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.

C. H. Dodd's Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel, published in 1963, marked a milestone in New Testament research and has become a standard resource for the study of John. Historically biblical scholars have concentrated on the Synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark and Luke. However, Dodd's book encouraged scholars to take John seriously as a source for the life of Jesus. This volume both reflects upon and looks beyond Dodd's writings to address the implications, limitations and potential of his groundbreaking research and its programmatic approach to charting a course for future research on the Gospel of John. Leading biblical scholars demonstrate the recent surge of interest in John's distinctive witness to Jesus, and also in Dodd's work as the harbinger of advancements in the study of the Fourth Gospel. This volume will be invaluable to all those studying the New Testament, Johannine theology and the history of the early Church.

This volume collects the best articles on the Pauline writings from the first fifty issues of the Journal for the Study of the New Testament. The range of the volume reflects the breadth of the journal itself. Here the reader will find ground-breaking studies which introduce new critical questions and move into fresh areas of enquiry, surveys of the state of play in this particular topic of New Testament studies, and articles which engage with each other in specific debates. For students this book offers an invaluable critical introduction to Pauline studies. More advanced students and scholars can use it to find background material or to gain an overview of the research in this area of scholarship. This builds on the reputation of JSNT as a conduit for first-class research and a major influence within the scholarly community.

Was Paul an opponent of imperialism or a participant in the patriarchal social codes of his day? Joseph A. Marchal moves beyond this too-simple dichotomy to examine the language of power and obedience, ethnicity, and gender in Paul's letters, arguing that understanding the way rhetorics of power overlap and intersect requires a nuanced combination of feminist and post-colonial criticism and a "thick description" of colonized space. His analysis of gender and power dynamics in the Roman colony of Philippi is an exemplar of a new approach to reading Paul in his contexts, always attentive to the contexts of the contemporary interpreter as well. The Politics of Heaven offers new clarity and precision in the interpretation of the apostle and the social spaces in which he moved.

The book of Acts recounts the birth of the Church and the ministry of the earliest disciples. It is arguably one of the most exciting books in the New Testament; it tells of a shipwreck, a prison escape and political squabbles. The book of Acts also occupies a place of critical importance in the New Testament. The Gospels tell us about the earthly ministry of Jesus of Nazareth while Acts continues the story of the people who believed in him. It thus bridges the gap between the Jesus of history and the Jesus of faith. It is an immensely valuable historical record of the early Church, a rich source of theological wisdom and a powerful testament to the transformative power of the Holy Spirit. In this helpful guide, the section-by-section commentary draws out the historical, theological and pastoral significance of the biblical text. There are also four theological essays that highlight the relevance of the book of Acts today. Clear and helpful maps and study suggestions at the end of each chapter make A Commentary on Acts ideal for students on Biblical Study courses, and for anyone wishing to learn more about this thrilling New Testament book.

The Gospel of Matthew is both deliberately deceptive and emotionally compelling.Karl McDaniel explores ways in which the narrative of the Gospel of Matthew elicits and develops the emotions ofsuspense, surprise, and curiosity within its readers. While Matthew 1:21 invites readers to expect Jewish salvation, progressive failure of the plot's main characters to meet Jesus' salvation requirements creates increasing suspense for the reader. How will Jesus save 'his people'? The commission to the Gentiles at the Gospel's conclusion provokes reader surprise, and the resulting curiosity calls readers back to the narrative's beginning.Upon rereading with a retrospective view, readers discover that the Gentile mission was actually foreshadowed throughout the narrative, even from its beginning, and they are invited to partake in Jesus' final commission.

This book pays special attention to the hermeneutical location where the fig-tree story appears in Mark 11; it is situated between Jesus' entry into Jerusalem and his "Temple incident" in Mark 11. The fig-tree story plays a pivotal role in understanding the stories immediatlely preceding and following it. It reverses the mode of Jesus' entry from being triumphal to untriumphal, and convinces the first Markan readers to feel at ease in confronting Jesus' outrage in the Temple. The way in which Jesus entered Jerusalem contradicts the common description of the entry as a triumphant one. Additionally, the story finds a proper solution to the problem of Jesus' actions in the Temple being shockingly in contrast to his overall character as revealed through the Markan Gospel.

