Humility in the modern world is neither well understood nor well received. Many see it as a sign of weakness; others decry it as a Western construct whose imposition onto marginalized persons only perpetuates oppression. This skepticism has a long pedigree: Aristotle, for instance, pointed to humility as a shameless front. What then are we to make of the New Testament's valorization of this trait? Translated from German into English for the first time, Paul on Humility seeks to reclaim the original sense of humility as an ethical frame of mind that shapes community, securing its centrality in the Christian faith. This exploration of humility begins with a consideration of how the concept plays into current cultural crises before considering its linguistic and philosophical history in Western culture. In turning to the roots of Christian humility, Eve-Marie Becker focuses on Philippians 2, a passage in which Paul appeals to the lowliness of Christ to encourage his fellow Christians to persevere. Becker shows that humility both formed the basis of the ethic Paul instilled in churches and acted as a mimetic device centered on Jesus' example that was molded into the earliest Christian identity and community. Becker resists the urge to cheapen humility with mere moralism. In the vision of Paul, the humble individual is one immersed in a complex, transformative way of being. The path of humility does not constrain the self; rather, it guides the self to true freedom in fellowship with others. Humility is thus a potent concept that speaks to our contemporary anxieties and discomforts. Not for sale in Europe.

In our fraught global environment, when political and ideological lines are drawn ever sharper and old allegiances are increasingly strained, love for neighbor as both individual and societal obligation needs to be thematized and justified anew. At the same time, the New Testament call to love one's enemies forms a sharp point of contrast to the current non-culture of hatred for all things different and foreign. Oda Wischmeyer's Love as Agape: The Early Christian Concept and Modern Discourse, the ninth volume in the Baylor-Mohr Siebeck Studies in Early Christianity series, aims to bring the New Testament concept of love into conversation with the current discussion about love. Wischmeyer investigates the commandment tradition of love for God and for neighbor, the ways in which the Septuagint and Plutarch speak of love, and the innovative concepts of love developed by Paul and John. She also presents an exegetically informed construction of the New Testament concept of love that is sharpened through a penetrating comparison with counter-, parallel, and alternative concepts from the ancient world. The book brings this holistic biblical vision forward into critical and constructive dialogue with key contemporary visions of love, including those of Julia Kristeva, Martha Nussbaum, Pope Benedict XVI, and Simon May. The tension that emerges stresses the need for fresh conceptualizations of ancient Jewish-Christian understandings, giving rise to the concluding question of the profile, limits, and impulses of the agape concept for present challenges. Through this academically rigorous and pastorally sensitive exploration, Wischmeyer points to the great love story between God and humanity, which realizes itself in the figure of Jesus Christ. This divine romance places love as the most intense, affirming, and life-creating relationship in God's own self, a relationship into which human beings are drawn and by which they obtain special dignity when God's love becomes their life.

Israel, Church, and the Gentiles in the Gospel of Matthew addresses one of the central theological problems of Matthew's Gospel: what are the relationships between Israel and the Church and between the mission to Israel and the mission to the Gentiles? To answer these questions, Matthias Konradt traces the surprising transition from the Israel-centered words and deeds of Jesus (and his disciples) before Easter to the universal mission of Jesus' earliest followers after his resurrection. Through careful historical and narrative analysis, Konradt rejects the interpretation of the Gospel of Matthew that the Church replaced Israel in God's purposes--that is, the interpretation that because Israel rejected Jesus as Israel's Messiah, the Church replaced Israel in the role of God's chosen people. Konradt instead discovers in Matthew that the Israel- and universally-centered dimensions of God's saving purposes are far more positively connected. Matthew develops a narrative that features Jesus' identity as both the messianic Son of David and the universal Son of God. What developed into a mainly Gentile Church should never think of itself as the "new" or "true" Israel; rather, according to Matthew's Gospel, the Church represents an extension of the promises first made to Israel and now inclusive of the Gentiles.

