Grant Osborne's commentary on Revelation begins with a thorough introduction and the many difficulties involved in its interpretation. He also examines elements that complicate the interpretation of apocalyptic literature.As with all volumes published in the BECNT series, Revelation seeks to reach a broad audience with scholarly research from a decidedly evangelical perspective.

    The more one deals with it, the more precious it becomes and the better it tastes. Martin Luther Read / Mark / Learn is a small group Bible study series that is designed to equip people to study God's Word for themselves and in studying it, know God's purpose for their lives. Each book studies whole books of the Bible and so enables people to understand scripture in context. In an era that claims that the Bible can say what you want it to say it is important to re-establish the truth that you just can t if you explain the scripture with honesty, fairness and in context.

    In a time when our knowledge of the ancient Mediterranean world has grown by leaps and bounds, this volume sets out for readers the wealth of Jewish and Greco-Roman background that should inform our reading and understanding of the New Testament and early Christianity. The Dictionary of New Testament Background takes full advantage of the flourishing study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and offers individual articles focused on the most important scrolls. In addition, the Dictionary encompasses the fullness of second-temple Jewish writings, whether pseudepigraphic, rabbinic, parables, proverbs, histories or inscriptions. Articles abound on aspects of Jewish life and thought, including family, purity, liturgy and messianism. The full scope of Greco-Roman culture is displayed in articles ranging across language and rhetoric, literacy and book culture, religion and cults, honor and shame, patronage and benefactors, travel and trade, intellectual movements and ideas, and ancient geographical perspectives. No other reference work presents so much in one place for students of the New Testament. Here an entire library of scholarship is made available in summary form. The Dictionary of New Testament Background can stand alone or work in concert with one or more of its companion volumes in the series. Written by acknowledged experts in their fields, this wealth of knowledge of the New Testament era is carefully aimed at the needs of contemporary students of the New Testament. And its full bibliographies and cross-references to other volumes in the series will make it the first book to reach for in any investigation of the New Testament in its ancient setting.

    Using this evidence, Bruce Winter not only opens a fascinating vista on day-to-day living in the Graeco-Roman world but, more importantly, helps us understand what happened to the Christian community after Paul left Corinth. As Winter shows, the origin of many of the problems Paul dealt with in 1 Corinthians can be traced to culturally determined responses to aspects of life in Corinth. The significance of the role that culture played in the life of the Corinthian Christians has either been ignored or underestimated in explaining the reasons for their difficulties after Paul left. Winter first examines the extent to which Paul communicated alternative ways of behaving while he was in Corinth. Winter then explores the social changes that occurred in Corinth after Paul left. Severe grain shortages, the relocation of the Isthmian Games, the introduction of a new federal imperial cult, the withdrawal of kosher meat from the official market-all of these cultural events had a substantial impact on the life of the emerging Christian community. Accentuated with photos of relevant archaeological artifacts, this volume provides a significant new perspective from which to read Paul's Corinthian correspondence.

    

    The author argues that the Sermon is designed as instruction for God's people and prepares catefumers for Baptist and life in Christ in the church.

    Beginning with the very first verse of genesis and continuing through the Bible's very last chapter, Yacov Rambsel has found a magnificant matrix of insights, which are cryptologically structured words, phrases, and even statements that reach beyond time and space as we know it.

    

    One such period was the first century C.E., when the rapid spread of Christianity with its claims about Jesus produced considerable ferment. The Gospel of John, written late in that century, presents that dispute with greater clarity than any other document of the time. John presents a Jesus who claims not only to tell the truth but also to "be" the truth. And yet, as the Roman magistrate asks Jesus in John's gospel, what is truth?Two millennia later in the Western world, pluralism and postmodernism radically challenge traditional notions of truth. Is there any truth beyond the formal logic of merely analytical propositions? And if there is, do humans have any way of knowing it? Many who have a postmodern perspective deny that either rationality or imagination can give us access to the truth. Instead they adopt a thoroughgoing incredulity toward metanarratives. Truth is again on trial.In "Truth on Trial: The Lawsuit Motif in John's Gospel, "Andrew T. Lincoln links reflection on contemporary issues with careful study of the Fourth Gospel. Exegetical chapters discern the shape of John's narrative and the function of the lawsuit motif within it, describe antecedent uses of the motif in Jewish Scripture, and set John's use of the motif in theological, historical, and social perspective. Closing chapters on contemporary application explore the pervasive power of the trial metaphor in Western literature in relation to recent hermeneutical thought. Over against modern and post modern views, Lincoln argues that Christians can simultaneously exercise criticaljudgement and accept John's testimony that Christ is the truth.

