A quick post to keep you abreast of recent additions to our Library of New Testament Studies series.
Who Do My Opponents Say That I Am? is a edited volume by Scot McKnight and Joseph B. Modica, featuring contributions from Michael F. Bird, Dwight D. Sheets, Darrell L. Bock, James F. McGrath, and Lynn H. Cohick (as well as from the editors themselves). It addresses, from a Christological standpoint, seven specific allegations levelled against Jesus by his enemies. Each scholar explores the historicity of the different accusations and provides in-depth examination of what these charges can tell us about the person of Jesus. The intention is to present a new dimension of historical Jesus studies: the notion that Jesus can be understood by what his critics say of him. Who Do My Opponents Say That I Am? is published as part of the Libary of Historical Jesus Studies, a sub series within LNTS.
Purity and Worldview in the Epistle of James argues that we should not restrict the meaning of purity language to the individual moral sphere and, indeed, contends that purity language both articulates and constructs the worldview of the letter of James. Through careful analysis, and by offering a taxonomy of purity language, Darian Lockett develops the thesis that purity language is seen to distinguish 'the world' as set against the purity of God. The letter thereby implies the need for separation from the impure world in order to be wholeheartedly devoted to God. It is the consideration of what degree of separation the author of James envisaged that forms the basis for Lockett's fascinating conclusion.
No Longer Living as the Gentiles looks at an observed tension in recent scholarly discussion of the ethical content of Ephesians 4.17-6.9. The first part of the extract has been interpreted as drawing a clear social contrast between the addressees and the outside world, and even as legitimating social withdrawal, while the latter part has been read as encouraging intergration. In No Longer Living as the Gentiles Daniel K. Darko utilizes traditional exegetical methods, comparative analysis and social identity theory to argue that Ephesias 4.17-6.9 exhibits a consistent strategy of promoting group distinctiveness which simultaneously uses Greaco-Roman ethical values to enourage internal cohesion among the readers. Thus, the readers are encouraged neither to separate from society nor to integrate further into it, but to live and function within society as members of the 'household of God' in one accord.
In First Pure, Then Peaceable Margaret P. Aymer examines the ways in which Frederick Douglass, the nineteenth-century abolitionist, used the epistle of James in his pre-civil war speaches to 'read' the 'darkness' of slavery and slaveholding Christianity. By following the lead of 'darkness readers,' the Bible is revealed to be more than a collection of ancient documents from an inaccessible past; it is the site upon which modern, contemporary ideological battles have been and continue to be waged. Aymer assesses the rhetoric within the epistle of James, particularly James 3:17, which presents the world as 'darkness' and explores how this was used by Douglass to read his contemporary political and theological darkness.
We are delighted to present these new LNTS volumes (and to have worked with the excellent scholars involved) and hope that they represent a good sampling of the range, diversity and rigour of the series as a whole.
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