Originally published in 1908, this book constitutes an exploration of the concept of 'spirit' in the New Testament. The text is divided into two parts: part one provides a synopsis of passages relating to spirit, with English explications being given beneath original Greek quotations; part two analyses the general teaching of New Testament literature in relation to the divine Spirit and its influence. The reader is thus provided with a concise document relating the position of spirit in relation to the Scriptures, together with its abiding importance for the relationship between Church and the individual. This concise, yet detailed, book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Christian theology or biblical exegesis.

First published in 1951, this book forms a critique of the Two-Source Hypothesis, the theory in biblical studies that postulates the existence of a lost 'Q' Gospel. The Q theory achieved popularity through its formal completeness in explaining the presence of parallel verses in Luke and Matthew with no parallel in Mark. Yet, as Butler argues in this book, these narrative links can also be explained by a direct comparison of the third and fourth Gospels, one that avoids the necessity of a missing source. The text is highly detailed and contains numerous references to original material, together with generous additional notes. It will be of value to anyone with an interest in biblical history and theology.

The author of 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus argues in favor of a "traditional" Greco-Roman gender ideology: that because men and women are biologically different, they ought to behave differently in the family and society. His gender-specific beliefs carry over into his teachings for the house churches, where only free married men are eligible to serve as leaders, teachers, and preachers, while women are expected to take up the subordinate female domestic roles of wife, mother, and household manager. This volume encourages a deeper engagement with the difficult issues-gender, race, and power-raised by these letters. By studying the Pastoral Letters with our minds sharpened and our hearts turned toward a generous freedom, we can struggle most productively with the influences of their teachings, past and present, and we can create a future church and a future world that are more just, truly inclusive, and indelibly marked by God's grace. From the Wisdom Commentary series Feminist biblical interpretation has reached a level of maturity that now makes possible a commentary series on every book of the Bible. It is our hope that Wisdom Commentary, by making the best of current feminist biblical scholarship available in an accessible format to ministers, preachers, teachers, scholars, and students, will aid all readers in their advancement toward God's vision of dignity, equality, and justice for all. The aim of this commentary is to provide feminist interpretation of Scripture in serious, scholarly engagement with the whole text, not only those texts that explicitly mention women. A central concern is the world in front of the text, that is, how the text is heard and appropriated by women. At the same time, this commentary aims to be faithful to the ancient text, to explicate the world behind the text, where appropriate, and not impose contemporary questions onto the ancient texts. The commentary addresses not only issues of gender (which are primary in this project) but also those of power, authority, ethnicity, racism, and classism, which all intersect. Each volume incorporates diverse voices and differing interpretations from different parts of the world, showing the importance of social location in the process of interpretation and that there is no single definitive feminist interpretation of a text.

Brimming with photos and graphics, the Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary walks you verse by verse through all the books of the New Testament. It's like slipping on a set of glasses that lets you read the Bible through the eyes of a first-century reader! Discoveries await you that will snap the world of the New Testament into gripping immediacy. Things that seem mystifying, puzzling, or obscure will take on tremendous meaning when you view them in their ancient context. You'll deepen your understanding of the teachings of Jesus. You'll discover the close, sometimes startling interplay between God's kingdom and the practical affairs of the church. Best of all, you'll gain a deepened awareness of the Bible's relevance for your life. Written in a clear, engaging style, this beautiful set provides a new and accessible approach that more technical expository and exegetical commentaries don't offer.

