This book surveys the current landscape of New Testament studies, offering readers a concise guide to contemporary discussions. Bringing together a diverse group of experts, it covers research on the most important issues in New Testament studies, including new discipline areas, making it an ideal supplemental textbook for a variety of courses on the New Testament. Michael Bird, David Capes, Greg Carey, Lynn Cohick, Dennis Edwards, Michael Gorman, and Abson Joseph are among the contributors.

This book demonstrates that the Gospels originated from a sequential hypertextual reworking of the contents of Paul's letters and, in the case of Matthew and John, of the Acts of the Apostles. Consequently, the new quest for the historical Jesus, which takes this discovery into serious consideration, results in a rather limited reconstruction of Jesus' life. However, since such a reconstruction includes, among others, Jesus' messiahship, behaving in a way which was later interpreted as pointing to him as the Son of God, instituting the Lord's Supper, being conscious of the religious significance of his imminent death, dying on the cross, and appearing as risen from the dead to Cephas and numerous other Jewish believers, it can be reconciled with the principles of the Christian faith.

Revelation is a book that many Christians find confusing due to the foreign nature of its apocalyptic imagery. It is a book that has prompted endless discussions about the 'end times' with theological divisions forming around epicenters such as the rapture and the millennium. In this book, award winning author Gordon Fee attempts to excavate the layers of symbolic imagery and provide an exposition of Revelation that is clear, easy to follow, convincing, and engaging. Fee shows us how John's message confronts the world with the Revelation of Jesus Christ so that Christians might see themselves as caught up in the drama of God's triumph over sin, evil, and death. Fee draws us into the world of John and invites us to see the world through John's eyes as the morbid realities of this world have the joyous realities of heaven cast over them. In this latest installment in the New Covenant Commentary Series we see one of North America's best evangelical exegetes at his very best.

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 very essence of the existential relationship between the human and the divine is communicated by the English word, 'worship'. Although the word appears to carry a univocal meaning in English, no such word per se exists in the Greek New Testament. The English word at best explains but does not adequately and completely define the dynamics involved in the relationship between humanity and God. Worship and the Risen Jesus in the Pauline Letters approaches the subject of Christian worship in respect to its origins from the perspective of the earliest New Testament writer: Paul. This book seeks to address the relative absence in scholarship of a full treatment of worship in the Pauline Letters. Closely related to the theme of Christian worship in the Pauline Letters is the person of the risen Jesus and the place he occupies in the faith community. This work proposes a proper working definition of, including criteria for, 'worship'. Paul employed an array of Greek words as descriptors to communicate the various nuances and dimensions related to one's relationship with God. 'Worship' also functioned for Paul as a boundary marker between believers and unbelievers vis-a-vis baptism and the Eucharist. The eschatological and teleological aspects of worship are also examined through a study of the Carmen Christi (Phil 2: 6-11). This study maintains that worship in Paul is not defined by any one word but is rather a composite and comprehensive personal religious relationship between the worshipper and God.

This highly readable investigation of the early church explores the revolutionary nature, dynamics, and effects of the earliest Christian communities. It introduces readers to the cultural setting of the house churches of biblical times, examines the apostle Paul's vision of life in the Christian church, and explores how the New Testament model of community applies to Christian practice today. Updated and revised throughout, this 40th-anniversary edition incorporates recent research, updates the bibliography, and adds a new fictional narrative that depicts the life and times of the early church.

The earliest and briefest of the four Gospels has traditionally been ascribed to a disciple named Mark In some ages it been overshadowed by its lengthier neighbors in the New Testament, but its pages hold rich rewards for those who ask the right questions. Who was "Mark," and what were his purposes--historical, theological, or otherwise? How does he shape his story of Jesus, and what interpretation of the origins of Christianity does that shaping reveal? More particularly, what is his understanding of his central character, Jesus of Nazareth? And finally, what abiding value does his story hold for those who read this "good news" as a key part of the charter of the Christian church in its life today?
Seminarians, other graduate students and advanced undergraduates, pastors, and other readers seeking an introduction to the Gospel of Mark through the lens of sensitive literary, historical, and theological scholarship need look no further. In Mark: Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist, Francis J. Moloney offers the fruits of top-level biblical scholarship in a broadly accessible format. Students and professors alike will appreciate and profit from his fresh and lucid presentation of the message of one of the Christian faith's earliest and most enigmatic proponents and the inventor of its most revered literary genre.