The tenth and final volume in the Baylor-Mohr Siebeck Studies in Early Christianity series, brings together seven of Matthias Konradt's most important essays on the Gospel of Matthew. Together they highlight key themes of this major early Christian text and demonstrate its formative role in shaping both the identity and theology of the growing Christian movement. Matthias Konradt presents the main points of controversy in recent scholarship on the relationship of the Matthean community to Judaism, identifies the interpretive problems that underlie the disagreements, and deals with central aspects of Matthean Christology. The author works out his sophisticated understanding of Matthew's Torah hermeneutic, giving special attention to the interpretation of the antitheses in the Sermon on the Mount and to Matthew's reception and interpretation of the decalogue. Published in North America by Baylor University Press, Waco.

Tension between unity and diversity plagues any attempt to recount the development of earliest Christianity. Explanations run the gamutafrom asserting the presence of a fully formed and accepted unity at the beginning of Christianity to the hypothesis that understands orthodox unity as a later imposition upon Christianity by Rome. In Christian Theology and Its Institutions in the Early Roman Empire , Christoph Markschies seeks to unravel the complex problem of unity and diversity by carefully examining the institutional settings for the development of Christian theology. Specifically, Markschies contends that theological diversity is closely bound up with institutional diversity. Markschies clears the ground by tracing how previous studies fail to appreciate the critical role that diverse Christian institutions played in creating and establishing the very theological ideas that later came to define them. He next examines three distinct forms of institutional lifeathe Christian institutions of (higher) learning, prophecy, and worshipaand their respective contributions to Christianity's development. Markschies then focuses his attention on the development of the New Testament canon, demonstrating how different institutions developed their own respective "canons," while challenging views that assign a decisive role to Athanasius, Marcion, or the Gnostics. Markschies concludes by arguing that the complementary model of the "identity" and "plurality" of early Christianity is better equipped to address the question of unity and diversity than Walter Bauer's cultural Protestant model of "orthodoxy and heresy" or the Jesuit model of the "inculturation" of Christianity.

In this fifth volume of the Baylor-Mohr Siebeck Studies in Early Christianity series, Michael Wolter provides a detailed, verse-by-verse interpretation of the Third Evangelist's Gospel (Luke 9:51-24). Wolter's commentary fully complements the great tradition of "Handbooks of the New Testament" published by Mohr Siebeck. Replacing the third edition of Erich Klostermann's commentary on Luke, Wolter's volume rightly joins those by Conzelmann (Acts), Kasemann (Romans), and Lietzmann (1 Corinthians) in this venerable series.Wolter's approach to a sustained reading of Luke's Gospel is comprehensive. He carefully places Luke's narrative of Jesus in its cultural context, paying close attention to the relationship of the Gospel with its Jewish and Greco-Roman environment. Wolter performs form-critical and narrative analysis of the specific stories; however, Wolter also emphasizes Luke as a theologian and his Gospel as a work of theology. Centrally, Wolter recognizes how Luke's narrative of Jesus forms the first part of a unified work-the Acts of Apostles being the second-that represents a new moment in Israel's history. But in surprising new ways, Wolter makes clear that it is God alone who works in and through the words and deeds of Jesus to bring salvation to Israel. His commentary shows that Luke succeeds in preserving the history of Jesus and its theological impact and that this history stands on equal footing with the history of early Christianity. Wolter's thorough, careful reading follows Luke as the Evangelist seeks to explain how the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises of God for Israel results in a parting of the ways between the Christian church on the one side and Judaism on the other. Scholars and students alike will benefit from access to new German scholarship now available to English-language audiences.

As the inaugural volume in the Baylor-Mohr Siebeck Studies in Early Christianity series, Jens Schroeter's celebrated From Jesus to the New Testament is now available for the first time in English. Schroeter provides a rich narrative to Christian history by looking back upon the theological forces that created the New Testament canon. Through his textual, historical, and hermeneutical examination of early Christianity, Schroeter reveals how various writings that form the New Testament's building blocks are all held together. Jesus not only bound the New Testament, but launched a theological project that resulted in the canon. Schroeter's study will undoubtedly spark new discussion about the formation of the canon.