Although Roman centurions appear at crucial stages in the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, the significance of the centurion's office for the development of Luke's story has not been adequately researched. To fill in that void, this study engages the relevant Greco-Roman and Jewish sources that reflect on the image of the Roman military and applies the findings to the analysis of the role of the Roman centurion in the narrative of Luke-Acts. It argues that contemporary evidence reveals a common perception of the Roman centurion as a principal representative of the Roman imperial power, and that Luke-Acts employs centurions in the role of prototypical Gentile believers in anticipation of the Christian mission to the Empire. Chapter 1 outlines the current state of the question. Chapter 2 surveys the background data, including the place of the centurion in the Roman military organization, the role of the Roman army as the basis of the ruling power, the army's function in the life of the civilian community, Luke's military terminology, and the Roman military regiments in Luke-Acts. Chapter 3 reviews Greco-Roman writings, including Polybius, Julius Caesar, Sallust, Livy, Velleius Paterculus, Tacitus, Appian, Cornelius Nepos, Plutarch, Suetonius, Plautus, Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Petronius, Quintilian, Epictetus, Juvenal, Fronto, Apuleius, as well as non-literary evidence. Chapter 4 engages the Jewish witnesses, including 1 Maccabees, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jewish pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Talmudic sources, and non-literary sources. Chapter 5 examines the relevant accounts of Luke-Acts, focusing on Luke 7:1-10 and Acts 10:1-11:18. The Conclusion reviews the findings of the study and summarizes the results.

The publication in 1881 of The New Testament in the Original Greek, by the Cambridge scholars Brooke Foss Westcott (1825 1901) and Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828 1892), marked the culmination of twenty-eight years of work and revolutionised the theory and methods of New Testament textual criticism. The editors broke with tradition and reconstructed a critical text based on the third-century uncial manuscripts Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, paving the way for future editions. Westcott and Hort's claim to reconstruct the 'original text' may seem extravagant today; but according to Bruce Metzger theirs was the 'most noteworthy critical edition of the Greek Testament ever produced by British scholarship'. This second volume contains the reconstructed text. Readings that the editors thought were possible contenders for the original are printed in the margin; other readings, judged to be of value but appearing later, are given in the appendix.

In Marriage Gifts and Social Change in Ancient Palestine, T. M. Lemos traces changes in the marriage customs of ancient Palestine over the course of several hundred years. The most important of these changes was a shift in emphasis from bridewealth to dowry, the latter of which clearly predominated in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Whereas previous scholarship has often attributed these shifts to the influence of foreign groups, Lemos connects them instead with a transformation that occurred in Palestine s social structure during the very same period. In the early Iron Age, Israel was a kinship-based society with a subsistence economy, but as the centuries passed, it became increasingly complex and developed marked divisions between rich and poor. At the same time, the importance of its kinship groups waned greatly. Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach that draws heavily on anthropological research, cultural theory, archaeological evidence, and historical-critical methods, Lemos posits that shifts in marriage customs were directly related to these wider social changes.

The publication in 1881 of The New Testament in the Original Greek, by the Cambridge scholars Brooke Foss Westcott (1825 1901) and Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828 1892), marked the culmination of twenty-eight years of work and an innovation in the theory and methods of New Testament textual criticism. This first of two volumes contains a detailed discussion of the theories and methods behind the reconstructed text, sets out the editors' theory of text-types, and justifies their choice to break with the dominant use of the Textus Receptus. It argues for the Neutral Text, represented by the uncials Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, as being the earliest and least corrupt form. Westcott and Hort's claim to reconstruct the 'original text' may seem extravagant today but according to Bruce Metzger theirs was the 'most noteworthy critical edition of the Greek Testament ever produced by British scholarship'.

Frederick Henry Scrivener's 1861 introduction to the textual history of the New Testament marks a key moment in the history of biblical studies. The author, a renowned biblical scholar and textual critic of his time, focuses on the central areas of his research field. These include the Greek New Testament manuscripts and their general character, early printed and later critical editions, ancient versions of the New Testament in various languages and the linguistic features of New Testament Greek. In addition, he discusses editorial principles and practice and the differing approaches that had recently been adopted, and gives examples of their application to actual New Testament passages. Originally intended for readers with no previous knowledge of this subject, and carefully organised so as to be accessible to them, the book is still of interest to upper-level students and to historians of the discipline.

Published posthumously in 1893, Frederick Scrivener's Adversaria Critica Sacra remains a volume of key importance to biblical scholars today, representing Scrivener's remarkable accuracy in his study and collation of manuscripts. During an age when many manuscripts were being newly discovered, and New Testament textual criticism was a rapidly developing field, Scrivener's collations played an important role in highlighting and making available the many different readings in existence. The book presents sixty-three manuscripts containing all or part of the Greek New Testament, including twenty which contain the Gospels in whole or in part, fifteen Lectionaries (Greek Church Lesson-books), five copies of Acts and the Catholic Epistles, and ten which are collations of the earliest printed editions of the Greek New Testament. Scrivener provides an informative general account of each manuscript, and an estimate of their respective critical values.

