The aim of this series is to enable serious students of the New Testament-pastor's intermediate-level scholars, and disciplined, seeking lay people-to gain insights into and understanding of the basic meaning and intent of the New Testament writings by highlighting the context in which they were produced. While the commentaries build on detailed and precise scholarly knowledge concerning the new Testament and include fresh translations of the document under consideration, they do not presuppose knowledge of the original Greek New Testament or the Hebrew Scriptures on the part of the...

Using a variation of reader-response criticism, Melchert engages thewisdom texts in an effort to determine why the sages said and taught asthey did. He also explores what contemporary teachers and learnersmight pick up from the wisdom texts about teaching, learning, and beingwisely religious in a postmodern world. Melchert argues that the wisdomtexts presumably embody not only what these teachers wanted readers tolearn but also how it was to be learned.

These lively commentaries offer serious students of the New Testament fresh translations and in-depth insights to the New Testament writings. The series analyzes the historical and cultural contexts of the biblical texts and examines the role that the New Testament books played in the origins of Christianity and in subsequent Christian thought.

Virtually all modern commentaries on Philemon agree with the interpretation from late antiquity that the letter treats the case of Onesimus, a pilfering runaway slave, who Paul is attempting to rehabilitate in the eyes of Philemon, his rightfully angry master.

In this commentary, however, Allen Callahan tells another story. His reading of the rhetorical situation and reconstruction of the historical context provides a new narrative for the letter. He interpretation for which he argues is that of several nineteenth-century American abolitionist interpreters. Here, then, is not the...

The Book of Revelation is one of the most difficult of biblical books to understand, depicting the clash of cosmic powers, the interplay of bizarre images, and the specific problems of particular churches in the Roman province of Asia. Despite its opacity, Revelation has enjoyed great influence down through the ages, an influence felt in art, literature, and theology. The relative ease with which its images can be adapted to varied situations, however, has produced problematic interpretations that are far from what the author intended.

Many misinterpretations of Revelation result...

A lively and engaging reading of Galatians that argues Paul's rhetoric actually created harsh divisions between Christians and Jews.