Baylor Early Christian History Collection (5 vols.)

John Kessler has integrated his responses to the ground problems and antagonisms regarding the Scriptures into his exegetical method. The author challenges readers to look after other streams that determine the faith tradition from which the Hebrew Bible ensues. The study relies on thorough knowledge of the Scriptures themselves, the history of their interpretation, the contemporary discussion on language concerning transcendental issues and the large variety of historical and literary methods applied. Therefore, master and postgraduate students, teachers and pastors of every Christian denomination, moreover readers of divergent disposition, in love of or curious about or even prejudiced against the Old Testament as part of the Christian Bible, will find their questions taken seriously to the end while being helped to assess the Book at its true values.

—Willem A. M. Beuken, Catholic University Leuven

John Kessler’s Old Testament Theology: Divine Call and Human Response helps students navigate the often confusing thought world of the Old Testament by identifying key theological streams and the kind of response each one seeks from the people of God.

—Marion Ann Taylor, professor of Old Testament, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto

Kessler’s sensitive and deep-level readings provide a helpful guide through the diverse traditions of the Old Testament in order to hear the relational responses being summoned from the text throughout. This is the work of a confident and bold scholar who is not threatened by the theological diversity running along the crevices and fractures of the Old Testament text.

—Bill T. Arnold, acting dean, School of Biblical Interpretation and Paul S. Amos Professor of Old Testament Interpretation, Asbury Theological Seminary

We are indebted to Beverly Gaventa for this fine collection. This is an unusually strong series of studies by respected Paul scholars that should be of interest to anyone preaching and teaching from Romans, especially Romans 5–8.

—A. Katherine Grieb, professor of New Testament, Virginia Theological Seminary

Romans 5–8 are explored, pressed, and at times—as they should be—simply celebrated. Every reader interested in Paul will benefit from this interplay of theology, exegesis, and subtle intertextuality, threaded through with church tradition. Perhaps most importantly, many of the apostle’s most powerful and challenging thoughts are on display here at the hands of some of his most significant and gifted current interpreters.

—Douglas A. Campbell, associate professor of New Testament, Duke Divinity School

This volume brings us into the company of seasoned Pauline scholars focused on the center of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. The conversation among these experts, all sympathetic (though not all in the same way) to the designation of Paul as an ‘apocalyptic figure,’ reveals richly informed engagement with the text and honest wrestling with the large questions of cosmology and anthropology raised by Romans 5–8. Altogether the essays in this volume stand as a profoundly stimulating, challenging, crucial, and timely contribution to the conversation about Paul’s interpretation of the gospel in what remains for the time being contested territory.

—Alexandra Brown, Jessie Ball duPont Professor of Religion, Washington and Lee University

Schröter does what very few New Testament scholars—whether English- or German-speaking—manage: to ground his historical analysis explicitly in a nuanced and sophisticated theoretical discussion of what it means to do history. Schröter’s book serves as a superb introduction to and analysis of German New Testament scholarship.

—Adele Reinhartz, professor, Department of Classics and Religious Studies, University of Ottawa

Jens Schröter’s collection of essays seeks to penetrate deeply below the surface of the New Testament and its history and historical figures, and to bring into a meaningful perspective the theology and history that gave rise to the faith of the earliest Christians. Many think a New Testament canon is a snapshot of what went on, but Schröter shows that the canon itself can only be understood in light of a long history of developments in different directions.

—Scot McKnight, professor of New Testament, Northern Seminary

A stimulating and provocative book. Martin Hengel has a confident mastery of an immense range of ancient literature and an ease of presentation. This collection of articles is coherent: all the pieces deal with the crucial first thirty years of the emerging Christian movement. Hengel explores as a genuine historian the shadowy period in question, and comes up with new and surprisingly clear insights.

—Tom Wright, professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, University of St. Andrews

Combining his incredible knowledge of the Jewish and Hellenistic world with the keen perception of a detective, Martin Hengel casts new light on the dark first three decades of Early Christianity as well as on the mysterious development of its Christology.

—Reinhard Feldmeier, professor of New Testament, Göttingen

The Reality of the Resurrection is a thought-provoking work that not only makes a significant contribution to theological debates about the resurrection but also offers fresh perspectives on the relation between biblical studies and theology. Rather than attempting to fit resurrection into modernity’s conceptual categories, Alkier insists on an intellectual revolution, a transformation of the mind brought about by the resurrection as a real event by the power of God. Readers of these pages will be brought into a deeper encounter with a proclamation that the Apostle Paul describes as a matter of “first importance”—not only for the early Christian communities but also for the shaping of our communities today.

—Richard Hays, from the Foreword, George Washington Ivey Professor of New Testament, Duke Divinity School

...excellent set of essays on the book of Revelation.

—Bible Today (July 2013)

…offers a stimulating and constructive engagement with the Apocalypse.

—Grant Macaskill, Journal for the Study of the New Testament (35:5, August 2013)

This work is provocative, innovative, erudite, yet replete with practical pedagogical implications, and well worth contemplating.

—Craig L. Blomberg, Distinguished Professor of New Testament, Denver Seminary

Stefan Alkier’s theologically insightful and spiritually uplifting reflections will supply the reader with many new horizons to explore concerning the significance of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and the Christian doctrine of immortality.

—Paul Copan, Pledger Family Chair of Philosophy and Ethics, Palm Beach Atlantic University