Leading Scholars Debate a Key New Testament Topic The relationship between Matthew, Mark, and Luke is one of the most contested topics in Gospel studies. How do we account for the close similarities--and differences--in the Synoptic Gospels? In the last few decades, the standard answers to the typical questions regarding the Synoptic Problem have come under fire, while new approaches have surfaced. This up-to-date introduction articulates and debates the four major views. Following an overview of the issues, leading proponents of each view set forth their positions and respond to each of the other views. A concluding chapter summarizes the discussion and charts a direction for further study.
This major work promises to move scholarship forward as the first approach to systematically look at the synoptic problem by employing textual criticism.
The publication of the King James version of the Bible, translated between 1603 and 1611, coincided with an extraordinary flowering of English literature and is universally acknowledged as the greatest influence on English-language literature in history. Now, world-class literary writers introduce the book of the King James Bible in a series of beautifully designed, small-format volumes. The introducers' passionate, provocative, and personal engagements with the spirituality and the language of the text make the Bible come alive as a stunning work of literature and remind us of its overwhelming contemporary relevance.
A comparison of three major views on the relationship between Israel and the church The relationship between Israel and the church is a longstanding debate in Christian theology, and Romans 9–11 are the most important chapters for understanding it. How one interprets these chapters determines how one understands biblical theology, how the New Testament uses the Old Testament, and how the old and new covenants are related. To help readers draw their own conclusion, four leading scholars on this issue present a case for their viewpoint, followed by a response and critique from the others. Michael Vlach argues for a future mass conversion and a role for ethnic Israel in the church. Fred Zaspel and Jim Hamilton present a case for a future mass conversion that does not include a role for ethnic Israel. And Benjamin Merkle contends that Romans 9–11 promises neither a future mass conversion nor a role for ethnic Israel. General editor Andrew David Naselli helpfully sets the debate in its larger biblical-theological context in the introduction, while Jared Compton provides a useful summary of the views and interactions at the end of the volume.
In this book respected New Testament scholar Pheme Perkins delivers a clear, fresh, informed introduction to the earliest written accounts of Jesus — Matthew, Mark, and Luke — situating those canonical Gospels within the wider world of oral storytelling and literary production of the first and second centuries. Cutting through the media confusion over new Gospel finds, Perkins s Introduction to the Synoptic Gospels presents a balanced, responsible look at how the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke came to be and what they mean.
Why are there differences in the stories of the Gospels? Licona turns to Greek classicist Plutarch for an answer, assessing differences that appeared when Plutarch told the same story more than once in his Lives. He suggests the differences in the Gospels often resulted from their authors employing the same compositional devices used by Plutarch.
The earliest of the four Gospels, the book portrays Jesus as an enigmatic figure, struggling with enemies, his inner and external demons, and with his devoted but disconcerted disciples. Unlike other gospels, his parables are obscure, to be explained secretly to his followers. With an introduction by Nick Cave