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.

Despite novel approaches to the study of Early Christianity - New Historicity, New Philology, Gender and Queer Studies; many turns - Material, Linguistic, Cultural; and developments in Reception History, Cultural Transfer, and Entangled History, much scholarship on this topic differs little from that written a century ago. In this study, Markus Vinzent challenges the interpretation of the sources that have been used in the study of the Early Christian era. He brings a new approach to the topic by reading history backwards. Applying this methodology to four case studies, and using a range of media, he poses radically new questions on the famous 'Abercius' inscription, on the first extant apologist Aristides of Athens, on the prolific Hippolytus of Rome, and on Ignatius and the first non-canonical collection of letters. Vinzent's novel methodology of a retrospective writing thus challenges many fundamental and anachronistic assumptions about Early Christian history.

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.

Die Studie behandelt die Stellung der Witwe in der fruhen Kirche vom ersten bis zum funften Jahrhundert. Auf der Grundlage ausgewahlter Quellen wird die Witwenthematik sowohl im Kontext der profanen Umwelt als auch vor dem Hintergrund der biblischen Tradition problematisiert. Der Autor arbeitet den Zusammenhang der Institutionalisierung der Witwenversorgung und der AEmterentwicklung heraus. Witwen koennen jedoch nicht auf Versorgungsempfangerinnen christlicher Gemeinden reduziert werden, weshalb das Buch auch die Aufgaben der Witwen innerhalb der christlichen Gemeinden eingehend thematisiert. In diesem Zusammenhang wird die Entwicklung des kirchlichen Witwenstandes von seinen Anfangen bis hin zu seiner Etablierung aufgezeigt.

" ... denn wenn du mit deinem Mund bekennst: "Jesus ist der Herr" und in deinem Herzen glaubst: "Gott hat ihn von den Toten auferweckt", so wirst du gerettet werden." (Roem 10,9) So lautet eines der altesten Glaubensbekenntnisse des Neuen Testaments, das der Apostel Paulus in seinem Roemerbrief uberliefert hat. Es benennt den Kern des christlichen Bekenntnisses: Gott ist in Jesus Christus ein Mensch geworden, der gestorben und auferstanden ist. Aber wer war Jesus, wie sehen und verstehen ihn das Neue Testament, die Leben-Jesu-Forschung, die OEkumenischen Konzilien, moderne Theologen wie Karl Rahner und Hans Urs von Balthasar sowie populare Schriftsteller wie Gilbert Keith Chesterton und Clive Staples Lewis? Dieser Spur folgt das Buch. Es geht davon aus, dass die Person Jesus Christus eine Herausforderung fur Glaube und Verstand ist, und moechte die Argumente christlicher Denker fur die Plausibilitat des christlichen Bekenntnisses darstellen.

El fin del mundo y la vida despues de la muerte son cuestiones que inquietan el corazon de los hombres desde tiempos inmemoriales. Los cristianos contemporaneos de Pablo ya se preguntaban ?como resucitan los muertos? (1 Cor. 15,35), interrogandose no solo por el destino del hombre despues de la muerte sino por el sentido que tiene vivir una vida en este mundo como ciudadanos del cielo (cf. Ad Diognetum 5,9), en un mundo que esta condenado a la destruccion, segun la doctrina cristiana tradicional. La Biblia ofrece respuestas puntuales a tales interrogantes ... los problemas vienen cuando se descrubre que un mismo texto biblico puede ser entendido no solo en modo diverso sino hasta contradictorio. El presente volumen analiza la interpretacion de dos pasajes clave de la I ad Corinthios en textos pertenecientes a la literatura cristiana antigua, tratando de esclarecer tematicas que no encuentran aun respuestas satisfactorias.

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.

"Previously published in hardcover as King's Cross"
The most influential man to ever walk the earth has had his story told in hundreds of different ways for thousands of years. Can any more be said?
Now Timothy Keller, "New York Times "bestselling author of "The Reason for God "and the man "Newsweek "called a "C. S. Lewis for the twenty-first century," unlocks new insights into the life of Jesus Christ as he explores how Jesus came as a king, but a king who had to bear the greatest burden anyone ever has. "King's Cross "is Keller's revelatory look at the life of Christ as told in the Gospel of Mark. In it, Keller shows how the story of Jesus is at once cosmic, historical, and personal, calling each of us to look anew at our relationship with God. It is an unforgettable look at Jesus Christ, and one that will leave an indelible imprint on every reader.

Seit sich sozialgeschichtliche Bibelauslegung in den 1970er Jahren herausgebildet hat, liegt ihr Erkenntnisinteresse und ihre spezifische Leistung in der Verortung der Texte in der antiken Lebens- und Arbeitswelt mit ihrer Lebens- und Leiderfahrung, ihren AEngsten und Hoffnungen. In den Spuren von Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza und Luise Schottroff differenziert die Autorin diese Methode aus, bezieht sie auf eine Auswahl neutestamentlicher Gleichnistexte und stellt die Fruchtbarkeit des methodischen Ansatzes unter Beweis. Die Autorin sieht sich drei Diskursen verpflichtet: der befreiungstheologischen und feministischen Hermeneutik sowie einer Theologie nach Auschwitz, die im Dialog mit dem Judentum Gestalt annehmen soll. Die untersuchten Gleichnisse decken ein breites Spektrum antiker Arbeitsverhaltnisse ab. Eine Fulle von sozialgeschichtlich relevantem Quellenmaterial wird ausgewertet und verarbeitet, und es wird die religionspadagogische Bedeutung sozialgeschichtlicher Auslegung herausgearbeitet. Das Werk enthalt ein uber 100-seitiges Verzeichnis antiker wie zeitgenoessischer Quellen und Literatur, das den derzeit wohl breitesten Fundus zum Themenbereich darstellt.

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.

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.