Eph 3:10 (Principalities and Authorities in the Heavenly Places) articulates the related cluster of terms that express the "Pauline" spirit world in Ephesians'. Through a psychological-hermeneutical study, this book contributes to provide a theologically-founded response to the immense challenges the spirit world apprehensions among the Igbo (Africans), pose to true discipleship in these settings. Identifying the strongly influential role played here by the Igbo traditional religion/world view(s) and the foundation of these biblical terms in the attempts at Weltbewaltigung, the book highlights how proper appreciation of the Christological paraenetics of Eph enhances critical consciousness and cognitive reconstruction towards mature faith and societal betterment.

Teaching the Historical Jesus in his Jewish context to students of varied religious backgrounds presents instructors with not only challenges, but also opportunities to sustain interfaith dialogue and foster mutual understanding and respect. This new collection explores these challenges and opportunities, gathering together experiential lessons drawn from teaching Jesus in a wide variety of settings-from the public, secular two- or four-year college, to the Jesuit university, to the Rabbinic school or seminary, to the orthodox, religious Israeli university. A diverse group of Jewish and Christian scholars reflect on their own classroom experiences and explicates crucial issues for teaching Jesus in a way that encourages students at every level to enter into an encounter with the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament without paternalism, parochialism, or prejudice. This volume is a valuable resource for instructors and graduate students interested in an interfaith approach in the classroom, and provides practical case studies for scholars working on Jewish-Christian relations.

These two volumes of The New Testament and Greek Literature are the magnum opus of biblical scholar Dennis R. MacDonald, outlining the profound connections between the New Testament and classical Greek poetry. MacDonald argues that the Gospel writers borrowed from established literary sources to create stories about Jesus that readers of the day would find convincing. In The Gospels and Homer MacDonald leads readers through Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, highlighting models that the authors of the Gospel of Mark and Luke-Acts may have imitated for their portrayals of Jesus and his earliest followers such as Paul. The book applies mimesis criticism to show the popularity of the targets being imitated, the distinctiveness in the Gospels, and evidence that ancient readers recognized these similarities. Using side-by-side comparisons, the book provides English translations of Byzantine poetry that shows how Christian writers used lines from Homer to retell the life of Jesus. The potential imitations include adventures and shipwrecks, savages living in cages, meals for thousands, transfigurations, visits from the dead, blind seers, and more. MacDonald makes a compelling case that the Gospel writers successfully imitated the epics to provide their readers with heroes and an authoritative foundation for Christianity.

Analysis of inner-biblical exegesis ordinarily involves examination of the intertextual relationship between two texts within the biblical corpus. But in many cases there is an often overlooked intertext that serves as a bridge between the two texts. Such an intermediary text reads the primary text in a manner similar to the way the tertiary text reads it and supplies a missing link in a very subtle yet identifiable manner. The direction of dependence between texts of this kind is not as important in the present study as the direction in which these texts were meant to be read by those who gave them their final shape.

Preaching's Survey of Bibles and Bible Reference InterVarsity Press is proud to present The Lightfoot Legacy, a three-volume set of previously unpublished material from J. B. Lightfoot, one of the great biblical scholars of the modern era. In the spring of 2013, Ben Witherington III discovered hundreds of pages of biblical commentary by Lightfoot in the Durham Cathedral Library. While incomplete, these commentaries represent a goldmine for historians and biblical scholars, as well as for the many people who have found Lightfoot's work both informative and edifying, deeply learned and pastorally sensitive. Among those many pages were two sets of lecture notes on the Acts of the Apostles. Together they amount to a richly detailed, albeit unfinished, commentary on Acts 1-21. The project of writing a commentary on Acts had long been on Lightfoot's mind, and in the 1880s he wrote an article about the book for the second British edition of William Smith's Dictionary of the Bible. Thankfully, that is not all he left behind. Now on display for all to see, these commentary notes reveal a scholar well ahead of his time, one of the great minds of his or any generation. Well over a century later, The Acts of the Apostles remains a relevant and significant resource for the church today.

This commentary by Dr. Stephen Manley is the first volume within the Acts series. Stephen has been studying the book of Acts since late 1990s, and has been speaking, writing, and preaching the Word since 1961.

uke 11-17 continues "The MacArthur New Testament Commentary's" look at the longest of the four gospels. The commentary provides a verse by verse and phrase by phrase exposition of the text, taking into account the cultural, theological, and Old Testament contexts of each passage. Interpretive challenges are fully dealt with, and differing views are fairly evaluated. The gospel of Luke is unique and provides valuable insight into Christ's life and ministry. For example, it gives the fullest account of Christ's birth and is the only gospel to record several of our Lord's parables, including the Good Samaritan and the Two Sons. Use this volume of "The MacArthur New Testament Commentary" series to assist you in your study of this cherished New Testament book.

