Details
The Dictionary of New Testament Background joins the Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, the Dictionary of Paul and His Letters and the Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Developments as the fourth in a landmark series of reference works on the Bible. 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.
Author Bios
Craig A. Evans
Dr. Craig A. Evans received his PhD in New Testament from Claremont Graduate University and his DHabil from the Karoli Gaspar Reformed University in Budapest. He is the John Bisagno Distinguished Professor of Christian Origins at Houston Baptist University in Texas.
Evans taught at Trinity Western University in British Columbia for 21 years, where he directed the graduate program in biblical studies and founded the Dead Sea Scrolls Institute. He has recently served on the advisory board for the Gospel of Judas for National Geographic Society and has appeared frequently as an expert commentator on network television programs.
Evans has written and edited extensively on the historical Jesus and the Jewish background of the New Testament era. His published works include From Prophecy to Testament, Jesus and the Ossuaries, Jesus: The Final Days, and Dictionary of New Testament Background.
Stanley E. Porter
Stanley E. Porter (1956–) is a respected expert in Greek and New Testament studies. He received a BA from Point Loma College, an MA from Claremont Graduate School, another MA from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and a PhD from the University of Sheffield.
Porter is best known for his works on verbal aspects in New Testament Greek. He is a respected expert in Greek and New Testament studies worldwide, and is actively involved in OpenText.org and the Linguistics Institute of Ancient and Biblical Greek. He is also a regular columnist for Christian Week.
Porter currently serves as president, dean, and professor of New Testament at McMaster Divinity College. He is the author or editor of numerous studies in the New Testament and Greek language, including Idioms of the Greek New Testament, Discourse Analysis and the New Testament: Approaches and Results, and Dictionary of New Testament Background.
Popular Highlights
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It seems better to take the documents at face value, respect the opinion and care of the church fathers in this regard and read the historical-critical evidence for pseudonymity with historical-critical discernment.
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they were a lay, not priestly, association who were thought to be expert in the laws; they were in a sociological sense brokers of power between the aristocracy and the masses; they promoted their special living tradition in addition to the biblical laws; they were interested in issues of ritual purity and tithing; and they believed in afterlife, judgment and a densely populated, organized spirit world.
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HASMONEANS
The Hasmoneans were a Jewish family that became instrumental in freeing Judea from Seleucid rule, beginning in 167 b.c. Several generations served as high priests, governors and kings, until Roman intervention in 63 b.c. curtailed their role and Herod the Great ousted the last Hasmonean king in 37 b.c. The origin of the family’s name is obscure but is most plausibly related to an otherwise unknown eponymous ancestor by the name of Has̆mȏnay (m. Mid. 1:6 and elsewhere in rabbinic literature; Asamōnaios in Josephus J.W. 1.1.3 §36; cf. Josephus Ant. 12.6.1 §265 and passim). Sometimes the term Hasmonean is restricted to John Hyrcanus I and his descendants, while here as in Josephus and in rabbinic literature it is used in reference to the preceding generations as well.
1. Background of the Family
2. Rebels and Rulers
3. Other Notable Hasmoneans
4. The Significance of the Hasmoneans
1. Background of the Family
The family had its home base in Modein, northwest of Jerusalem, where Simon is said to have built a grandiose family tomb (1 Macc 13:25–30; cf. 2:70; 9:19; Josephus J.W. 1.1.3 §36). It claimed to belong to the priestly course of Joarib (1 Macc 2:1; 14:29; cf. 1 Chron 24:7), but its Aaronite descent may not have been beyond doubt (Smith). Between 153/152 and 35 b.c., nine Hasmoneans served as high priests of the Jerusalem temple. While Judas Maccabeus and his father Mattathias before him held only informal leadership functions, the Hasmonean high priests usually also ...
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In short, the search for parallels to justify the view that the intended readers of some NT documents would have understood them to be pseudonymous, so that no deception took place, has proved a failure. The hard evidence demands that we conclude either that some NT documents are pseudonymous and that the real authors intended to deceive their readers, or that the real authors intended to speak the truth and that pseudonymity is not attested in the NT.
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These several strands of evidence converge to indicate that Jesus probably began his ministry sometime around a.d. 28/29, when he was about thirty-one or thirty-two years old.
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