Outline; Ministry training often emphasizes expanding on the work of existing ministries to the neglect of addressing the difficulties of planting new churches in North America and across the world. This volume provides a practical, thorough, biblical, and inspirational corrective. Incorporating relevant sociological, anthropological, and historical insights, Hesselgrave extrapolates ten phases…
Outline: The book of Proverbs is the mainspring of the biblical wisdom tradition. Katherine Dell explores the possible social contexts for its varied material and provides an overview of the characterization of its theology by scholars. She discusses how individual proverbs, instructions and poems came together to fom the collections we have today. Dell also shows that echoes of other Old Testa…
Outline: All too often, argues Ben Witherington, the theology of the New Testament has been divorced from its ethics, leaving as isolated abstractions what are fully integrated, dynamic elements within the New Testament itself. As Witherington stresses, "behavior affers and reinforces or undoes belief." Having completed commentaries on all of the New Testament books, a remarkable feat in itself…
Outline: Understanding the doctrines of grace provides a clearer picture of God's sovereignty, mercy, and majesty. From the lawgiver Moses to the Apostle John, and from the early church fathers to modern defenders of the faith, there are marched onto the stage of human history a long line of godly men, a triumphant parade of spiritual stalwarts who have upheld the doctrines of grace. In this bo…
Outline: Personal, experiential faith is seldom given a seat at the table of academic theology and biblical studies. David Crump, however, with the assistance of Soren Kierkegaard's religious philosophy, claims that "authentic understanding, and thus authentic Christian commitment, can only arise from the personal commitment that is faith." Examining the various biblical, historical, cultural, …
Outline : That there are four canonical versions of the one gospel story is often seen as a problem for Christian faith: where gospels multiply, so too do apparent tensions and contradictions that may seem to undermine their truth claims. In Gospel Writing Francis Watson argues that differences and tensions between canonical gospels represent opportunities for theological reflection, not proble…
Outline: What are the origin and meaning of the words "greed is idolatry" found in Ephesians 5: 5 and Colossians 3: 5? In what sense are the greedy guilty of idolatry? Many different answers have been given to this question throughout the history of interpretation. In fact, a consensus exists on only one score - that the expression serves to vilify greed. Brian Rosner ably takes on the challeng…
Outline: A History of Biblical Interpretation provides detailed and extensive studies of the interpretation of the Scriptures by Jewish and Christian writers throughout the ages. Written by internationally renowned scholars, this multivolume work comprehensively treats the many different methods of interpretation, the many important interpreters from various eras, and the many key issues that h…
Outline: This insightful book examines nine case studies in the history of exegesis in order to demonstrate the valuable insights into Scripture that we can gain not only from what individual commentators say but from fifteen centuries' cumulative witness to the meaning of Scripture in the life of the church.
Outline: For Jesua and His Contemporaries, what we now know as the Old Testament was simply the Scriptures - and it was the fundamental basis of how people understood their relationship with God. In this book John Goldingay uncovers five major ways in which the New Testament uses the Old Testament. His discussion paves the way for contemporary readers to understand and appreciate the Old Testam…
Outline: The premier Dead Sea Scrolls primer ever since its original publication in 1994, James VanderKam's Dead Sea Scrolls Today won the Biblical Archaeology Society's Publication Award in 1995 for the Best Popular Book on Biblical Archaeology. In this expanded and updated edition the book will continue to illuminate the greatest archaeological find in modern times.
Outline: Ernst Wurthwein's classic introduction to the textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible is here thoroughly updated in the light of new critical editions of the texts and recent contributions and findings in the various areas of the history of the text - especially the Masoretic text, the Septuagint, and the Peshitta, with attention given to the Dead Sea Scrolls. New in this edition are a c…
Outline : "Messiah" is one of the most contested terms in Christian reflection, with many people reading the concept back into early Old Testament texts. In The One Who Is to Come Joseph Fitzmyer contradicts that misreading, carefully tracing the emergence of messianism in Judaism to a much later date -- the second century B.C.
