New Books in Biblical Studies

One of the most enduring debates within protestant theology has been the discussion about how the law of Moses relates to the Christian life. In this important new book, Matthew E. Ferris, a self-described “gentleman theologian,” puts the debate within the contexts of recent writing in New Testament studies as well as in practical theology, and argues that Christian ethics require the law to be “fulfilled” rather than “kept.” This might seem to be a nice distinction, but, Ferris argues, it represents the quite nuanced view of the law developed in the Pauline epistles, which simultaneously seem to value the law while recognizing its lack of power in terms of, for example, sanctification. If One Uses It Lawfully: The Law of Moses and the Christian Life (Wipf & Stock, 2018) offers some new perspectives on a debate that doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.

Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests focus on the history of puritanism and evangelicalism, and he is the author most recently of John Owen and English Puritanism (Oxford University Press, 2016).

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The last few years have seen a proliferation of helps for those of us who struggle to consolidate and develop our knowledge of ancient languages. But here is one of the most helpful of these new resources. Jonathan G. Kline, who is academic editor at Hendrickson, and the author of Allusive soundplay in the Hebrew Bible (SBL, 2017), has published a series of books that provide one-sentence daily readings in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, and which then parse these sentences in an imaginative and memorable format. In today’s podcast, we talk to Jonathan about the first volume in this series, Keep Up Your Biblical Greek in 2 Minutes a Day (Hendrickson, 2017), and learn more about the ways in which it can help us.

Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests focus on the history of puritanism and evangelicalism, and he is the author most recently of John Owen and English Puritanism (Oxford University Press, 2016).

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What does it mean to “read Romans with Eastern eyes”? Combining research from Asian scholars with his many years of experience living and working in East Asia, Jackson directs our attention to Paul's letter to the Romans. He argues that some traditional East Asian cultural values are closer to those of the first-century biblical world than common Western cultural values. In addition, he adds his voice to the scholarship engaging the values of honor and shame in particular and their influence on biblical interpretation.

As readers, we bring our own cultural fluencies and values to the text. Our biases and backgrounds influence what we observe—and what we overlook. This book helps us consider ways we sometimes miss valuable insights because of widespread cultural blind spots.

In Reading Romans with Eastern Eyes: Honor and Shame in Paul's Message and Mission (IVP Academic, 2019), Jackson demonstrates how paying attention to East Asian culture provides a helpful lens for interpreting Paul's most complex letter. When read this way, we see how honor and shame shape so much of Paul's message and mission.

Jackson Wu (pseudonym; PhD, Southeastern Baptist), has lived and worked in East Asia for almost two decades and serves on the Asian/Asian-American Theology steering committee of the Evangelical Theological Society. He is the author of Saving God's Face and The Gospel for All Nations: A Practical Approach to Biblical Contextualization. Although not Chinese, he teaches theology and missiology for Chinese pastors at a seminary in Asia. Twitter: @JacksonWu4China

Jonathan Wright is a PhD student in New Testament at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He holds an MDiv from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a ThM from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter @jonrichwright, or jonathanrichardwright.com.

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Who is the Suffering Servant? The book of Isaiah is one of the most beloved and well-known prophetic books among both Jews and Christians, but its references to the ‘Suffering Servant’ have been a source of controversy in scholarship. In today’s show, we speak with Dr. Markus Zehnder about the book he edited, New Studies in the Book of Isaiah: Essays in Honor of Hallvard Hagelia (Gorgias Press, 2014), which contains twelve articles that shed new light on the Book of Isaiah, covering a wide array of historical, linguistic and theological topics. The collection is marked by a broad diversity in approaches and theological background, and is a useful tool especially for scholars, students, and pastors. In his own contribution to this volume, Zehnder looks at the enigmatic figure of the ‘Servant of the Lord.’ Join as we take a deeper look into the book of Isaiah and the Suffering Servant.

Markus Zehnder is Professor for Old Testament and Semitic Languages at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. He grew up in Switzerland and is an ordained minister of the Reformed Church of Switzerland. After the completion of his doctorate, he moved to Jerusalem and then to Boston for postdoctoral studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at Harvard University. He has held teaching positions in Switzerland, Germany, Norway, and Belgium—including being Chair for the Old Testament Department at The Evangelical Theological Faculty, Leuven. He has a passion to connect the Bible both with personal and societal issues. In addition to many book chapters and edited works, Zehnder has published the following monographs: Umgang mit Fremden in Israel und Assyrien (BWANT 168; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2005); Wegmetaphorik im Alten Testament - Eine semantische Untersuchung der alttestamentlichen und altorientalischen Weg-Lexeme mit besonderer Berücksichtigung ihrer metaphorischen Verwendung (BZAW 268; Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 1999).

Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), and Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015). He can be reached at [email protected]

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Some people find the Old Testament to be confusing, out of date, and essentially replaced by the New Testament. They are missing out. The Old Testament offers us a grand narrative that reveals God's work, God's purposes, and God's wisdom.

