The series Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZNW) is one of the oldest and most highly regarded international scholarly book series in the field of New Testament studies. Since 1923 it has been a forum for seminal works focusing on Early Christianity and related fields. The series is grounded in a historical-critical approach and also explores new methodological approaches that advance our understanding of the New Testament and its world.

Regional concerns-climate change, conquest, migration, displacement, resettlement, asylum, discipleship, and others-challenge authors currently situated in Oceania to reflect on the practices of biblical interpretation and to consequently reread biblical texts with fluid understandings of borders and belonging(s).

The growing contemporary interest in spirit possession prompted scholars to explore the reality of spirit possession in Oceania today. The first section of this volumes draws on the experience of those involved in pastoral ministry with people who believe they are possessed, or those whose particular research interests are the relationship of faith, culture, and praxis. In the second section, the function and place of spirit language in the biblical texts is examined, while in the last section the focus is broader, addressing some of the historical responses to spirit possession, as well as emerging pneumatologies of good and bad spirits and their impact on the human condition.

Recent decades have seen significant shifts in biblical scholarship opening up a range of ways of engaging the biblical narrative - both methodologically (the tools and techniques for engaging the text) and hermeneutically (the perspectives that inform an interpreter's approach to the text and to the interpretative task). It is these shifts that give shape to this introduction and study guide, so that students encounter not only the text of Matthew itself but also its rich lode of recent interpretation. Among aspects of 1st-century life brought to the fore by current social-scientific methodology are kinship, the honor and shame culture, and masculinity. Gender is another interpretative lens that has characterized the study of the Gospel of Matthew in recent decades and the Guide provides pathways through this rich literature. The guide to Matthew concludes with the most recent turn of the hermeneutical lens, namely an ecological perspective on what is perhaps the best-known text in Matthew, the Beatitudes. This final chapter is an example of how we can enter an old and familiar text like the Gospel of Matthew from yet another new critical direction.