Outline: This original work of scholarship clarifies how, in light of Matthew's Gospel, the first Christians understood and claimed Israel's messianic mission to people of every ethnic group immediately after Jesus' death and resurrection. In Part 1 James LaGrand examines the Hebrew Bible and other ancient documents to uncover the meaning in Matthew's time of the terms 'Israel' and 'the nations…
Outline : This survey textbook is grounded in the view that the prophetic book of the Old Testament should be read as Christian Scripture. Although it covers critical issues such as authorship, background, and history, its primary focus is on the message and theology of the prophetic books and the contribution they make to the Christian canon. The prophetic books covered are Isaiah, Jeremiah, L…
Outline: Old Testament Use of Old Testament by Gary Edward Schnittjer surveys hundreds of Old Testament allusions within the Old Testament and provides hermeneutical guidance for interpreting these interrelated Scriptures. The handbook takes an easy-to-navigate, book-by-book approach. Schnittjer provides a list of scriptural allusions for each book and follows with an interpretive profile of ho…
Outline: Stanley E. Porter focuses upon the depiction of Paul in the book of Acts from literary-critical, rhetorical, and theological perspectives, among several others. The essays within this volume examine various topics related to the Paul of Acts such as the "we" passages of Acts as a source regarding Paul, and the theology and perspective of these passages in terms of their portrait of him…
Outline : Recent years have seen renewed interest in divine action, but much of the literature tends to focus on the science-theology discussion. Resulting from the multiyear work of the Scripture and Doctrine Seminar, part of the Kirby Laing Centre's Scripture Collective, this book explores the many different ways in which divine action is foregrounded and portrayed in one major biblical text,…
Outline: The books of Daniel and Revelation have been the subjects of critical debate for centuries. Their content and meaning have confused readers, and the dogmatism of some interpreters has accomplished little more than to cloud the important issues and to deter serious students. A. Berkley Mickelsen clearly defines the meaning of each book by showing how Daniel and Revelation point to a pre…
In the first place, this book deals with Freud and not with psychoanalysis. This means there are two things lacking: analytic experience itself and a consideration of the post-Freudian schools. as for the first point, it is taking a gamble, no doubt, to write about Freud without being an analyst or having been analyzed and to treat his work as a monument of our culture, as a text in which our c…
Outline: N. T. Wright is widely regarded as one of the most influential commentators and interpreters of Paul alive today, and Paul's letter to the Romans is often thought of as the gospel in condensed form and his greatest writing. Moreover, within Romans itself, chapter 8 is arguably one of the most spectacular pieces of writing found in the entire New Testament. Its thrust is clear, but its …
Outline: Where is God? There are never quick fixes or easy answers when we can't immediately see God's hand - when the struggle is hard and painful - he is working. Weaving together Scripture, personal stories, and the words of classic "How Firm a Foundation," David Powlison brings an experienced counselor's touch to exploring how God enters into our sufferings, helping us see God working in ou…
Outline: "A master class in how to read the Bible directly and accurately" Biblical Reasoning shows how Christology and the doctrine of the Trinity are grounded in Scripture and how knowledge of these topics is critical for exegesis.
Outline: The biblical story begins and ends with God as king. Human beings rebel, however, rather than fulfill their royal calling to rule creation on behalf of their Sovereign - and the world became enslaved to the rule of a serpentine lord. In this volume of IVP Academic's Essential Studies in Biblical Theology, Stephen Dempster traces the themes of kingship and kingdom throughout Scripture, …
Outline : HOW TO STUDYTHE OLD TESTAMENT FOR SIGNS OF CHRIST Since the majority of the Bible was written before Jesus's life and death on the cross, the Old Testament is often used for historical context and moral guidance alone. When studied in detail, however, we see how even the Old Testament reveals Christ as the center of God's plan for redemption. In this book, biblical scholar Vern S. Po…
This volume continues the study of intertextuality in the 'Wisdom Literature' initiated in Reading Job Intertextually (Dell and Kynes, T & T Clark, 2012). Like that book, Reading Ecclesiastes Intertextually provides the first comprehensive treatment of intertextuality in this wisdom text. Articles address intertextual resonances between Ecclesiastes and texts across the Hebrew canon, along with…
New Testament scholar Vern Poythress defends the inerrancy of the gospels and explains basic principles for harmonization. He also tackles some of the most complicated exegetical problems and offers solutions.
This book examines how the priestly editors of the book of Numbers created a narrative of the forty-year journey through the wilderness to achieve their agenda. The book also focuses on politics, collective memory and transmission of tradition.
A central figure in the reconception of early Christian history over the last three decades, Wayne A. Meeks offers here a selection of his most influential writings on the New Testament and early Christianity. His essays illustrate recent changes in our thinking about the early Christian movement and pose provocative questions regarding the history of this period.Meeks explores a fascinating ra…
This study draws upon the biblical books of Kings, First Isaiah and Chronicles, in conjunction with Assyrian records and ancient Near Eastern archaeology, in order to provide an updated historical reconstruction of the influential Judean monarch Hezekiah.
This groundbreaking work by Darrell Bock thoroughly explores the theology of Luke's gospel and the book of Acts. In his writing, Luke records the story of God working through Jesus to usher in a new era of promise and Spirit-enablement so that the people of God can be God's people even in the midst of a hostile world. It is a message the church still needs today. Bock both covers major Lukan th…
This is a detailed examination of Proverbs 1-9, an early Jewish poetic work and an example of Wisdom literature. The author shows that certain parts of it, profoundly influential on the development of both Judaism and Christianity, belong to a much broader and more intricate set of ideas than older scholarship allowed.
