Scholars continue tounearth valuable understandings of the historical and religious worlds out of which the New Testament writingsemerged. This beautifully-crafted introduction notes more than two dozencontextual crises and how the biblical text addresses and reflects them. From the ministry of Jesus, to the rise and progress of the Christian movement, to the epistles of Paul and other leaders, to a vision of God's final cosmic victory, the New Testament books are succinctly introduced in literary, historical, and theological perspectives. Designed for optimal use in a 14- or a 10-week undergraduate or graduate course, each chapter is designed with four primary features in mind: (a) contextual crises shedding light on the subject; (b) connections with the biblical writings being discussed in that chapter; (c) primary features of the book(s) being discussed; and (d) an application section dealing with the relevance of the biblical content then and now. Anderson also uses call-out boxes and shorter vignettes to heighten particular themes, while images, charts, and maps are used to make information accessible for students."

Paul Anderson, a leading scholar of the Fourth Gospel, provides an introductory textbook, crafted for a semester course, which leads students through literary, historical, and theological aspects of the Fourth Gospel's most vexing puzzles. Traditional, historical-critical, and literary-critical approaches are deftly introduced and their limitations evaluated; questions of the Gospel's authorship, composition, relationship to the Synoptics, and origins in particular historical experiences are succinctly addressed; and distinctive Johannine perspectives on Jesus, the church, and the world are discussed.

Over the last two centuries, many scholars have considered the Gospel of John off-limits for all quests for the historical Jesus. That stance, however, creates a new set of problems that need to be addressed thoughtfully. The essays in this book, reflecting the ongoing deliberations of an international group of Johannine and Jesus scholars, critically assess two primary assumptions of the prevalent view: the dehistoricization of John and the de-Johannification of Jesus. The approaches taken here are diverse, including cognitive-critical developments of Johannine memory, distinctive characteristics of the Johannine witness, new historicism, Johannine-Synoptic relations, and fresh analyses of Johannine traditional development. In addition to offering state-of-the-art reviews of Johannine studies and Jesus studies, this volume draws together an emerging consensus that sees the Gospel of John as an autonomous tradition with its own perspective, in dialogue with other traditions. Through this challenging of critical and traditional assumptions alike, new approaches to John's age-old riddles emerge, and the ground is cleared for new and creative ways forward. The contributors are Paul Anderson; D. A. Carson; Colleen M. Conway; Paula Fredriksen; Felix Just, S.J.; Robert Kysar; Andrew Lincoln; John Painter; Sidney Palmer; Mark Allan Powell; D. Moody Smith; Tom Thatcher; Marianne Meye Thompson; Gilbert Van Belle; and Jack Verheyden. Paperback edition is available from the Society of Biblical Literature (www.sbl-site.org)