The Acts of the Apostles


Book Description

Acts is the sequel to Luke's gospel and tells the story of Jesus's followers during the 30 years after his death. It describes how the 12 apostles, formerly Jesus's disciples, spread the message of Christianity throughout the Mediterranean against a background of persecution. With an introduction by P.D. James




Paul and Jesus


Book Description

In this “compulsively readable exploration of the tangled world of Christian origins” (Publishers Weekly), religious historian James Tabor illuminates the earliest years of Jesus’ teachings before Paul shaped them into the religion we know today. This fascinating examination of the earliest years of Christianity reveals how the man we call St. Paul shaped Christianity as we know it today. Historians know almost nothing about the two decades following the crucifixion of Jesus, when his followers regrouped and began to spread his message. During this time Paul joined the movement and began to preach to the gentiles. Using the oldest Christian documents that we have—the letters of Paul—as well as other early Chris­tian sources, historian and scholar James Tabor reconstructs the origins of Christianity. Tabor shows how Paul separated himself from Peter and James to introduce his own version of Christianity, which would continue to develop independently of the message that Jesus, James, and Peter preached. Paul and Jesus illuminates the fascinating period of history when Christianity was born out of Judaism.




Encyclopaedia Britannica


Book Description

This eleventh edition was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time and it is considered to be a landmark encyclopaedia for scholarship and literary style.




Saint Paul at the Movies


Book Description

Star Wars, Amadeus, A Separate Place, Tender Mercies, Grand Canyon, Tootsie, Ordinary People, Empire of the Sun, Pale Rider, Red Dawn, and Dead Poets Society--all these movies show concern for deep human issues also treated in the Bible. The films provide evidence that many of the apostle Paul's themes in his New Testament letters are relevant for today. Contemporary movies, according to Robert Jewett, influence many Americans more than their formal education or religious training. And, since Paul interpreted the gospel on other people's turf, Jewett believes that today his forum would involve the movies, a primary source of discovering and debating important moral, cultural, and religious issues. Jewett treats film and biblical passages with equal respect. He brings their ideas and metaphors into relationship so that new insights emerge about both the ancient texts and the American cultural situation.




Documents and Images for the Study of Paul


Book Description

Documents and Images for the Study of Paul gathers representative texts illustrating Jewish practices, Greco-Roman moral exhortation, biblical interpretation, Roman ideology, apocalyptic visions, epistolary conventions, and much more, to illustrate the complex cultural environment in which Paul carried out his apostolic work and the manifold ways in which his legacy was reshaped in early Christianity. Brief, insightful introductions orient the reader to how these sources might play a role in different contemporary interpretations of Paul's life and thought. Lavishly illustrated with more than one hundred black and white photographs, charts, a map and timeline of Paul's world, this sourcebook is a welcome resource for courses on Paul and his letters.




Introducing the New Testament


Book Description

This lively, engaging introduction to the New Testament is critical yet faith-friendly, lavishly illustrated, and accompanied by a variety of pedagogical aids, including sidebars, maps, tables, charts, diagrams, and suggestions for further reading. The full-color interior features art from around the world that illustrates the New Testament's impact on history and culture. The first edition has been well received (over 60,000 copies sold). This new edition has been thoroughly revised in response to professor feedback and features an updated interior design. It offers expanded coverage of the New Testament world in a new chapter on Jewish backgrounds, features dozens of new works of fine art from around the world, and provides extensive new online material for students and professors available through Baker Academic's Textbook eSources.




The World of Saint Paul


Book Description

Joseph Callewaert's engaging work on St. Paul reads like a novel. With inviting, even dramatic, prose, it recounts the story of the great Apostle to the Nations. This is no dry tome or ponderous biography. Nor is its subject a "safe" historical figure, irrelevant to the issues of today: St. Paul remains controversial. Some scholars claim he "invented" Christianity. They believe his message radically departed from what Jesus taught. The Christian faith, so the claim runs, is the creation of Paul's religious experience, not the doctrine of Jesus. Callewaert rejects this theory, as do many other scholars. His interpretation rests on the Bible and the abiding tradition of the ages, rather than tendentious theories or ideologically-motivated revisions. Yet Callewaert's work is no anti-scholarly screed. The World of Saint Paul provides a popular, yet expert account of the Apostle and his age. For those who know little about St. Paul-which includes many Christians-it is a superb introduction. "In my presentation of St. Paul, I have tried to absorb the spirit of his epoch as far as I could, and put less trust in the present-day judgments than in the abiding traditions of the ages. If I have perhaps evoked a little too much history and pursued rather too long a road in regions so rich with a past, I have always made sure to trace a path which brings us back to this intrepid and tenacious Jew who will steadily appear in stark relief." From the Preface




Christian Apologetics


Book Description

An authoritative reference for key persons, concepts, issues, and approaches in the history of Christian apologetics—allowing you to read the great apologists and thinkers in their own words and understand their arguments in historical and cultural context. Christian Apologetics: An Anthology of Primary Sources makes available over fifty primary source selections that address various challenges to the Christian faith in the history of apologetics. The compilation represents a broad Christian spectrum, ranging from early writers like Saint Paul and Saint Augustine, to Saint Teresa of Avila and Blaise Pascal, to more recent apologists such as C. S. Lewis, Alvin Plantinga, William Lane Craig, Richard Swinburne and Pope Benedict XVI. Insightful introductions, black-and-white images, concise section headings and discussion questions will guide you toward a clearer understanding of classical defenses of Christianity. Sources are organized thematically and include topics such as: Arguments for the existence of God. Defenses of the doctrine of the Trinity. Discussions on the authority and credibility of canonized Scripture. Questions regarding the problem of evil and free will. Discourses on Christianity and science. Annotated reading lists, a bibliography, and author and subject indices make this anthology a useful textbook or supplemental reader.




Corpus Christologicum


Book Description

A compendium of approximately three hundred texts--in Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, Ethiopic, Syriac, Coptic, and other languages--that are important for the study of Jewish messianism and early Christology. In recent decades, the study of Jewish messianic ideas and how they influenced early Christology has become an incredibly active field within biblical studies. Numerous books and articles have engaged with the ancient sources to trace various themes, including "Messiah" language itself, exalted patriarchs, angel mediators, "wisdom" and "word," eschatology, and much more. But anyone who attempts to study the Jewish roots of early Christianity faces a challenge: the primary sources are wide-ranging, involve ancient languages, and are often very difficult to track down. Books are littered with citations and a host of other sometimes obscure writings, and it can be difficult to sort them all out. This book makes a much-needed contribution by bringing together the most important primary texts for the study of Jewish messianism and early Christology--nearly three hundred in total--and presenting the reader with essential information to study them: the critical text itself (with apparatus), a fresh translation, a current bibliography, and thematic tags that allow the reader to trace themes across the corpus. This volume aims to be the starting point for all future work on the primary sources that are relevant to messianology and Christology. About the Author Gregory R. Lanier (PhD, University of Cambridge) is Associate Professor of New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. He has written extensively on early Christology and published Old Testament Conceptual Metaphors and the Christology of Luke's Gospel (Bloomsbury, 2018); Septuaginta: A Reader's Edition (Hendrickson, 2018); and Is Jesus Truly God? How the Bible Teaches the Divinity of Christ (Crossway, 2020). He also serves as associate pastor of River Oaks Church in Lake Mary, Florida.