In the book of Revelation, John appeals to the faithful to avoid the temptations of wealth, which he connects with evil and disobedience within secular society. New Testament scholars have traditionally viewed his somewhat radical stance as a reaction to the social injustices and idolatry of the imperial Roman cults of the day. Mark D. Mathews argues that John's rejection of affluence was instead shaped by ideas in the Jewish literature of the Second Temple period which associated the rich with the wicked and viewed the poor as the righteous. Mathews explores how traditions preserved in the Epistle of Enoch and later Enochic texts played a formative role in shaping John's theological perspective. This book will be of interest to those researching poverty and wealth in early Christian communities and the relationship between the traditions preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls and New Testament.

Books in the John Phillips Commentary Series are designed to provide pastors, Sunday school teachers, and students of the Scripture with doctrinally sound interpretation that emphasizes the practical application of Bible truth. Working from the familiar King James Version, Dr. Phillips not only provides helpful commentary on the text, but also includes detailed outlines and numerous illustrations and quotations. Anyone wanting to explore the meaning of God's Word in greater depth--for personal spiritual growth or as a resource for preaching and teaching--will welcome the guidance and insights of this respected series.

A new commentary for today's world, The Story of God Bible Commentary explains and illuminates each passage of Scripture in light of the Bible's grand story. The first commentary series to do so, SGBC offers a clear and compelling exposition of biblical texts, guiding everyday readers in how to creatively and faithfully live out the Bible in their own contexts. Its story-centric approach is ideal for pastors, students, Sunday school teachers, and laypeople alike. Each volume employs three main, easy-to-use sections designed to help readers live out God's story: LISTEN to the Story: Includes complete NIV text with references to other texts at work in each passage, encouraging the reader to hear it within the Bible's grand story. EXPLAIN the Story: Explores and illuminates each text as embedded in its canonical and historical setting. LIVE the Story: Reflects on how each text can be lived today and includes contemporary stories and illustrations to aid preachers, teachers, and students. -Acts- The question of Luke's purpose for writing this book has long been a topic of debate among Christians. Some see it as an apologetic defense against the misunderstandings of the Roman Empire. Others maintain that Luke's audience was primarily Christian, and the story of Acts offers pastoral encouragement. Still others believe that Acts was written to address theological issues facing the early church. In the end, no single purpose may be able to account for all the rich complexity that exists in Acts. Edited by Scot McKnight and Tremper Longman III, and written by a number of top-notch theologians, The Story of God Bible Commentary series will bring relevant, balanced, and clear-minded theological insight to any biblical education or ministry.

How and when did Jesus and the Spirit come to be regarded as fully God? The Birth of the Trinity offers a new historical approach by exploring the way in which first- and second-century Christians read the Old Testament in order to differentiate the one God as multiple persons. The earliest Christians felt they could metaphorically overhear divine conversations between the Father, Son, and Spirit when reading the Old Testament. When these snatches of dialogue are connected and joined, they form a narrative about the unfolding interior divine life as understood by the nascent church. What emerges is not a static portrait of the triune God, but a developing story of divine persons enacting mutual esteem, voiced praise, collaborative strategy, and self-sacrificial love. The presence of divine dialogue in the New Testament and early Christian literature shows that, contrary to the claims of James Dunn and Bart Ehrman (among others), the earliest Christology was the highest Christology, as Jesus was identified as a divine person through Old Testament interpretation. The result is a Trinitarian biblical and early Christian theology.

Luke Timothy Johnson offers a compelling interpretation of the New Testament as a witness to the rise of early faith in Jesus. Critically judicious and theologically attuned to the role of the New Testament in the life of the church, Johnson deftly guides his reader through a wealth of historical and literary description and invites critical reflection on the meaning of these ancient writings for today. The third edition is carefully updated and includes new student-friendly format and features, including a new design and study and reflection questions.

