Books in the Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series series

In this detailed exegesis of Ephesians 5: 21-33 Dr Sampley not only elucidates the meaning of this difficult and historically important passage, but he also discusses and describes the background and sources of the Epistle.

A study of a group of terms which have a central importance in the New Testament.

This study is the first full-length scholarly book on Pontius Pilate in English. It reconstructs the historical Pontius Pilate and looks at the way in which he is used as a literary character in the works of six first century authors: Philo, Josephus and the four evangelists.

In this book the late Vincent Taylor defends and develops his argument in favour of a non-Markan basis for the Gospel of Luke which he first presented in his book Behind the Third Gospel. He answers critics of that book by a detailed study of the Passion Narrative and concludes that Luke used, in this part of his gospel at least, a special source which was as old as Mark but independent of it.

Professor Przybylski contends that the lack of agreement among New Testament scholars about the concept of righteousness in the Gospel of Matthew arises because the wrong background literature has been posited as governing its usage. It is only when Matthaean usage is viewed in terms of the world of though reflected in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Tannaitic literature that it becomes intelligible.

An exploration of the topic of discipleship in Mark's gospel as it relates to Jesus' own mission and purpose. Focusing on six passages that highlight Jesus' interaction with his followers, Henderson frames her readers' understanding of both Jesus and his disciples in the context of Mark's decidedly apocalyptic worldview.

This volume examines one of the best-known, yet most intriguing of Jesus' discourses within the Fourth Gospel. It demonstrates that - in spite of having links with Gnostic ideas - the roots of teh Shepherd Discourse are in fact based in Old Testament and jewish texts about the Shepherds of Israel.

Stephen Ahearne-Kroll examines the literary interaction between the Gospel of Mark's passion narrative and four Psalms of Individual Lament that focuses on King David challenging God because he suffers. Mark alludes to these psalms in reference to Jesus and David's concerns become woven into the depiction of Jesus' suffering and death.

Studying the Gospels must incorporate a detailed understanding of their audience and origins in early Christianity. Edward W. Klink III challenges a scholarly consensus concerning the original audience behind the Gospel of John, and provides a more appropriate model for how it should be read.

Scholars argue over where Hebrews fit in the first century world. Kenneth L. Schenck works towards resolving this question by approaching Hebrews' cosmology and eschatology from a text-orientated perspective. After observing that the key passages in the background debate mostly relate to the 'settings' of the story of salvation history evoked by Hebrews, Schenck attempts to delineate those settings by asking how the 'rhetorical world' of Hebrews engages that underlying narrative. Hebrews largely argue from an eschatology of two ages, which correspond to two covenants. The fresh age has come despite the continuance of some old age elements. The most characteristic elements of Hebrews' settings, however, are its spatial settings, where we find an underlying metaphysical dualism between the highest heaven, which is the domain of spirit, and the created realm, including the created heavens. This creation will be removed at the eschaton, leaving only the unshakeable heaven.

Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus is a book-length investigation of the archaeological evidence for Greek and Roman culture in Galilee. Mark Chancey argues that the extent of Greco-Roman culture in Galilee in the time of Jesus has often been greatly exaggerated.

This 2004 book was the first in English to situate the Lukan exorcism stories within their ancient cultural context, including popular belief as well as official religion. Close linguistic analysis sheds light on the Jewishness of the text and the understanding of exorcism within the hellenized Jewish religious world.

This study discusses the relationship between the epistles of Paul and classical rhetoric by focusing on recent studies of Galatians. It concludes that Paul did not write according to the conventions of oratory and that therefore the ancient handbooks can contribute little to the interpretation of his epistles.

How did Paul determine ethical and theological truth? Were all believers expected to be able to 'discern the spirits' (1 Corinthians 12.10)? This 2007 study shows that discernment must be understood against the backdrop of an extensive hermeneutic, by which Paul inherently relates ethical and theological knowledge. Understanding the will of God requires noetic and existential transformation, in short, the 'renewal of the mind' (Romans 12.2). Munzinger argues that Paul implies a process of inspiration in which the Spirit sharpens the discerning functions of the mind because the believer is liberated from a value system dominated by status and performance. The love of God enables all believers to learn to interpret reality in a transformed manner and to develop creative solutions to questions facing their communities. For Paul authentic discernment is linked to a comprehensive sense of meaning.

Matthew's Jesus is typically described as the humble messiah. This book argues that this is only half the story. Matthew's theologically rich quotation of Isaiah 42.1-4 underscores the fact that, manifest in Jesus' message, is the justice that was thought to accompany the arrival of the kingdom of God.

In this rhetorical-critical study Holloway puts Paul's letter in the context of ancient theories and literary practices of 'consolation' and argues that Paul wrote to the Philippians in order to console them.

This study contributes to debate about the portraits of Paul in Acts and his epistles by considering Paul's Miletus speech (Acts 20.18b-35) and identifies and compares major themes in Luke and Paul's views of Christian leadership. Comparisons with Jesus' speeches in Luke show how Lukan the speech is and, with 1 Thessalonians, how Pauline it is. The speech calls the Ephesian elders to service after Paul's departure to Jerusalem, focusing on: faithful fulfilment of leadership responsibility; suffering; attitudes to wealth and work; and the death of Jesus. Paul models Christian leadership for the elders. Parallels in Luke highlight his view of Christian leadership - modelled by Jesus and taught to his disciples, and modelled by Paul and taught to the elders. Study of 1 Thessalonians identifies a remarkably similar portrait of Christian leadership. The Miletus speech is close in thought, presentation and vocabulary to an early, indubitably Pauline letter.

