Hebrews 12:1-13 portrays the suffering of its readers with two images: an athletic contest, and God's fatherly discipline. N. Clayton Croy places this important passage in the context of Jewish and Greco-Roman traditions. He argues that the idea of "training" unites the passage, which presents Jesus as the supreme athlete. It also supports a nonpunitive understanding of discipline, in which God's children undergo a positive process of education. These ideas combine to support a call in Hebrews to faithful endurance rather than repentance.

Hebrews 12:1-13 portrays the suffering of its readers with two images: an athletic contest, and God's fatherly discipline. N. Clayton Croy places this important passage in the context of Jewish and Greco-Roman traditions. He argues that the idea of "training" unites the passage, which presents Jesus as the supreme athlete. It also supports a nonpunitive understanding of discipline, in which God's children undergo a positive process of education. These ideas combine to support a call in Hebrews to faithful endurance rather than repentance.

This book theorizes that there was probably more to both the beginning and the ending of Mark's Gospel than we currently have in our Bible. It was once the consensus of scholars that Mark lacked its ending. Croy asks why scholarly opinions changed on this question during the late 20th century and whether earlier scholars may in fact have been correct. In short, this book has the potential to re-open a major debate in Markan studies. Beyond scholarly interest in the original extent of the Gospel text, there are implications for our understanding of Markan theology. If a conclusion has been...

This volume, the only full-scale commentary on 3 Maccabees in English, includes a fresh translation, an introduction, a section by section commentary, and bibliography. The author views 3 Maccabees as, in part, a narrative satire on the cult of Dionysus.