Affirming the Resurrection of the Incarnate Christ


Book Description

Argues that 1 John was written to affirm Jesus' resurrection, in light of Jewish denials that he was the Christ.




1, 2, and 3 John


Book Description

A new commentary for today's world, The Story of God Bible Commentary explains and illuminates each passage of Scripture in light of the Bible's grand story. The first commentary series to do so, SGBC offers a clear and compelling exposition of biblical texts, guiding everyday readers in how to creatively and faithfully live out the Bible in their own contexts. Its story-centric approach is ideal for pastors, students, Sunday school teachers, and laypeople alike. Each volume employs three main, easy-to-use sections designed to help readers live out God's story: LISTEN to the Story: Includes complete NIV text with references to other texts at work in each passage, encouraging the reader to hear it within the Bible's grand story. EXPLAIN the Story: Explores and illuminates each text as embedded in its canonical and historical setting. LIVE the Story: Reflects on how each text can be lived today and includes contemporary stories and illustrations to aid preachers, teachers, and students. —1, 2, & 3 John— The three letters of John are ripe with immediate encouragement, practical application, and profound insight. The twin themes of love and truth dominate their theological content. If these letters seem, at times, more detached from the biblical narrative than most of the New Testament, we can still understand them in light of that story. Edited by Scot McKnight and Tremper Longman III, and written by a number of top-notch theologians, The Story of God Bible Commentary series will bring relevant, balanced, and clear-minded theological insight to any biblical education or ministry.




Spirituality According to John


Book Description

Through all of John's works, a consistent message is woven: being a Christian is about abiding in Christ and in his words. Combining exegesis with spiritual reflection, this accessible introduction on the Johannine literature from Rodney Reeves helps readers envision how to follow Jesus—as disciples, in community, and even at the end of the world.




Christian Origins and the Establishment of the Early Jesus Movement


Book Description

Christian Origins and the Establishment of the Early Jesus Movement explores the events, people, and writings surrounding the founding of the early Jesus movement in the mid to late first century. The essays are divided into four parts, focused upon the movement’s formation, the production of its early Gospels, description of the Jesus movement itself, and the Jewish mission and its literature. This collection of essays includes chapters by a global cast of scholars from a variety of methodological and critical viewpoints, and continues the important Early Christianity in its Hellenistic Context series.




The Doubt of the Apostles and the Resurrection Faith of the Early Church


Book Description

"Why do the Gospels depict the risen Jesus as touchable and able to eat? J. D. Atkins challenges the common view that Luke 24 and John 20 are apologetic responses to docetism by re-examining the redaction of the appearance stories in light of their reception among early docetists and church fathers."--Page 4 of cover.




Social Science and the Christian Scriptures, Volume 3


Book Description

Sociologist Anthony Blasi analyzes early Christianity using multiple social scientific theories, including those of Max Weber, Georg Simmel, Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Max Scheler, Alfred Schutz, and contemporary theorists. He investigates the canonical New Testament books as representative of early Christianity, a sample based on usage, and he takes the books in the chronological order in which they were written. The result is a series of "stills" that depict the movement at different stages in its development. His approaches, often neglected in New Testament studies, include such sociological subfields as sect theory, the routinization of charisma, conflict, stratification theory, stigma, the sociology of knowledge, new religions, the sociology of secrecy, marginality, liminality, syncretism, the social role of intellectuals, the poor person as a type, the sick role, degradation ceremonies, populism, the sociology of migration, the sociology of time, mergers, the sociology of law, and the sociology of written communication. Needing to treat the New Testament text as social data, Blasi uses his background in biblical studies and a review of a vast literature to establish the chronology of the compositions of the New Testament books and to present the "data" in a new translation that is accessible to non-specialists.




Incarnation and Resurrection


Book Description

For too long contemporary theology has downplayed the importance of holding together the incarnation and the resurrection when thinking theologically. Paul Molnar here surveys the place of these key doctrines in the thought of several influential theologians: Karl Barth, Karl Rahner, Thomas F. Torrance, John Macquarrie, Gordon Kaufman, Sallie McFague, Roger Haight, John Hick, and Wolfhart Pannenberg. Molnar demonstrates that whenever the starting point for interpreting the resurrection is not Jesus himself, the incarnate Son of the Father, then Christology and Soteriology are undermined because they are not properly rooted in a plausible doctrine of the Trinity. Fair, comprehensive, and balanced, Molnar's analysis, following Torrance and Barth, highlights the details of contemporary theology of the resurrection linked to the incarnation and maintains the necessity of the incarnation in its intrinsic unity with the resurrection as the beginning, rather than the end, of Christology.




Affirming the Resurrection of the Incarnate Christ


Book Description

Argues that 1 John was written to affirm Jesus's resurrection, in light of Jewish denials that he was the Christ.




Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?


Book Description

The Resurrection of Jesus is at the very root of Christian faith; without belief in Jesus Christianity dies. In this thought-provoking work, Matthew Levering defends the credibility of the claim that Jesus rose from the dead. Drawing on the work of N. T. Wright, Levering shows that the historical evidence vindicates this assumption, and reveals that the Gospels were backed by eyewitnesses who were living and telling their stories even during the time of the writing of the Gospels. The author also emphasises the importance of evaluating the Old Testament to validate Jesus' Resurrection. By highlighting the desire—both in the ancient world and now—to make the Resurrection more comprehensible by spiritualizing it, Levering argues that the fact that the disciples themselves did not do this provides a further clue to reliability. Finally, the author addresses the question of why Jesus does not continue to show himself in his glorified flesh after his resurrection, which is often seen as a strong case for scepticism. However, he shows that Jesus' entire mission is predicated upon helping us to avoid cleaving to the present world over God. He is leading us to where he is—the kingdom of God, the beginning of the new creation at the Father's right hand. By developing these arguments for the historical reality of Jesus' Resurrection, this ground-breaking study expertly draws together historical and theological reasons for believing that Jesus' Resurrection happened.




The Incarnate Christ


Book Description

This book, an updated third edition, offers a biblical and logical one-nature theory of the incarnate Christ.