Exploring the New Testament World
Overview
Drawing especially on information not available directly from the New Testament, Exploring the New Testament World plunges you into the social religious, intellectual, and political dimensions of that time, making many confusing NT ideas clear.
Top Highlights
“January 6 was kept as the day of Jesus’ baptism, his spiritual birth, and the Eastern churches also began to refer to his physical birth as occurring on that day. When the Western churches began celebrating the nativity on December 25, the Eastern churches were horrified that they had succumbed to pressure from their pagan environment. To this day the Eastern Orthodox Church still observes Christmas on January 6.” (Page 142)
“It was once fashionable to talk of the distinction between the Jews of Palestine and those of the Diaspora, the Jews scattered across the Mediterranean world (cf. James 1:1 and 1 Peter 1:1). The picture was simple: Palestinian Jews were conservative, clinging to the Hebrew Torah, untouched by Hellenistic influences. Diaspora Jews were virtually indistinguishable from their pagan neighbors in appearance, ignorant of Hebrew, and willing to write new devotional literature in Greek (which eventually became the Old Testament Apocrypha, with books like Tobit and 1-2 Maccabees).” (Page 20)
“Since the Jews of the pre-Christian era had not settled on a canon of sacred books and since they did not adhere to a literal reading of their scriptures, they could dispute the meaning of any passage. The interpretation given by a majority of rabbis was supposed to be binding, but the minority opinions were also preserved. These authoritative pronouncements are called halakah.” (Page 30)
“Paul’s imprisonment could more accurately be described as house arrest, confinement to an ordinary house.” (Page 9)
“The resolution of the question, though slightly different, is culturally based. Jesus and his disciples ate the Passover not sitting in chairs around a table but reclining on couches.5 The Greek verbs used in all the Gospels mean ‘to recline,’ not ‘to sit.’6 The phrase ‘to lean (recline) on someone’s breast’ is an idiom in Greek meaning no more than ‘to sit next to someone’ in English. So we find that even a quick insight into the cultural setting of the narrative resolves what appeared to be a difficulty for interpretation. Arguments based on a misreading of the text can be recognized as deceptive.” (Pages 11–12)
- Title: Exploring the New Testament World
- Author: Albert A. Bell Jr.
- Publisher: Thomas Nelson
- Print Publication Date: 1998
- Logos Release Date: 2004
- Pages: 289
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subject: Bible. N.T. › History of contemporary events
- ISBNs: 9781418506780, 1418506788
- Resource ID: LLS:6.40.4
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-28T20:37:51Z
Reviews
5 ratings
Eric Laudenslager
9/4/2023
This is an excellent resource. The links to footnotes and other resources within the volume make the electronic addition more than worth it. However, the errors with importing B.C. and A.D. have not been fixed, and a careful eye is needed when reading all dates.
David A. deSilva
11/18/2015
I find the mediocre reviews here hard to understand (except for the annoying problem of dates mentioned by Caleb below -- let's get that fixed up if we haven't already!). I think this is a great point of entry into the NT world. It covers a great deal of ground in a short compass, is written accessibly and even winsomely, and has great bibliography (though dated now, admittedly). I recommend it still to my students, along with Everett Ferguson's more comprehensive book on backgrounds (the better choice for the more motivated readers/learners).Dennis Pulley
9/22/2014
Steven T. Lane
1/21/2014
Caleb Armstrong
1/10/2014
This book was recommended to me by a professor of mine so I bought it on my Logos account. Although I enjoyed the background information that I learned from this book, it did have one very major issue. When this book was put into electronic form it changed all of the A.D.'s to B.C.'s, but left the B.C.'s alone. This makes it very confusing and leaves the reader guessing whether the text is actually supposed to say A.D. and says B.C., or if it is correct in saying B.C. This makes a lot of the dates in the book useless, since you don't know whether it is A.D. or B.C. that the author is talking about.
