New Books In Biblical Studies

For the author of the fourth Gospel, there is neither a Christless church nor a churchless Christ. In his book Ecclesiology and Theosis in the Gospel of John (Cambridge University Press, 2017), Andrew J. Byers argues that ecclesiology is as central a Johannine concern as Christology. Rather than focusing on the community behind the text, John's Gospel directs attention to the vision of community prescribed within the text, which is presented as a 'narrative ecclesiology' by which the concept of 'church' gradually unfolds throughout the Gospel's sequence. The theme of oneness functions within this script and draws on the theological language of the Shema, a centerpiece of early Jewish theology and social identity. To be 'one' with this 'one God' and his 'one Shepherd' involves the believers' corporate participation within the divine family. Such participation requires an ontological transformation that warrants an ecclesial identity expressed by the bold assertion found in Jesus' citation of Psalm 82: 'you are

If you’re a grad student facing the ugly reality of finding a tenure-track job, you could easily be forgiven for thinking about a career change. However, if you’ve spent the last several years working on a PhD, or if you’re a faculty member whose career has basically consisted of higher ed, switching isn’t so easy. PhD holders are mostly trained to work as professors, and making easy connections to other careers is no mean feat. Because the people you know were generally trained to do the same sorts of things, an easy source of advice might not be there for you. Thankfully, for anybody who wishes there was a guidebook that would just break all of this down, that book has now been written. Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers (Stylus Publishing, 2020) by Kathryn E. Linder, Kevin Kelly, and Thomas J. Tobin offers practical advice and step-by-step instructions on how to decide if you want to leave behind academia and how to start searching for a new career. If a lot of career advice is too vague

Faith language permeates the letters of Paul. Yet, its exact meaning is not always clear. Many today, reflecting centuries of interpretation, consider belief in Jesus to be a passive act. In his new book Paul and the Language of Faith (Eerdmans, 2020), Nijay Gupta challenges common assumptions in the interpretation of Paul and calls for a reexamination of Paul’s faith language. Gupta argues that Paul’s faith language resonates with a Jewish understanding of covenant involving goodwill, trust, and expectation. Paul’s understanding of faith involves the transformation of one’s perception of God and the world through Christ, relational dependence on Christ, as well as active loyalty to Christ. Dr. Nijay Gupta is Associate Professor of New Testament at Portland Seminary at George Fox University. He has written 1 and 2 Thessalonians in the Zondervan Critical Introductions to the New Testament Series and is co-editor of The State of New Testament Studies with Scot McKnight. Dr. Gupta lives in Portland, OR. Jonathan

In Second Slayings: The Binding of Isaac and the Formation of Jewish Cultural Memory (Gorgias Press, 2019), David N. Gottlieb explores the decisive - and, until now, under-appreciated - influence exerted on Jewish memory by the Akedah, the Binding of Isaac narrative in the Book of Genesis. Through the lenses of hermeneutics, literary and social theory, and history, Gottlieb reveals the ways in the Akedah narrative models the act of interpretation as a means of recovery from and commemoration of crisis - a strategy that has penetrated every aspect and era of Jewish life. Marshall Poe is the editor of the New Books Network. He can be reached at marshallpoe@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How should we understand the appearances of the king in Book V of the Hebrew Psalter? Ever since Gerald H. Wilson’s landmark work, The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter (1985), some have interpreted the failure of the Davidic covenant in Psalm 89 as signaling its replacement by a hope in the direct intervention of the LORD—that is, without any further role for a Davidic king. Others, however, insist that Book V marks the return of the king, pointing to a renewed hope in the Davidic covenant. Join us as we speak Ian J. Vaillancourt about his recent monograph, The Multifaceted Saviour of Psalms 110 and 118: A Canonical Exegesis (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2019), in which he seeks to demonstrate that Book V focuses Israel’s expectation on an eschatological figure of salvation who encompasses many hoped-for figures across the Old Testament in one person. Dr. Ian J. Vaillancourt serves as Associate Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Heritage Theological Seminary. He earned a B.Th. from Tyndale College, an M.T.S. f