This engaging book guides readers through one of the most colorful books of the Bible, illuminating passages from Acts that show the Christian gospel expressing itself through the lives, speech, struggles, and adventures of Jesus's followers. The book emphasizes the disruptive character of the Christian gospel and shows how Acts repeatedly describes God as upsetting the status quo by changing people's lives, society's conventions, and our basic expectations of what's possible. Suited for individual and group study, this book by a New Testament scholar with a gift for popular communication asks serious questions and eschews pat answers, bringing Acts alive for contemporary reflection on the character of God, the challenges of faith, and the church.

This book investigates the use of the Greek term "proskuneo" with Jesus as the object in the New Testament writings. Ray M. Lozano unpicks this interesting term and examines its capacity to express various degrees of reverence directed toward a superior: from a respectful greeting of an elder, to homage paid to a king, to cultic worship paid to a god. Lozano then looks at the term in reference to Jesus in the New Testament writings, and carefully considers whether Jesus is portrayed as receiving such reverence in a relatively weak sense, as a merely human figure, or in a relatively strong sense, as a divine figure. Lozano highlights how scholars are divided over this issue and provides a fresh, thorough examination of the New Testament material (Mark, Matthew, Luke-Acts, John, Hebrews, and Revelation) and, in so doing shows, that each of these New Testament writings, in their own unique ways, presents Jesus as a divine figure-uniquely and closely linked to the God of Israel in making him an object of "proskuneo."

Jerome Murphy-O'Connor's reputation as a recognized expert on the Corinthian correspondence has been built on the original solutions he has offered to perennial problems. Brought together for the first time in one volume, each of the twelve articles anthologised here deals with a complex aspect of interpretation for 2 Corinthians. Whether addressing the interpretation of a particular passage, the question of co-authorship, or the relation of the epistle to other texts, Murphy-O'Connor presents his evidence in a characteristically clear and incisive style.
A newly written 'reception history' has been appended to each article to bring the collection up to date with the latest research on the epistle.
This is a companion volume to Keys to First Corinthians, also available from Oxford University Press.

In "Spiritual Landscape," James Resseguie culls recent study in narrative criticism to present the spiritual significance of the geographic environment, social relationships, and the local economy in Luke's Gospel. Students, preachers, spiritual directors, and readers interested in spirituality from a biblical perspective will gain insight from the role of stories such as the road to Emmaus, the tax collector's feast, and the demoniac's change of clothes.

The Max Lucado Life Lessons series continues to be one of the bestselling study guide series on the market today. This updated edition of the popular New Testament and Old Testament series will offer readers a complete selection of studies by Max Lucado. Intriguing questions, inspirational storytelling, and profound reflections will bring God's Word to life for both individuals and small-group members. Each session now includes a key passage of Scripture from both the NIV (formerly NCV) and the NKJV, and the guides have been updated to include content from Max's recent releases (2007-2016).

This insightful study explores the significance of the interactions between Jesus and 'marginal' women recounted in the "Gospel of Matthew". Employing social-scientific models and carefully using comparative data, "Love" examines the various aspects of this marginality, identifying the attempts of Matthew's Gospel to promote Jesus' vision of a new surrogate family of God that challenges the traditional structures of the household.