    With pastor R. Kent Hughes as the series editor, these volumes feature an experienced pastor or teacher who models expository preaching and practical application. This series is noted for its steadfast commitment to biblical authority, clear exposition of Scripture, and readability, making it widely accessible for both new and seasoned pastors, as well as men and women hungering to read the Bible in a fresh way.This volume explores 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus to help us better understand what God requires of those who lead in the local church, as well as of those who would be led.

    Captivating nonstop narrative characterizes this earliest account of the life and teachings of Jesus. In the first installment of his two-volume commentary on Mark, New Testament scholar Joel Marcus recaptures the power of Mark’s enigmatic narrative and capitalizes on its lively pace to lead readers through familiar and not-so-familiar episodes from the ministry of Jesus. As Marcus points out, the Gospel of Mark can be understood only against the backdrop of the apocalyptic atmosphere of the Jewish rebellions of 66-73 c.e., during which the Roman army destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem (70 c.e.). While the Jewish revolutionaries believed that the war was “the beginning of the end” and that a messianic redeemer would soon appear to lead his people to victory over their human enemies (the Romans) and cosmic foes (the demons), for Mark the redeemer had already come in the person of Jesus. Paradoxically, however, Jesus had won the decisive holy-war victory when he was rejected by his own people and executed on a Roman cross. The student of two of this generation’s most respected Bible scholars and Anchor Bible authors, Raymond E. Brown and J. Louis Martyn, Marcus helps readers understand the history, social customs, economic realities, religious movements, and spiritual and personal circumstances that made Jesus who he was. The result is a Bible commentary of the quality and originality readers have come to expect of the renowned Anchor Bible series. Challenging to scholars and enlightening to laypeople, Mark 1-8 is an invaluable tool for anyone reading the Gospel story.

    It is no accident, she maintains, that scholars in the U.S. and Europe have rediscovered the historical Jesus at a time when feminist scholarship, critical theory, interreligious dialogue, postcolonial criticism, and liberation theologies have pointed to the interconnections between knowledge and power at work in positivistic scientific circles. It is also no accident that such an explosion of Jesus books has taken place at a time when the media have discovered the "angry white male syndrome" that fuels neo-fascist movements in Europe and the U.S.The answer to this commodification of "Jesus" is not a rejection of critical scholarship and Jesus research but a call for their investigation in terms of ideology critique and ethics. By claiming to produce knowledge about the "real" Jesus, Schüssler Fiorenza points out, mainstream as well as feminist scholars refuse to stand accountable for their reconstructive cultural models and theological interests. Hence, she calls for an ethics of interpretation that can explore such a scholarly politics of meaning, rather than the ideological discourses on "Jesus and Women" that are fraught with both anti-Judaism and anti-feminism.

    Utilizing the conventions of Greco-Roman rhetoric, Dr Wachob successively probes the inner texture, the intertexture, the social and cultural texture, and the ideological implications of the rhetoric in James 2.1-13. He analyses James' activation of antecedent texts in the LXX, common conceptions and topics in the broader culture, and also sayings in the Jesus tradition. He concludes that James emanates from the same milieu as the pre-Matthean Sermon on the Mount and shows James 2.5 to be an artful performance of the principal beatitude in that early epitome of Jesus' teachings.

    Insights into the cultural and social world of the audience are combined with analysis of the author's rhetorical strategy and ideology to create a rich, three-dimensional reading that helps unravel key issues in the interpretation of the epistle. David deSilva's reflections on application concluding each section also make his commentary valuable to seminarians and pastors seeking to make Hebrews relevant to today's world.

    Paul's letter to the Romans with a number of aims in view. First, he wants to show which literary type or genre would have been seen by Paul's contemporaries as being exemplified in the letter. He also attempts to determine what we can surmise of Paul's attitude and approach to the Jewish bible. The study involves discussion of and comparison with other literature from Paul's time, place and milieu --- including other writings attributed to Paul.