This book undertakes a biblical and theological analysis of evolutionary creation and creation themes pertinent to origins science. A key premise is that a fundamental congruity exists between what the Lord has revealed in nature (i.e., the book of God's work) and in Scripture (i.e., the book of God's Word). A corollary supposition is that, based on an analysis of the fossil record, genome evidence, morphological data, and so on, biological evolution offers the best persuasive scientific explanation for the origin and actualization of carbon-based life on earth, including Homo sapiens (i.e., modern humans). Furthermore, considering evolutionary creation in an objective, balanced, and informed manner reveals that the view is wholly compatible with classical theological metaphysics, including Augustinian and Reformed confessional orthodoxy.

Does Paul teach a hierarchy of authority of man over woman, or does he teach the full equality of man and woman in the church and home? In Man and Woman, One in Christ, Philip Barton Payne answers this question and more, injecting crucial insights into the discussion of Paul s view of women. Condensing over three decades of research on this topic, Payne s rigorous exegetical analysis demonstrates the consistency of Paul s message on this topic and its coherence with the rest of his theology. Payne s exegetical examination of the Pauline corpus is thorough, exploring the influences on Paul, his practice as a church leader, and his teachings to various Christian communities. Paul s theology, instruction, and practice consistently affirm the equal standing of men and women, with profound implications for the church today. Man and Woman, One in Christ is required reading for all who desire to understand the meaning of Paul s statements regarding women and their relevance for Christian relationships and ministry today. This work has the potential of uniting the church on this contentious issue."

The Use of Exodus in Hebrews illustrates how traditions and hermeneutics have significantly determined people's valuations of the relationship between the Old and New Covenants in Hebrews. By showing how the author of Hebrews uses the canonical revelation from Exodus to argue rhetorically, ontologically, and hermeneutically that Jesus Christ is the New Covenant priest in the heavenly tabernacle, this book offers an epistemological lens from Exodus to identify the correct view of the relationship between the Old and New Covenants.

The Matthean Beatitudes in Their Jewish Origins: A Literary and Speech Act Analysis examines how Matthew used Jewish concepts as paradigmatic utterances for the Matthean community. In fact, the Gospel of Matthew was the most Jewish of the Synoptic Gospels, and Matthew's paradigm was the needed transition for understanding the role of the new community post-70 AD. The importance and role of Jewish concepts is evident in Matthew's work. More specifically, the literary nature of the Beatitudes demonstrates a composition that evolved from oral origins. Speech act theory is utilized to point out the oral features of the text as well as to reveal what Jesus did in his sayings. Moreover, a speech act model is presented and applied to the Beatitudes' pericope. Their significance lies in the authoritative utterances of Jesus. By employing speech act theory on the Beatitudes, the sayings of Jesus are investigated to illustrate the force of his eloquence on the Christian community.

Rewriting the Feeding of Five Thousand reveals the connection between John and the Synoptics with a focus on John 6.1-15. Statistical analyses establish the percentages of verbal and word order agreement between John 6.1-15 and the Synoptic parallels. An analysis of contextual agreements between the narratives in John and the Synoptics facilitates observing the percentage of agreement between them on a verse-by-verse basis, the average percentage of agreement between them, and the average percentage of agreement between them when Johannine material without parallel in the Synoptics is excluded from the data. Furthermore, this book analyzes the Matthean and Lukan redaction of Mark in their versions of the feeding of the five thousand and their influence on the Johannine narrative, as well as how John's narrative can be understood as a thorough rewriting of the Synoptic accounts.

