Kategoria BISAC: Religion >> Biblical Criticism & Interpretation - New Testament

Jesus never wrote a book. The main sources about him, the Four Gospels, were written some forty years after his death, and contentious debates reign concerning their sometimes contradictory portrayals, which accounts are credible, and how far their authors may have altered or invented episodes to support a view or doctrine of the early Church.

Most scholars assume that information about Jesus was preserved only orally up until the writing of the Gospels, allowing ample time for the stories of Jesus to grow and diversify. Alan Millard here argues that written reports about Jesus...

Liew is one of the most articulate, creative and sophisticated biblical scholars in North America. What Is Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics? has not caused me to question that judgment. A set of provocative questions, arguments, issues, and problems, the book opens a window onto what it means for human beings to try to negotiate a rather complex contemporary world, with evidence of increasingly blurred but also thick ideological and social-cultural boundaries and overlapping but also recognizable and isolable identity formations. That Liew does this by using and bringing together the...

Another new release of the highly sought-after classic commentary series from one of the most respected and articulate expositors of the twentieth century.

"John Phillips writes with enthusiasm and clarity, ...cutting through the confusion and heretical dangers associated with Bible interpretation." -Moody Magazine

Did first century Mediterranean readers of the Fourth Gospel have comparable literary examples to inform their comprehension of Moses as a character? In addressing this question, Harstine's study falls into two parts. The first is an analysis of the character Moses as utilized in the text of the Fourth Gospel. The second is an examination of other Hellenistic narrative texts, in which the character of Homer is also considered, as another important legendary figure with whom the readers of the Fourth Gospel would have been familiar.

'Enemies of the Cross' employs classical rhetorical analysis to examine how Paul structures a deliberative argument using his understanding of the 'cross of Christ'. His goals are to guide/advise the Philippian community through internal and external strife (ch. 2), combat his opponents (ch.3), and develop his notion of the eschatological community (3:18-21). Williams proposes that while Paul has a 'theology of the death of Jesus', of which cross terminology is one of several aspects, this terminology is used almost exclusively in polemical/conflictual contexts. Hence Paul appears to be...

In this book the author explores how contexts determine the meaning of embedded scripture texts in the Gospel of Mark. Many historical critics base their readings on a context that is external to MarkAEs story world, be it a reconstructed socio-religious setting of the evangelist, a Jewish exegetical tradition or some earlier stage in the development of the gospel. What is common to these readings is the neglect for the context of the story world- the very context in which scripture quotations and allusions are embedded. The author proposes a method of reading these embedded texts that is...

The Bezan ('Western') text of Acts is traditionally dismissed as the work of an enthusiastic and fanciful scribe who embellished the original text represented by the Alexandran manuscripts. This study compares the language of Codex Bezae with that of Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, using the approach of discourse analysis to re-assess how variant readings have arisen. It emerges that the language patterns of the Alexandrian text are variable and the focus of its message historical. In contrast, the Bezan text displays an exceptional degree of lingusitic consistency and a coherence of...

Although many scholars consider Luke 17:22-37 to be "the most important eschatological passage in Luke-Acts," few agree on the precise meaning of the enigmatic proverb which forms its conclusion (Luke 17:37). Generally, Jesus' logion is taken to convey a macabre image of impending judgement. However, this study offers fresh literary, redactional, and historical evidence to suggest that Luke recast Jesus' saying in order to describe something much more glorious--the deliverance of the elect. Examination of the material elsewhere in Luke-Acts corroborates Luke's expectation of an ethereal...

The Gospel of Mark is often described as a paradoxical gospel, a riddle that teases its readers' response, and a narrative that possesses an enigmatic and puzzling character. Santos argues that this puzzling character is seen clearly in the paradox of authority and servanthood in the gospel. In tracing and analyzing this paradox throughout the Markan narrative, he first develops a literary method for the study of paradox, and having applied the results to authority and servanthood in Mark, he discusses key contributions of the paradox to the three Markan issues of the disciples' role in...

In this book the author attempts to move beyond merely identifying and substantiating OT allusions in Revelation to considering how the presence of OT allusions and echoes affects reading Rev. 21.1-22.5 and how the OT functions within the context of the entire work. The author concludes that a variety of semantic effects are evoked by the author's continuous intertextual appeal to the OT: new creation, new exodus, new Jerusalem, new covenant, bridge, new temple-priesthood, paradise restored and renewed, inclusion of the nations, prophetic legitimization. The numerous allusions function to...

This book examines the educated elite in 1 Corinthians through the development, and application, of an ancient education model. The research reads Paul's text within the social world of early Christianity and uses social-scientific criticism in reconstructing a model that is appropriate for first-century Corinth.

Pauline scholars have used models to reconstruct elite education but this study highlights their oversight in recognising the relevancy of the Greek Gymnasium for education. Topics are examined in 1 Corinthians to demonstrate where the model advances an understanding of...