We’ve all heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, but what if we don’t understand what we’re looking at? Social media has made charts, infographics, and diagrams ubiquitous―and easier to share than ever. We associate charts with science and reason; the flashy visuals are both appealing and persuasive. Pie charts, maps, bar and line graphs, and scatter plots (to name a few) can better inform us, revealing patterns and trends hidden behind the numbers we encounter in our lives. In short, good charts make us smarter―if we know how to read them. However, they can also lead us astray. Charts lie in a variety of ways―displaying incomplete or inaccurate data, suggesting misleading patterns, and concealing uncertainty―or are frequently misunderstood, such as the confusing cone of uncertainty maps shown on TV every hurricane season. To make matters worse, many of us are ill-equipped to interpret the visuals that politicians, journalists, advertisers, and even our employers present each day, enabling bad actors

In his new book, Participating in Christ: Explorations in Paul's Theology and Spirituality (Baker Academic, 2019), renowned scholar Michael Gorman examines the important Pauline theme of participation in Christ, a topic of great interest in New Testament circles and one that is central to Paul's theology and spirituality. Building on his previous work on the topic, Gorman carefully examines participation in Christ in Paul's letters. His book explores this theme across the letters and includes in-depth studies of key texts such as Galatians 2, 2 Corinthians 5, and Philippians 2. Gorman also explores the contemporary significance of participating in Christ for Christian life and ministry, arguing that it has wide implications for the life of the believer. Throughout the book, Gorman insightfully unpacks the many theological, spiritual, and pastoral dimensions of participation in Christ and shows its close connection to such related themes as cruciformity, resurrection, justification, theosis, mission, and apoca

As you may know, university presses publish a lot of good books. In fact, they publish thousands of them every year. They are different from most trade books in that most of them are what you might called "fundamental research." Their authors--dedicated researchers one and all--provide the scholarly stuff upon which many non-fiction trade books are based. So when you are reading, say, a popular history, you are often reading UP books at one remove. Of course, some UP books are also bestsellers, and they are all well written (and, I should say, thoroughly vetted thanks to the peer review system), but the greatest contribution of UPs is to provide a base of fundamental research to the public. And they do a great job of it. How do they do it? Today I talked to Kathryn Conrad, the president of the Association of University Presses, about the work of UPs, the challenges they face, and some terrific new directions they are going. We also talked about why, if you have a scholarly book in progress, you should talk to

The things that make people academics -- as deep fascination with some arcane subject, often bordering on obsession, and a comfort with the solitude that developing expertise requires -- do not necessarily make us good teachers. Jessamyn Neuhaus’s Geeky Pedagogy: A Guide for Intellectuals, Introverts, and Nerds Who Want to Be Effective Teachers (West Virginia University Press, 2019) helps us to identify and embrace that geekiness in us and then offers practical, step-by-step guidelines for how to turn it to effective pedagogy. It’s a sharp, slim, and entertaining volume that can make better teachers of us all. Stephen Pimpare is Senior Lecturer in the Politics & Society Program and Faculty Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. He is the author of The New Victorians (New Press, 2004), A Peoples History of Poverty in America (New Press, 2008), winner of the Michael Harrington Award, and Ghettos, Tramps and Welfare Queens: Down and Out on the Silver Screen (Oxford, 2017

In the late Enlightenment, a new imperative began to inform theories of interpretation: all literary texts should be read in the same way that we read the Bible. However, this assumption concealed a problem—there was no coherent "we" who read the Bible in the same way. In Secularism and Hermeneutics (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), Yael Almog shows that several prominent thinkers of the era constituted readers as an imaginary "we" around which they could form their theories and practices of interpretation. She argues that this conception of interpreters as a universal community established biblical readers as a coherent collective. In the first part of the book, Almog focuses on the 1760s through the 1780s and examines these writers' works on biblical Hebrew and their reliance on the conception of the Old Testament as a cultural, rather than religious, asset. She reveals how the detachment of textual hermeneutics from confessional affiliation was stimulated by debates on the integration of Jews in En