This text brings together in one volume two previous books that laid the groundwork for the construction of the entries in Diccionario Griego-Espanol del Nuevo Testamento (Greek-Spanish Dictionary of the New Testament), namely Metodo de Analisis semantico aplicado al griego del Nuevo Testamento (Method of Semantic Analysis applied to the Greek of the New Testament) and Metodologia del Diccionario Griego Espanol del Nuevo Testamento (Methodology of the Greek Spanish Dictionary of the New Testament), by Juan Mateos and Jesus Pelaez. In the introduction and first part of the text, the concepts of dictionary and meaning are defined and a critical analysis of the dictionaries of F. Zorell, W. Bauer (Bauer-Aland) and Louw-Nida is conducted. Their methodologies are examined with the purpose of then presenting a method of semantic analysis and the steps for establishing the semantic formula of the various classes of lexemes, which functions as the basis for determining lexical and contextual meaning. In the second part the necessary steps for composing the dictionary's entries are proposed. The text concludes with an analysis of related lexemes in order to demonstrate the accuracy of the suggested method. For the first time, a carefully developed method of semantic analysis and the corresponding methodology are presented before the construction of the dictionary's entries.

What is the most important lesson in the word of God? In Matt. 22:34-40, Jesus summarizes the whole Bible into two commandments, being 'love for God' and 'love for thy neighbor' (Lev. 19:18). Why did Jesus cite Lev. 19:18 (love) instead of 19:2 (holiness), which is the core of this chapter? This book analyzes how Lev. 19 is unfolded from OT times to the message of the NT. It attempts to prove the importance of Lev. 19 in the canonical tradition of Judaism and Christianity and to identify the clues which can help to explain the reason why Jesus chose Lev. 19:18. Further, the book shows that holiness, one of the main issues in Lev. 19, is replaced by perfection in Matt. 5:48. This connection is shown through examining the Community Rule (1QS) of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which joins the themes of holiness and perfection. This combination serves as the 'missing link' to bridge the gap between Lev. 19 and Matt. 5. The method used to explore these texts is called 'a canonical unfolding.' After a commentary on Lev. 19 the chapter is compared to other connected texts. Finally, the meaning of Lev. 19 is reinterpreted in the whole context of the Canon.

A Psycho-Spiritual View on the Message of Jesus in the Gospels explores elements of mysticism in the words of Jesus. Four fields are analyzed with the help of two key concepts of mysticism: presence of the divine and transformation of the self. Analyses, semantic and otherwise, reveal alternative understandings on each of the four fields. Psuche appears as 'self' ('mind-and-heart') rather than as 'life,' for example, in the Good Shepherd passage (dedicating one's self), or in the saving and losing logia in Mark 8.35 par, calling for transformation. Pneuma in the Gospels appears both in a definite form and indefinitely: next to the Holy Spirit, there is holy spirit active and present, implying that baptism literally is immersing in holy spirit. Repentance (metanoia) is alternatively to be understood as transformation of the self, and is not necessarily connected to 'sin.' Finally, the Kingdom of God, in line with theologian Adolf von Harnack, is found to be present (it has approached,eggiken) and is a reality inside (entos) the human being, a musterion, apart from its references to the eschaton or to a paradisiacal new world. Parables teach about the Kingdom as a spiritual entity in and around the human being: presence of the divine, closely connected with transformation of the self. These findings open up to a psycho-spiritual understanding of the message (euaggelion) of Jesus.

In this study, the First Farewell Discourse of Jesus (Jn 14) is read in the light of the Old Testament and Early Judaism. At the beginning of the chapter, influence of Psalm 42/43 can be shown. In the central part of the chapter, the subjects of loving God / Jesus and keeping the commandments seem to go back to Deuteronomic covenant theology. In the final part, prophetic announcements of eschatological salvation are echoed. Thus, Jn 14 makes use of the three parts of the Hebrew Bible: the Law, the Prophets and the Writings. This is important for Jewish-Christian dialogue. The English edition of this book is based on the German original of 1984. In a Postscript the contributions on the chapter since the first publication are reviewed, and an additional bibliography has been added.

This collection of essays examines Christian martyrdom by locating it in different historical, cultural and social contexts. Chronologically, the book analyses traditions predating the Christian martyr literature and ideology proper, and studies an example of how this ideology was transformed in the post-Constantinian era. Within this chronological span the following contextual themes are discussed: the arena and the values represented by gladiatorial combat and executions; the reaction of 'others' to Christian martyrdom and martyr ideology; how Christians differentiated suicide from martyrdom; the relationship between Christian apologetic literature and martyr literature; and the conceptions of gender and sexuality in Jewish and Christian martyr literature in their Greco-Roman setting.