In this fourth volume of the Baylor-Mohr Siebeck Studies in Early Christianity, Michael Wolter provides a detailed, verse-by-verse interpretation of the Third Evangelist. Wolter's commentary fully complements the great tradition of "Handbooks of the New Testament" published by Mohr Siebeck. Replacing the third edition of Erich Klostermann's commentary on Luke, Wolter's volume rightly joins those by Conzelmann (Acts), K?nsemann (Romans), and Lietzmann (1 Corinthians) in this venerable series. Wolter's approach to a sustained reading of Luke's Gospel is comprehensive. He carefully places Luke's narrative of Jesus in its cultural context, paying close attention to the relationship of the Gospel with its Jewish and Greco-Roman environment. Wolter performs form-critical and narrative analysis of the specific stories; however, Wolter also emphasizes Luke as a theologian and his Gospel as a work of theology. Wolter recognizes how Luke's narrative of Jesus forms the first part of a unified work - the Acts of Apostles being the second - that represents a new moment in Israel's history. But in surprising new ways, Wolter makes clear that it is God alone who works in and through the words and deeds of Jesus to bring salvation to Israel. His commentary shows that Luke succeeds in preserving the history of Jesus and its theological impact and that this history stands on equal footing with the history of early Christianity. Wolter's thorough, careful reading follows Luke as the Evangelist seeks to explain how the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises of God for Israel results in a parting of the ways between the Christian church on the one side and Judaism on the other. Scholars and students alike will benefit from access to new German scholarship now available to English-language audiences. Not for sale in Europe.

In this fifth volume of the Baylor-Mohr Siebeck Studies in Early Christianity series, Michael Wolter provides a detailed, verse-by-verse interpretation of the Third Evangelist's Gospel (Luke 9:51-24). Wolter's commentary fully complements the great tradition of "Handbooks of the New Testament" published by Mohr Siebeck. Replacing the third edition of Erich Klostermann's commentary on Luke, Wolter's volume rightly joins those by Conzelmann (Acts), K?nsemann (Romans), and Lietzmann (1 Corinthians) in this venerable series. Wolter's approach to a sustained reading of Luke's Gospel is comprehensive. He carefully places Luke's narrative of Jesus in its cultural context, paying close attention to the relationship of the Gospel with its Jewish and Greco-Roman environment. Wolter performs form-critical and narrative analysis of the specific stories; however, Wolter also emphasizes Luke as a theologian and his Gospel as a work of theology. Centrally, Wolter recognizes how Luke's narrative of Jesus forms the first part of a unified work - the Acts of Apostles being the second - that represents a new moment in Israel's history. But in surprising new ways, Wolter makes clear that it is God alone who works in and through the words and deeds of Jesus to bring salvation to Israel. His commentary shows that Luke succeeds in preserving the history of Jesus and its theological impact and that this history stands on equal footing with the history of early Christianity. Wolter's thorough, careful reading follows Luke as the Evangelist seeks to explain how the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises of God for Israel results in a parting of the ways between the Christian church on the one side and Judaism on the other. Scholars and students alike will benefit from access to new German scholarship now available to English-language audiences. Not for sale in Europe.

As the inaugural volume in the Baylor-Mohr Siebeck Studies in Early Christianity series, Jens Schroter's celebrated From Jesus to the New Testament is now available for the first time in English. Schroter provides a rich narrative to Christian history by looking back upon the theological forces that created the New Testament canon. Through his textual, historical, and hermeneutical examination of early Christianity, Schroter reveals how various writings that form the New Testament's building blocks are all held together. Jesus not only bound the New Testament, but launched a theological project that resulted in the canon. Schroter's study will undoubtedly spark new discussion about the formation of the canon."