In 1885, a large hypogeum was discovered at the Saint-E'tienne Compound, the domain acquired only two and a half years before by the Dominicans on the western slope of El Heidhemiyeh hill, about 250 m north of the Jerusalem Ottoman wall. After the unearthing of a second large hypogeum, only fifty metres north of Hypogeum 1, in their monumental work on the history of Jerusalem, the two eminent Dominican scholars Louis-Hugues Vincent and Felix-Marie Abel proposed to date the two burial complexes to the Hellenistic or Roman period. This dating remained unchallenged until the survey of 1974-75, carried out by the distinguished Israeli archaeologists Gabriel Barkay and Amos Kloner, who proposed to date the two burial caves towards the end of the Judahite kingdom, on the basis of an unsystematic comparison of few architectural features with those of other tombs. In the frame of the improved knowledge of the broad and adjacent archaeological contexts since the last study of the Saint-E'tienne Compound Hypogea, between 2011 and 2014 Riccardo Lufrani carried out a detailed survey of the two burial caves, providing new and more detailed photographic, topographic, archaeological and geological documentation. The systematic comparison of the significant architectural features of the Saint-E'tienne Compound Hypogea with a consistent sample of 22 tombs in the region suggest dating the hewing of the two hypogea to the Early Hellenistic period, shedding a new light on the history of Jerusalem.

'This book about the Apocalypse reviews some of the most erudite research on the New Testament text and discusses the troubling questions often raised by people of faith. He unites the precise terminology of a theology professor with the edifying words of a pastor who is concerned about the spiritual health of believers.' Dr. Luis N. Rivera.

The newest series addition unpacks one of the most mysterious and misunderstood books of the Bible to help women prepare for their future with the risen Christ and be infused with courage, hope, and excitement for a life everlasting.

SERIES DESCRIPTION:
Since 2007, Sue Edwards's Bible studies have encouraged and equipped women with meaningful devotion, biblical principles, and timeless life lessons. Now with the series relaunch, Sue has revised and updated six of her studies and is offering a brand new study on Revelation.

Reorganized to facilitate either individual or group use, each study maintains their original lessons and questions but now also offers inspirational sidebars and short, 3-5 minute supplemental videos. Scan the video QR code with a smart phone or visit the series Web site to watch Sue provide historical and cultural background, teach important truths found in each week's lesson, or ask thoughtful questions to encourage deeper discussion. Each edition has also been repackaged with new covers and a smaller trim size to make the Discover Together Bible Study Series more inviting and accessible to readers.

This is the second edition, co-published in Halle and London in 1796 and 1806, of Griesbach's two-volume Novum Testamentum Graece, which first appeared in 1774 1775. A professor of the New Testament at the University of Jena in Germany, Griesbach is regarded as one of the founding fathers of modern textual criticism of the Bible. Griesbach's pioneering theory was to group different versions of New Testament texts into three families - Western, Alexandrian, and Constantinopolitan - based on a set of fifteen criteria. He set out these rules in an important addition to the Latin Prolegomena of Volume 1 of the second edition. Volume 1 contains the complete gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

This is the second edition, co-published in Halle and London in 1796 and 1806, of Griesbach's two-volume Novum Testamentum Graece, which first appeared in 1774 1775. A professor of the New Testament at the University of Jena in Germany, Griesbach is regarded as one of the founding fathers of modern textual criticism of the Bible. Griesbach's pioneering theory was to group different versions of New Testament texts into three families - Western, Alexandrian, and Constantinopolitan - based on a set of fifteen criteria. He set out these rules in an important addition to the Latin Prolegomena of Volume 1 of the second edition. Volume 2 contains the Book of Acts, the Pauline epistles, the Catholic epistles, and the Book of Revelation.

This is an introductory guide to the ways Jesus is depicted in the New Testament. Both college students and the general reader will find here a variety of New Testament understandings of Jesus that are rooted in critical reading of the four Gospels and Pauline letters. This new edition adds historical context to the portraits of Jesus as each document is somewhat shaped by historical factors. This work presumes neither religious faith nor lack of faith; its aim is to inform and to stimulate some fundamental questions as well as to give the readers portraits as synthetic balance to the vital work of analysis.