to become part of his new dyadic family even today.