Books published by William B Eerdmans Publishing Co

In How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God? Larry Hurtado investigates the intense devotion to Jesus that emerged with surprising speed after his death. Reverence for Jesus among early Christians, notes Hurtado, included both grand claims about Jesus' significance and a pattern of devotional practices that effectively treated him as divine. This book argues that whatever one makes of such devotion to Jesus, the subject deserves serious historical consideration.Mapping out the lively current debate about Jesus, Hurtado explains the evidence, issues, and positions at stake. He goes on to treat the opposition to -- and severe costs of -- worshiping Jesus, the history of incorporating such devotion into Jewish monotheism, and the role of religious experience in Christianity's development out of Judaism. The follow-up to Hurtado's award-winningLord Jesus Christ (2003), this book provides compelling answers to queries about the development of the church's belief in the divinity of Jesus.

"A collection of meditations on Christian life that locate noteworthy current events, cultural trends, and particular occasions within the larger story of Scripture"--

"A spiritual introduction to Christian theology Christian belief can be understood neither entirely through doctrine nor entirely apart from it. Doctrine is the starting point, the seed of faith, from which springs forth flourishing life in the fellowship of the church. But that growth occurs only when theology and spirituality are held together in a relation of reciprocal influence. With decades of combined experience in both the church and the academy, Mark McIntosh and Frank Griswold prioritize the life-giving relationship between theology and spirituality in this immersive introduction to the Christian faith. Drawing inspiration and guidance from Christianity's greatest mystical theologians-including Augustine, Maximus the Confessor, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Catherine of Siena-McIntosh and Griswold unfold essential doctrines and illuminate the transformative power of Christian belief. The result is a book that propels readers beyond abstract knowledge to an experience of the living mystery who is God"--

"Encountering the living Word in the words of the Bible When we read Scripture, we learn about God. When we pray the Scriptures, we experience the mystery of Jesus Christ and inhabit his life. In this book, Mark McIntosh and Frank Griswold bring to bear their decades of combined experience in both the church and the academy to introduce and explore the idea of praying the Scriptures. As McIntosh and Griswold demonstrate, this contemplative approach to the Bible integrates theology and spirituality and fosters genuine hope by bringing us into an encounter with the living Word. After first laying the foundation of what it means to pray the Scriptures, the authors guide the reader through vital biblical passages from different points in the church year, showing how the seasons of the liturgical calendar provide the soil in which the seeds of the Gospel can be nourished by the Holy Spirit, yielding in time a harvest of hope"--

"In this fresh and original monograph on the ecclesiology of John Calvin, Tadataka Maruyama sifts exhaustively through the corpus of Calvin's writings-in both Latin and French-to crystalize the French reformer's conception of the Christian church. After elucidating Calvin's influence from other reformers such as Jacques Lefáevre, Guillaume Farel, and Martin Bucer, Maruyama shows how Calvin's ecclesiology evolved throughout his life while remaining firmly rooted in key principles and interests. Maruyama discerns three phases in Calvin's ecclesiology:Catholic ecclesiology-in which Calvin saw the church as a unified and ideal institution situated both above and within historyReformed ecclesiology-in which Calvin described the concrete, historical form of the Christian church over against the Catholic ChurchReformation ecclesiology-in which Calvin came to understand the Christian church as an eschatological reality situated in a broader European context, which Calvin portrayed as the "theater of God's providence"This trajectory mirrors the way the Protestant Reformation was focused on reforming particular churches while also reimagining the Christian world as a whole. Indeed, as Maruyama thoroughly illustrates, Calvin never lost sight of his original vision of reforming the church of his French homeland even as his work grew into a much larger movement"

"Reckoning with the hermeneutical struggle to make sense of Paul as both a historical figure and a canonical muse Matthew Novenson has become a leading voice advocating for the continuing relevance of historical-critical readings of Paul even as some New Testament scholars have turned to purely theological or political approaches. In this collection of a decade's worth of essays, Novenson puts contextual understandings of Paul's letters into conversation with their Christian reception history. After a new, programmatic introductory essay that frames the other eleven essays, Novenson explores topics including:the relation between theology and historical criticismthe place of Jews and gentiles in Paul's gospelPaul's relation to Judaismthe relevance of messianism to Paul's ChristologyPaul's eschatology in relation to ancient Jewish eschatologiesthe aptness of monotheism as a category for understanding antiquitythe reception of Paul by diverse early Christian writersthe peculiar place of Protestantism in the modern study of Paulthe debate over the recent Paul-within-Judaism movementanti-Judaism in modern New Testament scholarshipdisputes over Romans and Galatiansthe meta-question of what it would mean to get Paul right or wrongEngaging with numerous schools of thought in Pauline studies-Augustinian, Lutheran, New Perspective, apocalyptic, Paul-within-Judaism, religious studies, and more-while also rising above partisan disputes between schools, Novenson illuminates the ancient Mediterranean context of Paul's letters, their complicated afterlives in the history of interpretation, and the hermeneutical struggle to make sense of it all"

Originally published in France by Les âeditions des âelâephants in 2020 under title: Le cadeau.

Watsons critical approach enables modern readers of the Bible to break free of fraught scholarly assumptions in order to better understand early Christian identity formation and beliefs.

"This biography follows Nelson Mandela from his work with the African National Congress, to his imprisonment on Robben Island, to his extraordinary rise to the presidency"--