The Cross of Christ: Foundational Islamic Perspectives takes an in-depth look at all of the medieval Muslim scholars considered to have affirmed Jesus' crucifixion. Each chapter provides the important historical and intellectual context for the commentators. As well, critical new translations of key texts are provided, offering important access to vital documents and schools of thought. The author argues that, rather than affirming the historicity of the crucifixion, the Isma'ilis tend to assume its historicity, in order to advance important Isma'ili doctrines. The author also contends that the commentators who explored ways to affirm the crucifixion, nonetheless made extensive use of traditional substitution legends that deny the crucifixion. In order to orient the reader, the book starts by introducing the reader to the Jesus of the Qur'an. It then compares him to the Jesus of the New Testament and the Jesus of extra canonical literature. Upon this Qur'anic skeleton, the author layers a myriad of details found in seventeen works of classic Islamic literature, so that a truly unique, authentic and authoritative Jesus of Islam emerges.

How did the author of the Gospel of Luke intend it to be read? In The Spiral Gospel, Rob James shows that the assumptions many modern readers bring to the text - that it claims to be historically factual, or merely regurgitates existing stories - are not those of antiquity. Building on the central insight that it was written for a community who would have used it as their pre-eminent text, James argues convincingly for a continuous, cyclical reading of Luke's narrative. The evidence for this view, and also its consequences, can be seen in the gospel's intratextuality. Context is given at the end of the gospel that informs the beginning, and there are countless other intratextual elements throughout the text that are most readily noticeable on a second or subsequent reading. This deliberate, creative interweaving on the author's part opens up new levels of appreciation and faith for those who read in the way Luke's first audience received his work.

This book introduces the concept "ordinary African readers' hermeneutics" in a study of the reception of the Bible in postcolonial Africa. It looks beyond the scholarly and official church-based material to the way in which the Bible, and discourses on or from the Bible, are utilized within a wide range of diverse contexts. The author shows that "ordinary readers" can and did engage in meaningful and liberating hermeneutics. Using the Agikuyu's encounter with the Bible as an example, he demonstrates that what colonial discourses commonly circulated about Africans were not always the "truth", but mere "representations" that were hardly able to fix African identities, as they were often characterized by certain ambivalences, anxieties and contradictions. The hybridized Biblical texts, readings and interpretations generated through retrieval and incorporation of the defunct pre-colonial past created interstices that became sites for assimilation, questioning and resistance. The book explores how Africans employed "allusion" as a valid method of interpretation, showing how the critical principle of interpretation lies not in the Bible itself, but in the community of readers willing to cultivate dialogical imagination in order to articulate their vision. The author proposes an African hermeneutical theory, which involves the fusion of both the "scholarly" and the "ordinary" readers in the task of biblical interpretation within a specific socio-cultural context.

Drawing from his long teaching experience, Gerald Stevens has successfully produced a comprehensive and clear Biblical Greek grammar for beginners and students of the New Testament. The book presents a practical format for learning, with full indexes and a number of illustrations. Exercises are included within the text, and the answer key is followed by indexes that include vocabulary, principal parts, paradigms and subjects. An appendix of English grammar helps the student link the two languages.

As the earliest narrative source for the origins of Christianity, Acts is of unrivalled importance for understanding early Christianity and the mission that originally brought it from Judea and Galilee to gentiles, and even the heart of the Roman Empire. This volume is an abridged version of Keener's monumental, four-volume commentary on Acts, the longest and one of the most thorough engagements with Acts in its ancient setting. Sensitive to the work's narrative unity, Keener's commentary is especially known for its direct engagement with the wide range of ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman sources. The original commentary cited some 45,000 references from ancient extrabiblical sources to shed light on the Book of Acts. This accessible edition, aimed at students, scholars, and pastors, makes more widely available the decades of research that Keener has devoted to one of the key texts of Early Christianity.