As the only book of its kind in the New Testament, Revelation can be difficult to understand, and for readers without specialized training, the historical-critical approach used in many commentaries can provide more complication than illumination. Here James Resseguie applies the easily understandable tools introduced in his primer on narrative criticism to this challenging book. He shows how Revelation uses such features as rhetoric, setting, character, point of view, plot, symbolism, style, and repertoire to construct its meaning. This literary approach draws out the theological and homiletical message of the book and highlights its major unifying themes: the need to listen well, an overwhelmingly God-centered perspective, and the exodus to a new promised land. Here is a valuable aid for pastor and serious lay reader alike.

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.

It has been widely recognized that the Book of the Twelve, Hosea to Malachi, was considered a single composition in antiquity. Recent articles and monographs have discussed the internal clues to this composition, but there has been little effort to understand the way the New Testament authors quote from the Twelve in light of the compositional unity of the book. The Twelve Prophets in the New Testament contends that New Testament quotations from the Twelve presuppose knowledge of the larger whole and cannot be understood correctly apart from awareness of the compositional strategy of the Twelve.

One of the most important theologians of the twentieth century illuminates the relationship between ourselves and the teachings of Jesus

What can the call to discipleship, the adherence to the word of Jesus, mean today to the businessman, the soldier, the laborer, or the aristocrat? What did Jesus mean to say to us? What is his will for us today? Drawing on the Sermon on the Mount, Dietrich Bonhoeffer answers these timeless questions by providing a seminal reading of the dichotomy between "cheap grace" and "costly grace." "Cheap grace," Bonhoeffer wrote, "is the grace we bestow on ourselves...grace without discipleship....Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the girl which must be asked for, the door at which a man must know....It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life."

The Cost of Discipleship is a compelling statement of the demands of sacrifice and ethical consistency from a man whose life and thought were exemplary articulations of a new type of leadership inspired by the Gospel, and imbued with the spirit of Christian humanism and a creative sense of civic duty.

Scholarly consensus on the relationship of the Letter to the Hebrews to the Old Testament is far from universal or uniform. This book aims to address this area in Hebrews scholarship, which is lacking a critical account of the dependence of Hebrews on the Old Testament, especially Leviticus, in constructing a meaningful text. The book examines how the author of Hebrews uses the textual levitical tabernacle theme to construct the central motif of the heavenly tabernacle in Hebrews. In analysing the ways in which Hebrews relates to the Old Testament, the author makes use of literary theorist Gerard Genette's concepts of transtextuality and transformation. These concepts help set in relief the variegated textual relationships Hebrews has with the Old Testament in general, and Leviticus in particular, and the transformations that are central to constituting meaning in Hebrews.

A top New Testament scholar, preacher, and tour guide to the lands of the New Testament offers an informed commentary on this challenging portion of Scripture with an eye toward preaching the text. Jeffrey Weima explains the meaning of the seven "sermons" of Revelation 2-3 and provides sample sermons that show how these ancient messages, despite their subtle Old Testament allusions and perplexing images, are relevant for the church today. The book includes photos, maps, and charts and is of interest to preachers, students, teachers, and Bible study groups.

In The Moral World of James, James Riley Strange compares the moral system in the Epistle of James with other Greco-Roman and Judaic texts. The author of the epistle prescribed moral practices in a world in which other people, both pagan and Jewish, had long been expressing similar concerns, and more would continue to take up the task centuries after Christianity was well established in the Roman Empire. In this fresh and thick analysis, Strange's systemic comparison of texts (among them works of Plato, Plutarch, Epictetus, and Aelius Aristides, as well as Greek Magical Papyri, tractates of the Mishnah, and the Community Rule of the Dead Sea Scrolls) reveals how James's vision of a distinctive way of community life was both part of and distinct from the moral and religious systems among which it emerged.

