Books in the New Testament in Context S. series

The Book of Revelation is one of the most difficult of biblical books to understand, depicting the clash of cosmic powers, the interplay of bizarre images, and the specific problems of particular churches in the Roman province of Asia. Despite its opacity, Revelation has enjoyed great influence down through the ages, an influence felt in art, literature, and theology. The relative ease with which its images can be adapted to varied situations, however, has produced problematic interpretations that are far from what the author intended.Many misinterpretations of Revelation result from lack of appreciation of its original contexts: historical, social, literary, theological. To address this problem and to enable today''s readers to understand how the book would have been read by early Christians, this commentary makes available the best in recent and classic biblical scholarship on Revelation and its setting. The result is that the reader will see Revelation in its original contexts and thereby fully comprehend it as one possible Christian response to specific conditions in the eastern Roman Empire in the first century."Murphy''s commentary is insightful and a pleasure to read. It is an excellent introduction to a fascinating and complex biblical book. I recommend it highly for students, pastors, and lay people." -- Adela Yarbro Collins, University of ChicagoFrederick J. Murphy is professor of religious studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, and the author of The Religious World of Jesus and Pseudo-Philo: Rewriting the Bible.

This most recent addition to the popular Trinity New Testament in Context (NTC) commentary series, edited by J. Andrew Overman and Howard Clark Kee, focuses on the apostle Paul''s refusal to match strength for strength with his detractors. Instead, Paul stresses that authentic Christian ministry is characterized by weakness and suffering, specifically the weakness and paradigmatic sufferings endured by the crucified Jesus.While not a rhetorical analysis of 2 Corinthians, this book nevertheless attends to Paul''s rhetorical skills in resolving the Corinthian controversies. It attempts to show that Paul''s theological formulations are best understood as products of rhetorical responses to controversial issues of authority and social location. The preponderance of disputed arguments and narratives in 2 Corinthians renders this letter highly unusual in the Pauline corpus and one of the most challenging for the biblical detective to unravel. Sze-kar Wan, therefore, has written a commentary that helps readers look closely at the texts relevant to the problem of dislocation, providing directional pointers that enable readers, on their own, to develop these pointers to their logical conclusions.Sze-kar Wan is Associate Professor of New Testament at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton Centre, Massachussets.For: Clergy; college, university, and seminary students; scholars; general readers