Lk 22:35-38 is peculiar because it is never proclaimed except on Palm Sunday in the Year C. Although it is a pragmatic instruction on mission, it puzzles us like the Apostles in the Upper Room. The Lord shortly before his arrest, asserting the importance of the teaching, mandates preparedness for mission in the post-resurrectional period of the Church. The shepherd must be prepared to defend the sheep under his/her care, even to the extent of being called "lawless" according to world standards. Lk 22:35-38 thus in no way contradicts the prior mission training sendings, rather endows the missionary with greater strategic responsibility and commitment in pastoral care. The book highlights the contextual, hermeneutical, and theological dimensions in the final teaching of Jesus in the Lukan narration.

The life and ministry of the apostle Paul was a sprawling adventure covering thousands of miles on Roman roads and treacherous seas as he boldly proclaimed the gospel of Jesus to anyone who would listen, be they commoners or kings. His impact on the church and indeed on Western civilization is immeasurable. From his birth in Tarsus to his rabbinic training in Jerusalem to his final imprisonment in Rome, An Illustrated Guide to the Apostle Paul brings his remarkable story to life. Drawing from the book of Acts, Paul's many letters, and historical and archaeological sources, this fully illustrated resource explores the social, cultural, political, and religious background of the first-century Roman world in which Paul lived and ministered. It sheds light on the places he visited and the people he met along the way. Most importantly, it helps us understand how and why Paul was used by God in such extraordinary ways. Pastors, students, and anyone engaged in Bible study will find this an indispensable and inspiring resource.

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.

This introduction to the interpretation of Matthew aims to encourage in-depth study of the text, and genuine grappling with the theological and historical questions raised, by providing a 'map' to the Gospel as a whole, and to key interpreters and interpretative debates.

In Defence of Christianity examines the early Christian apologists in their context in thirteen articles divided in four parts. Part I provides an introduction to apology and apologetics in antiquity, an overview of the early Christian apologists, and an outline of their argumentation. The nine articles of Part II each cover one of the early apologists: Aristides, Justin, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, the author of the Letter to Diognetus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian and Minucius Felix. Part III contextualises the apologists by providing an English translation of contemporary pagan criticism of Christianity and by discussing this critique. Part IV consists of a single article discussing how Eusebius depicted and used the apologists in his Ecclesiastical History.

This engaging commentary on the Gospel of Matthew is the fifth of seventeen volumes in the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture (CCSS), which will cover the entire New Testament. This volume, like each in the series, relates Scripture to life, is faithfully Catholic, and is supplemented by features designed to help readers understand the Bible more deeply and use it more effectively.
Praise for the CCSS:
"These commentaries are both exegetically sound and spiritually nourishing. They are indispensable tools for preaching, catechesis, evangelization, and other forms of pastoral ministry."--Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM Cap, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

Important essays on Gnosis and Gnosticism. Contributors include Rudolph, Pagels, Grant, and Barrett.

James D. G. Dunn has been one of the most influential New Testament scholars of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. His works have altered the very way biblical theologians view Jesus and Paul. This book is written in gratitude of his influence and mentorship. The focus of the work parallels the major research of Dunn's career. It emphasizes the life and teachings of Jesus as remembered by his disciples, the new perspective on Paul, teachings in the Pauline letters, and relevant topics related to ancient Judaism, the Law, Soteriology and Christology in the New Testament. In 2005 another festschrift for James D. G. Dunn's 65th birthday was published with essays by Professor Dunn's many colleagues and friends. In this volume, a new generation of scholars, who are being widely recognized in their own contributions and publications, now honour their former teacher and demonstrate to the scholastic community the breadth of his influence

Jennifer Bird examines the subjectivity of wives in "1 Peter" with particular reference to the Haustafel (household code) section of the letter. Bird analyzes the construction of wives' subjectivity in "1 Peter", working primarily with that is referrre to as the Haustafel (household code) section and engaging feminist critical questions, postcolonial theory, and materialist theory in her analysis. Bird examines the two crucial labels for understanding Petrine Christian identity - 'aliens and refugees' and 'royal priesthood and holy nation' - and finds them to stand in stark contract with the commands and identity given to the wives in the Haustafel section. Similarly, the command to 'honour the Emperor', which immediately precedes the Haustafel, engenders a rich discussion of the text's socio-political implications. The critical engagement of several 'symptomatic irruptions' within the comands to the wives unvcovers the abusive dynamic underlying this section of the letter. Finally, Bird considers the present day implications of her study. Formerly "The Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement", a book series that explores the many aspects of New Testament study including historical perspectives, social-scientific and literary theory, and theological, cultural and contextual approaches. "The Early Christianity in Context" series, a part of JSNTS, examines the birth and development of early Christianity up to the end of the third century CE. The series places Christianity in its social, cultural, political and economic context. European Seminar on Christian Origins and "Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Supplement" are also part of JSNTS.

