The contributors to this symposius are scholars of high distinction: Thorleif Boman, Paul S. Minear, Amos N. Wilder, Markus Barth, Frederick C. Grant, James M. Robinson, Floyd V. Filson, N. A. Dahl, Rudolf Bultmann, Eduard Schweizer, K. H. Rengstorf, Leonhard Coppelt, C. K. Barrett, Johannes Munck and Krister Stendahi. The book was planned in honour of Dr Otto Piper, who was driven by the Nazis from his chair at Munster and has been a Professor at Princeton Theological Seminary since 1937. His writings are listed. Explaining the wide range of subjects covered (from Ontology to Gnosticism), Dr James McCord writes that Dr Piper 'has lived in an age that has been forced to rediscover the living centre of the Christian faith, Jesus Christ, and that has begun to move out from this centre to engage the various issues confronting modern man.' Thus this book provides the student of theology, the preacher or the interested layman with an opportunity to survey the world of New Testament scholarship in action today.

Rather than asking the typical question about how Greco-Roman culture impinged on the Jesus tradition and altered it, this book turns the question around and demonstrates how the Jesus tradition altered both Jewish and Roman cultures. Graydon Snyder begins with an analysis of major New Testament material - how the Gospels used Jesus to undermine some cultural values, how Paul used the same tradition to suspend cultural expressions, and how John universalized Jesus by deculturizing him. Moving to the second century, Snyder shows in detail, with appropriate categorization, how scholars since F.C. Baur have perceived the transforming impact of Jewish and Roman culture on the nascent Jesus movement. He reverses the question and, with the aid particularly of non-literary data, shows how the Jesus tradition infiltrated Jewish and Roman cultures in selected cultural areas such as symbols, art, architecture, inscriptions, calendar, commensuality, gender, and health care. Includes photos and illustrations. Graydon F. Snyder is Emeritus Professor of New Testament at Chicago Theological Seminary.