Balaam plays a prominent role in the book of Numbers, but who was he? Where did he come from? What was his religion? What was his occupation? The mystery of Balaam has interested exegetes and scribes for millennia. Join us as we talk to Jonathan Miles Robker about his book Balaam in Text and Tradition (Mohr Siebeck, 2019), which explores the figure of Balaam in the Hebrew Bible, Qumran, the New Testament, and beyond. Robker studied History and Philosophy, with a concentration in Religious Studies at LSU, received a Master of Theological Studies from Duke Divinity School, and earned his PhD from the Faculty of Protestant Theology at the FAU Erlangen, Germany, and his post-doctoral Habilitation at the Faculty of Protestant Theology of the WWU Münster, Germany. Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), and Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?:

Genesis is a book of origins: of the world, of sin, of God's promise of redemption, and of the people of Israel. It traces God's pledge of a Savior through Abraham's line down to his great-grandson Judah. It serves as a foundation for the New Testament and its teaching that Jesus is the fulfillment of God's promise to save humankind from sin and death. In Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary (IVP Academic, 2019), Andrew Steinmann offers a thorough exegetical commentary on Genesis, including a reconstructed timeline of events from Abraham's life through to the death of Joseph. The Tyndale Commentaries are designed to help the reader of the Bible understand what the text says and what it means. The Introduction to each book gives a concise but thorough treatment of its authorship, date, original setting, and purpose. Following a structural Analysis, the Commentary takes the book section by section, drawing out its main themes, and also comments on individual verses and problems of interpretation. Additional

Dr. Esau McCaulley is the author of Sharing in the Son's Inheritance: Davidic Messianism and Paul's Worldwide Interpretation of the Abrahamic Land Promise in Galatians, published in 2017 by T&T Clark. Esau serves as assistant professor of New Testament at Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL. Further, he is an ordained priest in the Anglican Church of North America, for which he serves as director of Next Generation Leadership. In this work, McCaulley examines the nature of land, prophesy, and Jewish/Christian understandings of Messianic fulfillment. Using a historical approach by exploring Hebraic redemptive figures (such as King David), McCaulley exegetes pseudepigraphal texts, including Psalm of Solomon, 1 Maccabees, and others to determine various interpretations and understandings of fulfilled covenantal promises. These ancient interpretations serve as the backdrop for the Dead Sea Scroll texts, which may be argued to have been indicative of streams of theology which may have informed the apostle Paul. The sec

Dr. Hans Boersma is the author of Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition, published in 2018 by Eerdmans. He holds the Saint Benedict Servants of Christ Chair in Ascetical Theology at Nashotah House Theological Seminary in Wisconsin in the United States, and previously was a professor at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. In this work, Boersma introduces readers to the historic teaching of Christian theology concerning beatitude—the eschatological reality of being in the presence of God. Utilizing the philosophy of Plato, the systematics of St. Thomas Aquinas, the mystical poetry of Dante, and many more authors, Boersma makes a case for a “sacramental ontology” which undergirds classical Christian understandings of human participation in heavenly realities, which take place now and in the future. Boersma’s research harnesses the contributions from Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant authors to bring together an integrated and ecumenical interpretation of Christian paradise. Wil

In Matthew, Disciple and Scribe(Baker Academic, 2019), Patrick Schreiner provides a fresh look at the Gospel of Matthew, highlighting the unique contribution Matthew's rich and multilayered portrait of Jesus makes to understanding the connection between the Old and New Testaments.Drawing from Matthew 13:52, Schreiner understands the author of the Gospel as a "discipled scribe" who brings out treasures new and old from his teacher. Jesus, as a teacher of wisdom, formed an alternative scribal school. One of the main ways Jesus instructed his students in the paths of wisdom was to reveal the relationship between the new and the old with himself at the center.Schreiner argues that Matthew obeyed the Great Commission by acting as scribe to Jesus in order to share Jesus's life and work with the world, thereby making disciples of future generations. The First Gospel presents Jesus's life as the fulfillment of the Old Testament story of Israel and shows how Jesus brings new life in the New Testament. This book will a