Frederick Henry Scrivener (1813-1891) was a pioneer of New Testament textual criticism. His transcription of the Codex Augiensis - a ninth-century Greek and Latin manuscript of St Paul's Epistles which had been part of the famous Benedictine library at Reichenau - was published in 1859 and is a document of considerable historical significance in biblical research. It presents 'as true an image as possible' of the ninth-century text. The volume also includes a 'full and exact' collation of fifty manuscripts of the Gospels. In his Critical Introduction, Scrivener provides a detailed account of the manuscripts he has collated, setting the context for the reader. He also investigates the principles of comparative criticism, demonstrating that true and faithful readings of the Greek New Testament cannot be derived from any one authority, but must be the result of patient comparison of the evidence provided by all.

This annotated edition of The Acts of The Apostles was prepared for classroom use by Thomas Ethelbert Page, a schoolmaster at Charterhouse, and published in 1886. The text is taken directly from the critical edition of the New Testament in Greek published by Fenton Hort and Brooke Westcott in 1881, the most authoritative version then available. Page's extensive annotations (over two hundred pages to accompany seventy pages of text) aimed to provide an explanation of the Greek text free of doctrinal discussions and moral reflections, unlike most existing commentaries which Page found 'quite unadapted for practical work with boys'. Page endeavoured to make the translation process as straightforward as possible and his extensive commentary offers a clear and simple understanding of the text. His book is still a useful guide for those approaching the Greek text for the first time.

Samuel Prideaux Tregelles (1813-1875) was a Cornish-born Biblical scholar who travelled to major libraries all over Europe in order to study ancient manuscripts. Biblical textual criticism was a burgeoning new field in the mid-nineteenth century, with leading scholars including Lachmann and Tischendorf in Germany and Tregelles' contemporaries Scrivener, Westcott and Hort in England all working towards the ideal of a more authoritative Greek New Testament text than had previously been available. This volume contains the short Volumes 5 (1870) and 6 (1872) of Tregelles' edition (the Epistles continued, and Revelation), which the author had originally intended to publish together, along with the posthumous Volume 7 (1879) containing Prolegomena (compiled by F. J. A. Hort and A. W. Streane from earlier publications by Tregelles), and additional collations of parts of Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. The Greek text is accompanied by Jerome's Latin Vulgate and a full textual apparatus.

Samuel Prideaux Tregelles (1813-1875) was a Cornish-born Biblical scholar who travelled to major libraries all over Europe to study ancient manuscripts. Biblical textual criticism was a burgeoning new field in the mid-nineteenth century, with leading scholars including Lachmann and Tischendorf in Germany and Tregelles' contemporaries Scrivener, Westcott and Hort in England all working towards the ideal of a more authoritative Greek New Testament text than had previously been available. Tregelles begins Volume 1 (1857) of his seven-volume edition with an explanation of his editorial principles and a description of the many manuscripts consulted, whether whole codices or separate leaves. This volume contains the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. As well as the Greek text, each page has Jerome's Latin Vulgate text in the right margin, indications of manuscripts used and Biblical cross-references in the left margin, and a full textual apparatus at the foot.

Samuel Prideaux Tregelles (1813-1875) was a Cornish-born Biblical scholar who travelled to major libraries all over Europe in order to study ancient manuscripts. Biblical textual criticism was a burgeoning new field in the mid-nineteenth century, with leading scholars including Lachmann and Tischendorf in Germany and Tregelles' contemporaries Scrivener, Westcott and Hort in England all working towards the ideal of a more authoritative Greek New Testament text than had previously been available. Volume 2 (1861) of Tregelles' landmark seven-volume edition begins with a description of the many manuscripts consulted. Tregelles refers to the anticipated publication of the Codex Sinaiticus described by Tischendorf, and to the work of Hort and Westcott. This volume contains the Greek text of the Gospels of Luke and John together with Jerome's Latin Vulgate text, indications of manuscripts used, Biblical cross-references, and a full critical apparatus.