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It has been one of the major news stories in religion and culture of the past twenty-five years. From 1979 to 1995, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) was rocked by assaults on its leadership by fundamentalists, who used questionable tactics to gain top positions and then used their power to purge Baptist seminary presidents and professors, church pastors, lay leaders, and women from positions of responsibility. America's largest Christian, non-Catholic denomination is firmly locked in a holy war to secure its churches and membership for a never-ending struggle against a liberal culture. Exiled: Voices of the Southern Baptist Convention Holy War is a compilation of first-person narratives...
Chapter 3 acknowledges and answers objections from outside the biblical text that Paul as a monotheistic Jew would not identify Jesus as God. Similarly, chapter 4 answers objections that Paul would not refer to Jesus as God in Romans 9:5(b) because he does not so identify Jesus elsewhere. Chapter 5 considers the importance of Paul's identification of Christ as the stone of stumbling and the end of the law in Romans 9:30-10:4, especially for how he understood Jesus. Chapter 6 argues that in Romans 10:5-13, Paul understood Jesus as the referent of the one on whom all call for salvation, assigning to Jesus an Old Testament reference to YHWH as the one who could save. Chapter 7 argues there is no separate way of salvation for Israel and that Jesus is YHWH, the redeemer from Zion, which Israel must join Gentiles in recognizing.
There is now a substantial scholarly consensus for the emergence of a high or divine Christology very early and from a Jewish context, but the questions of "how" and "why" need further study. Within the framework of traditional Jewish monotheism, Paul and other early Christians used the language of deity to describe Jesus. To investigate their view of Jesus, the author examines Paul's discourse in 2 Cor 3:16–4:6, employing insights from rhetorical criticism and Oneness Pentecostal Christology. He explains how early Christians proclaimed the deity of Jesus within their monotheistic Jewish context. He then identifies socio-rhetorical reasons for and practical consequences of the monotheistic deification of Jesus.
Monotheism is a powerful religious concept shaped by competing ideas and the problems they raised. Surveying New Testament writings and Jewish sources from before and after the rise of Christianity, James F. McGrath argues that even the most developed Christologies in the New Testament fit within the context of first century Jewish monotheism. McGrath pinpoints when the parting of ways took place over the issue of God's oneness, and explores philosophical ideas such as "creation out of nothing" which caused Jews and Christians to develop differing concepts and definitions about God.
This book argues that the throne motif constitutes the major interpretive key to the complex structure and theology of the book of Revelation. In the first part of the book, Gallusz examines the throne motif in the Old Testament, Jewish literature and Graeco-Roman sources. He moves on to devote significant attention to the throne of God texts of Revelation and particularly to the analysis of the throne-room vision (chs. 4&5), which is foundational for the development of the throne motif. Gallusz reveals how Revelation utilizes the throne motif as the central principle for conveying a theological message, since it appears as the focus of the author from the outset to the climax of the drama. The book concludes with an investigation into the rhetorical impact of the motif and its contribution to the theology of Revelation. Gallusz finally shows that the throne, what it actually represents, is of critical significance both to Revelation's theism and to God's dealing with the problem of evil in the course of human history.
This book analyzes a substantial corpus of Old Testament pseudepigrapha, proposing a methodology for understanding them first in the social context of their earliest (Christian) manuscripts and inferring still earlier Jewish or other origins only as required by positive evidence.
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A New Testament commentary steeped in the Old Testament Through Old Testament Eyes is a new kind of commentary series that illuminates the Old Testament backgrounds, allusions, patterns, and references saturating the New Testament. These links were second nature to the New Testament authors and their audiences, but today's readers often cannot see them. Bible teachers, preachers, and students committed to understanding Scripture will gain insight through these rich Old Testament connections, which clarify puzzling passages and explain others in fresh ways. In John Through Old Testament Eyes, Karen Jobes reveals how the Old Testament background of the Gospel of John extends far beyond quotes ...
This book traces the history of the idea that the king and later the messiah is Son of God, from its origins in ancient Near Eastern royal ideology to its Christian appropriation in the New Testament. Both highly regarded scholars, Adela Yarbro Collins and John J. Collins argue that Jesus was called "the Son of God" precisely because he was believed to be the messianic king. This belief and tradition, they contend, led to the identification of Jesus as preexistent, personified Wisdom, or a heavenly being in the New Testament canon. However, the titles Jesus is given are historical titles tracing back to Egyptian New Kingdom ideology. Therefore the title "Son of God" is likely solely messianic and not literal. King and Messiah as Son of God is distinctive in its range, spanning both Testaments and informed by ancient Near Eastern literature and Jewish noncanonical literature.
In the book of Acts divine involvement is everywhere. From the beginning God is responsible for promised action, including the geographic expansion--"in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (1:7)--referenced in Jesus' response to the disciples, clearly related to Luke's purpose in writing the book. Geographic expansion, however, is only the second part of Jesus' reply. Is it possible that the first half of Jesus' reply--"It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority"--has even greater bearing on the actions that follow and on Luke's purpose? Is the Father setting times and seasons related to the kingdom's establishment?...