A comprehensive explanation of Philippians as a letter written to call the Christians to unity under economic suffering. The book uses archaeology and other methods to build a detailed picture of the types of people likely to have been in Philippi and in the Christian community there.

Judaean society in the first century did not conform to the stereotypical 'Mediterranean honour culture', in that it lacked a significant gentile population and was dominated by a powerful religious elite. Timothy Ling argues that this demands a new social-scientific approach to the Gospel and Letters of John that moves away from the accepted 'sectarian' interpretation. He attributes their distinctiveness instead to their roots in Jesus' Judaean ministry, as contrasted with the Galilean ministry that has attracted much recent study. In particular, Ling contends that the numerous references to 'the poor' in the New Testament can be better understood in the context of the 'alternative' ideologies found among pietistic religious groups practising asceticism, renunciation, and other forms of 'virtuoso religion' in first-century Judaea. In doing so, he mounts a convincing challenge to the current dominant reading of the Gospel of John as a product of early Christian sectarianism.

Initially, Paul's words to the Corinthians about being the body of Christ seem simple and straightforward. However, the passage raises several critical questions which point to its deeper implication. Michelle Lee examines Paul's instructions in 1 Corinthians 12-14 against the backdrop of Hellenistic moral philosophy, and especially Stoicism.

In this 2001 text, Daniel Gurtner examines the meaning of the rending of the veil in Matthew 27:51a by considering the functions of the veil in the Old Testament and its symbolism in ancient Judaism. He concludes that the rending of the veil is an apocalyptic assertion like the opening of heaven.

Much recent scholarship has focused on Paul's insistence on Gentile membership of the people of God equally with Jews. This book contributes to the continuing reassessment of Christian and Jewish self-understanding during the latter decades of the first century and reveals how a distinctively Jewish world view underlies Ephesians 2.

For nearly nineteen hundred years, few have questioned the single authorship of Luke and Acts. Applying a statistical analysis of both works that is unique to biblical scholarship, this study reveals significant stylistic differences between the two books, providing a reassessment of the evidence for unitary authorship.

This book proposes a theological reading of 1 Thessalonians, making an important response to the increasing demand to relate biblical scholarship more closely to theological concerns. Paddison's interpretation adheres very closely to the text and is divided into three parts. Part I offers a theological critique of dominant historical-critical readings of 1 Thessalonians. Part II examines the history of interpretation of 1 Thessalonians focusing on the pre-Modern exegesis of Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin. Paddison explores what theological exegetes can learn from Thomas Aquinas' Lectura and John Calvin's commentary on 1 Thessalonians. Aided by the insights of these neglected pre-Modern commentators, Part III presents a theologically driven interpretation of the letter. Theological exegesis is practised as a dialogue with Paul, the canon and a plethora of theological voices to elucidate Paddison's central argument, that the astonishing subject-matter of 1 Thessalonians is God's all-powerful hold over death.

Many interpreters of the Fourth Gospel detect allusions to biblical texts about marriage, but none offers a comprehensive analysis of these proposed allusions or a convincing explanation for their presence. In this 2006 book McWhirter argues that John alludes to such texts to develop a metaphor for Jesus and his relationship with his followers.

How does Luke's portrait of the outsider help in exploring the theology and historiography of Acts? Osvaldo Padilla takes an intriguing approach by concentrating on the direct speeches of outsiders, and provides an insightful analysis that will prove invaluable to scholars and students of biblical and early Christian studies.

This ground breaking analysis cuts to the heart of the debate surrounding the Thessalonian Epistles. Colin Nicholl examines the situations giving rise to each Letter with a view to determining how the two relate historically. His book presents a compelling hypothesis of Thessalonians.

Pauline Scholarship has typically interpreted 2 Corinthians as a later editorial composite of several letters. Fredrick Long presents the case for its unity, based on a comprehensive survey and rigorous genre analysis of ancient forensic discourse. His study will be of relevance to classicists and New Testament scholars alike.

Stephen Pattemore examines passages within Revelation 4:1-22:21 that depict the people of God as actors in the apocalyptic drama and infers what impact these passages would have had on the self-understanding and behaviour of the original audience of the work. He uses Relevance Theory, a development in the linguistic field of pragmatics, to help understand the text against the background of allusion to other texts. Three important images are traced. The picture of the souls under the altar (6:9-11) is found to govern much of the direction of the text with its call to faithful witness and willingness for martyrdom. Even the militant image of a messianic army (7:1-8, 14:1-5) urges the audience in precisely the same direction. Both images combine in the final image of the bride, the culmination of challenge and hope traced briefly in the New Jerusalem visions.

This book surveys the social values of the Roman world with a special focus on stratification and honour-seeking. The Roman colony at Philippi is used to demonstrate how entrenched those values were in Philippian society. The books of Acts and Philippians are also examined in view of these social values.