Starting with "Let the dead bury the dead", (Mt.8.22), Professor Hengel subjects Jesus's discipleship sayings to a rigorous historical scrutiny, and considers other contemporary forms of discipleship -- Cynic, Rabbinic and Zealot. Hengel gives a remarkable series of historical insights into the character of Jesus's ministry and his work with his disciples.

-You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my community.-
-- Matthew 16:18, author's translation

Given that Peter fades from view halfway through the book of Acts and that he left no gospel account in his name, it is tempting for many biblical scholars to dismiss him as a vague figure in Christian history and downplay his influence in the early church.

Martin Hengel rejects this underestimation of the apostle and argues that Peter was in fact the Rock, central to the development of both the Jewish and the Gentile Christian communities. Hengel clearly shows how...

In recent years it has been increasingly suggested in some quarters that the doctrine of the atoning death of Christ did not come into being in the earliest stages of Christianity; the first interpretation of Jesus is said to have been the image of him as the eschatological prophet, or the innocent man suffering wrongly. Against such views which might seem to devalue the doctrine of the atonement, Professor Hengel argues forcefully and with great scholarship that the doctrine of the atonement can be traced back to the earliest church, indeed to the sayings of Jesus himself.
The second part...

This volume brings together two important historical studies by Professor Hengel, Acts and the History of Earliest Christianity, and Property and Riches in the Early Church. Together they give a vivid and clearly written picture of life and values in the first days of Christianity. 'Remarkably easy reading and well within the reach of those who are shy of works of scholarship' (Expository Times). Martin Hengel was Professor of New Testament and Early Judaism in the University of Tubingen.

This short but highly significant study is the first real sequel to Professor Martin Hengel's classic and monumental work Judaism and Hellenism. It demonstrates from a wealth of evidence, much of it made readily available here for the first time, that in the New Testament period Hellenization was so widespread in Palestine that the usual distinction between 'Hellenistic' Judaism and Palestinian' Judaism is not a valid one and that the word Hellenistic' and related terms are so vague as to be meaningless. The consequences of this for New Testament study are, of course, considerable. Martin...

How should Christians live in what is still an affluent society? What should be their attitude to money and to possessions ? How far has the welfare state relieved the church of its obligations ? Is anything short of a complete renunciation of possessions a compromise with Christian teaching ? While the experience of the early church cannot be applied directly to our modern situation, it is by no means irrelevant to these questions. In a brief and lucid study, Professor Hengel looks at the views of property and riches to be found in the teaching of Jesus, the early church and Christian...

It might well be claimed that there was more development in christology during the period from the crucifixion of Jesus to the writing of St Paul's letter to the Philippians than in the following seven centuries of the development of patristic dogma. This survey traces what happened, in connection with the title 'Son of God'. With his encyclopaedic knowledge of the period, Professor Hengel examines the concept of Son of God in the milieu of the-New Testament, in Judaism and the Hellenistic world and their antecedents and then shows how it began to be used in earliest Christianity, in so doing...

Here Professor Hengel argues with a wealth of documentation that the traditional views of the origin and content of the Gospel of Mark have far more to be said for them than has been usually allowed by modern New Testament scholars. He argues that the tradition contained in the Gospel is that handed down by Peter through Mark, and that the Gospel was written in Rome in AD 69. The famous note by Papias quoted in Eusebius' Church History is not to be dismissed, but has every appearance of being reliable. Further evidence in support of this view can be found in a detailed consideration of the...

This volume conveniently collects together three related short studies by Professor Hengel, The Son of God, Crucifixion and The Atonement. Together they form an important introduction to the crucial period of Christian belief between the crucifixion of Jesus and the writings of Paul.