Who Should Be King in Israel? attempts to link common messianic issues found in some Dead Sea Scrolls with the Gospel of John. These messianic issues are studied in relation to the political situation facing the Johannine community in dealing with the Roman empire. The readers/hearers of the Fourth Gospel had to deal with different challenges from the Roman government and the non-Christian Jewish community in the era between the Jewish Revolt and the Bar-Kochba Revolt. Jesus is presented as the new David, the Son of God, who is the solution to all of humanity's problems. The fall of the Temple in 70 CE had created a political and religious situation that meant early Christians of the post-70 CE socio-political environment had to deal with Roman suspicion and Jewish disappointment. The Fourth Gospel uses vocabulary and imagery designed to communicate the message that Jesus is the Christ without inflaming either Roman or Jewish sensibilities. This book is written in a manner designed to deal intelligently with that difficult era in Christian history.

Using the method of critical intertextual research, this book analyses the phenomena of hypertextuality and ethopoeia in the New Testament writings against the background of the Second Temple literature, the historical Jesus, and the historical Paul. The work demonstrates that all twenty post-Pauline writings including the Gospels, like some of Paul's letters, are only loosely related to history. On the other hand, the New Testament writings constitute a logically consistent network of intertextual-rhetorical relationships which have to be properly investigated and interpreted. Only analyses of this kind enable us to understand the internal logic of the New Testament as a whole and the true meaning of its individual works.

Spirit Christology has emerged as an important focus in recent theology. It offers new perspectives on Christology and Pneumatology. Can these new perspectives lead to advances in trinitarian theology itself? The classical theologies of both East and West tended to express great reserve about moving too easily from the economy of salvation to ideas about God in se. In the twentieth century, Karl Rahner's argument that the 'economic' Trinity is the 'immanent' Trinity and vice versa helped lead to a significant erosion of this reserve, though not without controversy. The work of David Coffey represents a significant contribution to reflection on this nexus of questions. This book examines his treatment of the relation of Spirit Christology to Logos Christology, his reformulation of Rahner's axiom, and his suggestion that Spirit Christology offers an 'ascending' basis for a 'mutual love' Pneumatology, in the service of a renewed trinitarian theology. It presents an analysis of Coffey's achievement in its various contexts, historical and contemporary. It highlights his methodological balance and argues that his theology represents an important development within the tradition, casting new light on issues of pressing contemporary interest.

Radio messages from J. Vernon McGee delighted and enthralled listeners for years with simple, straightforward language and clear understanding of the Scripture. Now enjoy his personable, yet scholarly, style in a 60-volume set of commentaries that takes you from Genesis to Revelation with new understanding and insight. Each volume includes introductory sections, detailed outlines and a thorough, paragraph-by-paragraph discussion of the text. A great choice for pastors - and even better choice for the average Bible reader and student! Very affordable in a size that can go anywhere, it's available as a complete 60-volume series, in Old Testament or New Testament sets, or individually.

Radio messages from J. Vernon McGee delighted and enthralled listeners for years with simple, straightforward language and clear understanding of the Scripture. Now enjoy his personable, yet scholarly, style in a 60-volume set of commentaries that takes you from Genesis to Revelation with new understanding and insight. Each volume includes introductory sections, detailed outlines and a thorough, paragraph-by-paragraph discussion of the text. A great choice for pastors - and even better choice for the average Bible reader and student! Very affordable in a size that can go anywhere, it's available as a complete 60-volume series, in Old Testament or New Testament sets, or individually.

This volume, which collects together the work of several established scholars attempts to situate the Apostle Paul, the Pauline writings, and the earliest Christian Gospels together in the context of early Christianity. It addresses the issue of how the Christianity depicted in and represented by the individual Gospels relates to the vision of Christianity represented by Paul and the Pauline writings.This raises such questions as to what extent did Paul influence the canonical and non-canonical Gospels? In what way are the Gospels reactions to Paul and his legacy? A comparison of the Gospels and Paul on topics such as Old Testament Law, Gentile mission, Christology, and early church leadership structures represents a fruitful area of study. While a number of volumes have appeared that attempt to assess the relationship between the historical Jesus and the Apostle Paul relatively few studies on Paul and the Gospels have been published. This volume excellently fills this gap in New Testament Studies and makes a valuable contribution to studies on Christian Origins, Pauline research, and the Gospels.