This easy-to-read and easy-to-use Commentary provides vibrant and lucid introductions to each of the Four Gospels by four leading New Testament scholars and teachers including Donald Senior on Matthew; Paul J. Achtemeier on Mark; Robert J. Karris on Luke; George W. MacRae and Daniel J. Harrington on John. It gives access to the best of contemporary biblical scholarship and reflection for the ordinary reader of the Bible, and makes an excellent introductory textbook for any school or adult program of Bible study. It is designed to be read and enjoyed by the individual as well as by groups.
A new edition of an analysis of the influence of Jesus in the world today, written by the author of LIVING IN THE END TIMES and THE JOY OF BEING WRONG. It is suitable for use in group work and contains questions at the end of each chapter for individual study or group discussion.
Written by leading scholars from around th Anglical Communioin, the essays in this book critiue the current "quest for the historical Jesus", reaffirm traditional biblical teaching about Jesus, and deal with the state of the Gospel in a pluralistic world.
This volume challenges Gerd Theissen’s dominant thesis of "wandering radicals" as the earliest spreaders of the Jesus tradition. Several conclusions emerge: (1) the textual evidence for the "wandering radicals" hypothesis is not tenable and it must be replaced with one that more closely comports with the evidence; (2) the immediate context of the Jesus movement, and of Q in particular, is the socio-economic crisis in Galilee under the Romans; and (3) the formation of Q is the product of Galilean village scribes in the Jesus movement reacting to the negative developments in Galilee that affected their social standing.
Arnal moves decisively beyond earlier Q studies, which focused almost exclusively on literary history without dealing with the social realities of the first century.
Contents --Introduction --Harnack, Itinerancy, and the Didache --The Sayings Tradition and Itinerant Preachers --The Problem with Itinerant Preachers --The Socio-Economics of Roman Galilee
Continuing his earlier treatment in Volume 1, which covered the period from the Reformation through the eighteenth century, Baird takes on the formative era of the nineteenth century in a balanced and readable fashion.
Balla surveys and examines the challenges facing any attempt to write a New Testament theology and offers his own program for justifying such an undertaking. With a view toward uncovering a basic unity in the theology of the New Testament, Balla maps how the historian may indeed describe the theological content of the New Testament. He asserts that orthodoxy was not a later development but Christianity in its earliest form. He further avers that the canonÂ’s formation was not the result of a late decision; rather, it can be traced to moorings in the first century. Sure to be controversial, Challenges to New Testament Theology holds great promise as a textbook in New Testament courses and as a starting point in the scholarly discussion of the topic.
The pathway to understanding the New Testament leads through the vibrant landscape of the first-century Greco-Roman world. The New Testament is rooted in the concrete historical events of that world. In Jesus & the Rise of Early Christianity Paul Barnett not only places the New Testament within that world of caesars and Herods, proconsuls and Pharisees, Sadducees and revolutionaries, but argues that the mainspring and driving force of early Christian history is the historical Jesus. We cannot understand the rise of Christianity apart from this Jesus, the messiah of Israel and the spiritual and intellectual impact he had on his immediate followers and those who succeeded them. From his intimate acquaintance with the sources, the evidence and the problems of New Testament history, Barnett offers fresh insights. His telling of the story skillfully avoids the encumbrance of extraneous details and side journeys. From the brith of Jesus to the founding of the messianic community, from the rise of Paul's mission to the Gentiles to the writing of the Gospels, Barnett offers a comprehensive account of the movement that would change the face of world history. Jesus & the Rise of Early Christianity is a comprehensive survey of New Testament history that will meet the needs of students and teachers of the New Testament. In its engagment with contemporary scholarship and its emphasis on the propelling role of the historical and risen Jesus in the rise of Christianity, it provides a timely rejoinder to current revisionist exploration of Christian origins.
Josephus recounts events of the period extending from the later reign of Jehoshaphat of Judah through the immediate sequels to the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in Antiquitates Judaicae (AJ) 9,1-10,185. Begg's monograph - a followup to his earlier work, Josephus Account of the Early Divided Monarchy (AJ 8,212-420) (BETL 108, 1993) - provides a detailed investigation of this portion of AJ. In particular, it seeks to address a range of overaching questions: which sources - both biblical and extra-biblical - did Josephus draw on in constructing his account of the later monarchy? Which text-form(s) of the Biblical sources were used by him? What sort of rewriting techniques has he applied to the data of his sources and what is distinctive about the Josephan version of events which results from their application? Finally, what messages may Josephus' account be intended to convey to his two intended audiences, i.e. cultivated Gentiles and fellow Jews? appreciation of Josephus' work as an interpreter of the Bible (Peeters 2000)