In his new book The Old Testament in Seven Sentences: A Small Introduction to a Vast Topic(IVP Academic, 2019), Christopher J. H. Wright fits the pieces together and shows us the coherent whole. Using seven key sentences drawn straight from the Old Testament, he connects the dots and points us toward Jesus.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.""All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.""You shall have no other gods before me.""How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news."Such sentences as these are not merely beautiful or helpful (though they are that). They are part of the great drama of Scripture, the story of God's plan of redemption that embraces all nations and the whole of his creation. Wright starts from the beginning, describing God's promises and covenants with his people and his mission to bless the world.

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Leading New Testament scholar Dr. Craig Keener is widely respected for his thorough research, sound judgments, and knowledge of ancient sources. This commentary on Paul's Letter to the Galatians features Keener's meticulous and comprehensive research and offers a wealth of fresh insights. Galatians: A Commentary (Baker Academic, 2019) will benefit students, pastors, and church leaders alike.

Dr. Craig Keener is F. M. and Ada Thompson Professor of Biblical Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary. He is the author of 25 books, 5 of which have won awards in Christianity Today. Keener is also the New Testament editor for the award-winning NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible. Kenner is the editor of the Bulletin for Biblical Research and in 2018 served as the vice-president of the Evangelical Theological Society. With more than a million copies of his books in circulation, Keener also serves the global church by teaching and lecturing all over the world.

Jonathan Wright is a PhD student in New Testament at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He holds an MDiv from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a ThM from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter @jonrichwright, or jonathanrichardwright.com.

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For some two hundred years now, Pentateuchal scholarship has been dominated by the Documentary Hypothesis, a paradigm made popular by Julius Wellhausen. Recent decades, however, have seen mounting critiques of the old paradigm, from a variety of specializations, not only in Biblical Studies, but also in the fields of Assyriology, Legal History, and Linguistics. In a recent international meeting, scholars across these fields came together and presented papers, each one calling for a paradigm change in Pentateuchal research. Join us as we speak with one of those scholars, Richard Averbeck, about his contribution to Paradigm Change in Pentateuchal Research, edited by M. Armgardt, B. Kilchör, M. Zehnder (Harrassowitz Verlag, 2019)—his chapter is titled ‘Reading the Torah in a Better Way.’

Richard Averbeck teaches at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. His areas of expertise include Old Testament, especially the Pentateuch, ancient Near Eastern history and languages, Old Testament criticism, Hebrew, and biblical counseling. He is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society, the Institute for Biblical Research, the American Oriental Society, the American Schools of Oriental Research, and the Society of Biblical Literature.

Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus(Peeters, 2012), and Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015). He can be reached at [email protected]

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Is the New Testament text reliable? What do we do with textual variants? How do I use the Greek New Testament? This short book, An Introduction to the Greek New Testament, Produced at Tyndale House, Cambridge (Crossway, 2019) provides crucial information about the Tyndale House edition of the Greek New Testament in particular and the Greek New Testament in general. Dirk Jongkind, one of the principal scholars behind this groundbreaking project, answers critical questions for understanding the biblical text so that you can have clarity and confidence as you engage with the New Testament in the original Greek.

Dirk Jongkind is the academic vice principal and senior research fellow in New Testament text and language at Tyndale House, Cambridge. He is one of the principal scholars behind The Greek New Testament, Produced at Tyndale House, Cambridge and serves on the editorial board of The Journal for the Study of the New Testament.

Jonathan Wright is a PhD student in New Testament at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He holds an MDiv from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a ThM from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and can be reached at [email protected], twitter.com/jonrichwright, or jonathanrichardwright.com.

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John Owen is one of the most significant seventeenth-century Protestant theologians. He is often discussed by historians of politics and religion in terms of his contributions to the national church settlement of the British Republic (1649-60) or to the post-reformation scholastic theological tradition. But, as this new book argues, Owen regarded himself as a biblical interpreter more than as a dogmatician, and his commentary on the New Testament epistle of Hebrews – which stretches over 2 million words as a tour de force of early modern learning – is as one of the longest biblical commentaries ever published. In his new book, John W. Tweeddale, who is Academic Dean and Professor of Theology at Reformation Bible College, FL, surveys Owen’s achievement in this massive project of exegesis. John Owen and Hebrews: The Foundation of Biblical Interpretation (T&T Clark, 2019) is likely the most significant book ever published on Owen’s activity as a reader of Scripture.

Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests focus on the history of puritanism and evangelicalism, and he is the author most recently of John Owen and English Puritanism (Oxford University Press, 2016).

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The Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible, compiled over several centuries in circumstances that are largely unknown, are collectively identified as the Septuagint. In recent years, the study of what is sometimes known as “Old Testament Greek” has developed some very important new lexical and other interpretive tools. But many Bible readers, who recognise that New Testament documents refer to and quote from Septuagint texts, have struggled to access them. With apparatus prepared by Gregory R. Lanier and William Ross, who teach Old and New testament at the Reformed Theological Seminary campuses in Orlando, FL, and Charlotte, NC, Septuaginta: A Reader's Edition (Hendrickson Publishers, 2018) unlocks that complex text, and opens up its transmission, to enable readers with a basic grasp of Hellenistic Greek to tackle one of the most important sets of documents in that language.

Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests focus on the history of puritanism and evangelicalism, and he is the author most recently of John Owen and English Puritanism (Oxford University Press, 2016).

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