A helpfully concise commentary on Paul's letter to the early Christians in Rome, which the Apostle wrote just a few years before the outbreak of Nero's persecution. Keener examines each paragraph for its function in the letter as a whole, helping the reader follow Paul's argument. Where relevant, he draws on his vast work in ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman sources in order to help modern readers understand the message of Romans according to the way the first audience would have heard it. Throughout, Keener focuses on major points that are especially critical for the contemporary study of Paul's most influential and complex New Testament letter.

The parables of Jesus have undergone different transmutations in the long history of their transmission. The events surrounding his death and resurrection as well as the new situations his followers were confronted with after these events led to the parables of Jesus being given new accentuations according to the needs of the reflecting community. This is evident in Matthew's treatment of the parable trilogy of Mt 21:28-22:14. This work shows how Matthew has used the dominical parables and sayings found in his tradition to serve the needs of his community, especially in its struggles with the official Jewish leaders of his time. Through these parables, which he presented as a three-pronged attack against the Jewish leaders, Matthew shows his community as the true Israel, called to produce the fruits of righteousness. In this regard, the Jewish leaders stand for the members of Matthew's community lacking in the actions that define belongingness to the chosen people. This group has no part in the eschatological banquet.

Daniel W. McManigal provides a fresh analysis of the meaning of the baptism in the Holy Spirit and fire, and John's baptism as a prophetic sign-act. Expanding upon the sources, grammar and meaning of the Logion, analysing Old Testament and Second Temple texts, and discussing the prevalent theme of judgment in baptism, McManigal offers the first extended treatment of the baptism in the Holy Spirit in Matthew's gospel. As a backdrop for the prevalence of judgment in baptism, McManigal locates Matthew's eschatological judgment within the broader Old Testament and apocalyptic literature of the Second Temple, drawing upon texts such as Isaiah 11 and the Isaiah Targum, Malachi 3, Daniel 7, 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra. This volume's analysis aids deeper understanding of how the themes of the Old Testament are woven throughout Matthew's narrative, capitalizing on John's role as the last of the prophets sent to Israel; McManigal focuses in particular on Matthew's foretelling the coming of the Messiah, and his call for repentance in order to prepare people for the arrival of the kingdom of God. Drawing out the unique Matthean meaning of the baptism of the "coming one," McManigal's study offers readers a new insight into the nature of repenting and prophetic baptism, whether through water, fire or Spirit.

"You are the salt of the earth . . . You are the light of the world." Matthew 5:13-14 "I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church." Matthew 16:18 The world tries to define us in different ways. We try to define ourselves one way or another. But who are we really? How does God define us? The Gospel of Matthew was written to a group of Christians who didn't yet know who they were. They were faithful Jews in the synagogue community in Galilee who had found the Messiah. Jesus had changed everything. But how should they think of themselves now, as Jewish or Christian? What did it all mean? Matthew writes his Gospel to help his readers define their new identity as followers of Jesus the Messiah. Michael Card unpacks how Matthew's emphasis on fulfillment confirms their Jewish connection to the Torah, while his focus on the kingdom helps them understand their new identities in Christ. Matthew presents this process of redefinition as an exercise of the imagination, in which Jesus reshapes who we are in light of who he is. Come alongside Matthew in this pilgrimage, and discover how your new identity in Christ fulfills all that you are meant to be.

The goal of this redaction-critical investigation is to determine what in Luke 22 is special to Luke, to assess its origin, and to uncover Luke's purpose in using this material. Unlike earlier studies, Soards concentrates on lines of thought that link the chapter with the Gospel as a whole. The author's conclusion is that though Luke did not use a single coherent source other than Mark for this chapter, his diverse material was chosen in order to advance Luke's distinctive interests in Christology, eschatology and ecclesiology. Christologically, Jesus is shown as in charge of the Passion events and as the realization of a divine plan; eschatologically, the Passion is portrayed as inaugurating the era of the Last Days; ecclesiologically, Jesus's attitude to his disciples functions as instruction for Luke's readers about their role in God's plan.

The question of how to interpret scripture and whether there is a distinctively Anglican approach to doing so is one of the leading theological questions in the Anglican Communion. An Anglican Hermeneutic of the Transfiguration analyzes major Anglican interpretations of the Transfiguration from the eighth century to the present and suggests that Anglicans do in fact have a distinctive hermeneutical approach to this event. Moreover, this approach may point to larger trends in the interpretation of Scripture overall, but especially the Gospels. With respect to the Transfiguration, Anglicans interpret the event within the biblical context, assume its basic historic character, and juxtapose high Christology with the human limitations of Jesus' self-understanding. Furthermore, Anglicans draw pastoral implications for the lives of Jesus and the disciples from the Transfiguration and assert that the glory manifested on the mountain supports a partially realized eschatology. Finally, Anglicans write for well-educated, non-specialists in theology.