One of the most enduring debates within protestant theology has been the discussion about how the law of Moses relates to the Christian life. In this important new book, Matthew E. Ferris, a self-described “gentleman theologian,” puts the debate within the contexts of recent writing in New Testament studies as well as in practical theology, and argues that Christian ethics require the law to be “fulfilled” rather than “kept.” This might seem to be a nice distinction, but, Ferris argues, it represents the quite nuanced view of the law developed in the Pauline epistles, which simultaneously seem to value the law while recognizing its lack of power in terms of, for example, sanctification. If One Uses It Lawfully: The Law of Moses and the Christian Life (Wipf & Stock, 2018) offers some new perspectives on a debate that doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests focus on the history of puritanism and evangelicalis

The last few years have seen a proliferation of helps for those of us who struggle to consolidate and develop our knowledge of ancient languages. But here is one of the most helpful of these new resources. Jonathan G. Kline, who is academic editor at Hendrickson, and the author of Allusive soundplay in the Hebrew Bible (SBL, 2017), has published a series of books that provide one-sentence daily readings in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, and which then parse these sentences in an imaginative and memorable format. In today’s podcast, we talk to Jonathan about the first volume in this series, Keep Up Your Biblical Greek in 2 Minutes a Day (Hendrickson, 2017), and learn more about the ways in which it can help us.Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests focus on the history of puritanism and evangelicalism, and he is the author most recently of John Owen and English Puritanism (Oxford University Press, 2016).Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/a

What does it mean to “read Romans with Eastern eyes”? Combining research from Asian scholars with his many years of experience living and working in East Asia, Jackson directs our attention to Paul's letter to the Romans. He argues that some traditional East Asian cultural values are closer to those of the first-century biblical world than common Western cultural values. In addition, he adds his voice to the scholarship engaging the values of honor and shame in particular and their influence on biblical interpretation.As readers, we bring our own cultural fluencies and values to the text. Our biases and backgrounds influence what we observe—and what we overlook. This book helps us consider ways we sometimes miss valuable insights because of widespread cultural blind spots.In Reading Romans with Eastern Eyes: Honor and Shame in Paul's Message and Mission (IVP Academic, 2019), Jackson demonstrates how paying attention to East Asian culture provides a helpful lens for interpreting Paul's most complex letter. Whe

Who is the Suffering Servant? The book of Isaiah is one of the most beloved and well-known prophetic books among both Jews and Christians, but its references to the ‘Suffering Servant’ have been a source of controversy in scholarship. In today’s show, we speak with Dr. Markus Zehnder about the book he edited, New Studies in the Book of Isaiah: Essays in Honor of Hallvard Hagelia (Gorgias Press, 2014), which contains twelve articles that shed new light on the Book of Isaiah, covering a wide array of historical, linguistic and theological topics. The collection is marked by a broad diversity in approaches and theological background, and is a useful tool especially for scholars, students, and pastors. In his own contribution to this volume, Zehnder looks at the enigmatic figure of the ‘Servant of the Lord.’ Join as we take a deeper look into the book of Isaiah and the Suffering Servant.Markus Zehnder is Professor for Old Testament and Semitic Languages at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. He grew up i

Some people find the Old Testament to be confusing, out of date, and essentially replaced by the New Testament. They are missing out. The Old Testament offers us a grand narrative that reveals God's work, God's purposes, and God's wisdom.In his new book The Old Testament in Seven Sentences: A Small Introduction to a Vast Topic(IVP Academic, 2019), Christopher J. H. Wright fits the pieces together and shows us the coherent whole. Using seven key sentences drawn straight from the Old Testament, he connects the dots and points us toward Jesus."In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.""All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.""You shall have no other gods before me.""How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news."Such sentences as these are not merely beautiful or helpful (though they are that). They are part of the great drama of Scripture, the story of God's plan of redemption that embraces all nations and the whole of his creation. Wright starts from the beginn