In Jesus and the Ossuaries, Craig A. Evans helps all readers, expert and layperson alike, understand the importance this recent find might have for the quest for the historical Jesus and any historical reconstruction of early Christianity. Evans does this by providing an overview of the most important archaeological discoveries, before examining nine other inscriptions (six on ossuaries, three …
For the first time in one volume, this book presents contributions to the textual criticism of the New Testament made over the past twenty years by Bart Ehrman, one of the premier textual scholars in North America. The collection includes fifteen previously published articles and six lectures (delivered at Duke University and Yale University) on a range of topics of central importance to the fi…
This is a detailed examination of Proverbs 1-9, an early Jewish poetic work and an example of Wisdom literature. The author shows that certain parts of it, profoundly influential on the development of both Judaism and Christianity, belong to a much broader and more intricate set of ideas than older scholarship allowed.
Christian exegesis of the Song of Songs has long interacted creatively with - and, more recently, reacted critically against - the allegorical interpretation developed by Origen of Alexandria (c.185-c.254) in his Commentary and two Homilies on the Song of Songs. Interest in Origen's exegesis of the Song's narrative elements has dominated past scholarship, which has almost entirely ignored how O…
Explores the historical reasons for the creation of the book of James and the implications for the creation of the Christian canon. Nienhuis makes a compelling case that James was written in the mid-second century and is, like 2 Peter, an attempt to provide a distinctive shape to the emerging New Testament.
In this completely revised and updated edition, François Bovon provides a critical assessment of the last fifty-five years of scholarship on Luke-Acts. The study divides thematically, with individual chapters covering the subjects of history and eschatology, the role of the Old Testament, Christology, the Holy Spirit, conversion, and the church. Each chapter begins with a consideration of the…
Describes how most forms of early Christianity, and the sacred writings they adhered to, came to be suppressed, proscribed, destroyed - in one way or another lost. This work also tells the story of how the canon of the New Testament became the official, orthodox and sacred text for Christianity.
The main lines of inquiry pursued in this book are nearly all foreshadowed in the lengthy, wide-ranging Chapter 2, ‘Jesus and Gospel’. Here I explore the origin and the varied meanings of the ‘gospel’ word group all the way from its use by Jesus to refer to his own proclamation to its use as the title of a ‘book’ containing an account of the words and deeds of Jesus.
Provides students with a comprehensive guide through the Greek text of the Gospel of Luke. Together Culy, Parsons, and Stigall explain the text's critical, lexical, grammatical, and linguistic aspects while revealing its carefully crafted narrative style.
Some years ago Professor Martin Hengel, now in Tübingen, suggested that I should gather my widely scattered papers on Jewish and Christian history. Other pressing obligations delayed the preparation of my Scripta Minora, and I owe a debt of gratitude to Professor Hengel and to Mr. F.C. Wieder Jr. and Mr. F.Th. Dijkema of Brill’s house for help, patience and understanding. Some papers have be…
If the philosophy of Levinas has one fundamental idea, it is the following: human existence should not be thought of as “self-orientated,” but as a “reception of the other.” Spinoza’s principle of the conatus essendi, the will to maintain oneself, as the basic form of existence is constantly undermined in Levinas’ texts by the reference to another layer in the subject which is just …
The publication of this monograph marks the culmination of an interest panning a quarter of a century. In 1967,1 was a mature-aged student in a first-year Hebrew class at the University of Melbourne, and my attention was arrested by the lecturer's comment when we first encountered the word loj. I acknowledge my gratitude to Revd Dudley Hallam who described it as 'a rich, old, covenant word'. H…
This book examines the theology and ethics of land use, especially the practices of modern industrialized agriculture, in light of critical biblical exegesis. Nine interrelated essays explore the biblical writers’ pervasive concern for the care of arable land against the background of the geography, social structures, and religious thought of ancient Israel. This approach consistently brings …
THIS BOOK IS about the young Kant. It is an investigation of the first two decades of his philosophical life, from the Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces (1746/7) to the Dreams of a Spirit-Seer (1766). I examine the rise and fall of the ‘‘precritical’’ theories and place them in their historical and topical context—exploring how Kant resolved problems his predecessors an…
This book is an attempt to bring interpretation under close scrutiny, not least as there is a widespread opinion that such an activity is something that comes naturally. What, however, does not come naturally, are the forms interpretation takes; thus their inspection will be the main objective of the argument of this book. An anatomy of interpretation is all the more pertinent as we currently w…