'An Artistic Approach to New Testament Literature' is a textbook for secondary schools and would also serve well in a undergraduate course. Historical criticism informs the background commentary. Biblical texts are described according to the formal art elements of form, line, colour, and texture. Other artistic terms such as perspective and focal point are used to characterize biblical passages. Thought-provoking questions and art projects are provided for exploration in the foreground or in the world in front of the text. This book is a bridge between church and academy. If church leaders or teachers have questions for the author, they are invited to e-mail her at [email protected]. Sharon Chace s attention to artistic elements such as line, form, colour, and texture opens up a unique visual perspective on the New Testament. Teachers will appreciate the ideas for art projects that enable young people to engage this perspective through active learning. Jocelyn McWhirter Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Albion College An Artistic Approach is a key that unlocks a complicated volume for either the younger reader or one of any age beginning a faith quest who wants to understand what the Bible is and how it came to be. It also adds its own texture to scripture. Sharon Chace, as an artist, reminds me of a quilter assembling her work so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. James M. Perry Minnesota Annual Conference, The United Methodist Church An excellent overview of contemporary New Testament scholarship. I recommend it highly for adult study groups in mainstream churches. Lois N. Sundeen Retired minister, United Church of Christ Sharon R. Chace studied at Andover Newton Theological School and Harvard and Yale Divinity Schools, and is a Master of Theological Studies from Weston Jesuit School of Theology, Massachusetts. Her articles, poems, and children s stories have been widely published.

The Life of Jesus is the biographical account of Jesus' supernatural birth, extraordinary life, unjust death, confirmed resurrection, and promised return to earth. The text from all four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) is harmonized into a singular narrative and presented chronologically. Other features include: - Words of Jesus in red - Reader's edition single-column format without verse numbers - Contemporary, easy-to-read font - Subject headings that introduce sections of the Bible text and its source in the Gospels - Expanded text from the other Gospels for the richest presentation of duplicate accounts.

Allan McNicol examines the 'Conversion of the Nations' in the book of Revelation together with the author's vision for final redemption. Allan McNicol examines the longstanding tension between the author of Revelation 's description of the destruction of unrepentant nations early in the book in contrast with their final experience of salvation in Rev 21.24-26. McNicol examines how the author of Revelation interprets and refashions both scripture and the myths of the age in order to lay out his vision of redemption - leading to his ultimate conclusion that human political power (Rome) will crumble before the influence of the crucified Jesus. Through careful attention to references to the 'pilgrimage to the Gentiles' in prophetic literature, McNicol is able to draw valuable conclusions as to how the core tension examined may be resolved. This exegesis is in turn able show how the author of Revelation's alternative voice to Rome's power emerged among a small minority community in the Eastern Roman Empire and gained plausibility. This voice not only could articulate a construct of its own vindication (thus empowering its own converts) but it also construed a new destiny for the nations themselves separate and apart from Rome.

The book refers to universal eschatology contained in the Letters to the Thessalonians (1 Thess 4, 13-5, 11; 2 Thess 2, 1-12). The whole material is divided in two groups (eschatological motifs and apocalyptic motifs). Each of the motifs is analysed in the Biblical context and in the Intertestamental Literature context (the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and the Qumran Literature). The exegetical analysis and the comparative analysis show similarity and diversity of the way Paul used the motifs. They also show which motifs were created or extensively modified by Paul in order to contribute to the creation of Christian eschatology. After presentation of the importance of eschatological topics in the 1-2 Thess (chapter I), the analyses of prodroms (chapter II) and events connected with the parousia (chapter III) indicate the way of using each of the motifs in different traditions. Based on results of the analyses, the Jewish background and Paul's original contribution to the New Testament eschatology are presented in chapter IV.

This book provides an original and comprehensive assessment of the hypotheses concerning the origin of resurrection Christology. It fills a gap in the literature by addressing these issues using a transdisciplinary approach involving historical-critical study of the New Testament, theology, analytic philosophy, psychology and comparative religion. Using a novel analytic framework, this book demonstrates that a logically exhaustive list of hypotheses concerning the claims of Jesus' post-mortem appearances and the outcome of Jesus' body can be formulated. It addresses these hypotheses in detail, including sophisticated combinations of hallucination hypothesis with cognitive dissonance; memory distortion; and confirmation bias. Addressing writings from both within and outside of Christianity, it also demonstrates how a comparative religion approach might further illuminate the origins of Christianity. This is a thorough study of arguably the key event in the formation of the Christian faith. As such, it will be of keen interest to theologians, New Testament scholars, philosophers, and scholars of religious studies.