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Conversion in Luke-Acts

In Baker Academic, Brandon Walker, Community, Conversion, Identity, Joel B. GREEN, Luke-Acts on August 8, 2016 at 2:00 pm

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2016.08.15 | Joel B. Green. Conversion in Luke-Acts: Divine Action, Human Cognition, and the People of God. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2015.

Review by Brandon T. Walker, St. John’s College, Nottingham.

Many thanks to Baker Academic for providing a review copy.

Much of the contemporary Western conversation about defining conversion has centred around questions of cognition and morality, repentance and conversion, or around attempts to discover patterns in a conversion narrative. In Conversion in Luke-Acts Joel B. Green offers an insightful take on Luke’s understanding of conversion by using a cognitive and holistic approach. Conversion is an important contribution to Lukan studies as well as understanding ‘conversion’ in antiquity.

In the first chapter Green surveys the pertinent questions concerning conversion in the New Testament (14–15), such as: ‘Is conversion a cognitive category, a moral category or both?’ (14). Read the rest of this entry »


Paul and the Miraculous: A Historical Reconstruction

In Baker Academic, Brandon Walker, Graham H. TWELFTREE, Miracle discourses, Paul on January 23, 2015 at 6:21 pm

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2015.01.01 | Graham M. Twelftree. Paul and the Miraculous: A Historical Reconstruction. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic Press, 2013. 390 pp. Pbk.

Reviewed by Brandon Walker, University of Nottingham.

Many thanks go to Baker Academic for providing us with a review copy.

This latest book by Graham Twelftree illuminates the important, but often neglected issue of Paul and his relationship with the miraculous. Twelftree’s agenda in this book is to examine Paul’s understanding of the miraculous in his life and ministry (26-27). One important thesis that is set forth is that while Paul did not completely distance himself from being perceived as a miracle worker, he did not directly claim to perform miracles. The distinction is an important one. While Paul witnessed miracles occurring in relation to his preaching of the gospel, he did not lay personal claim to them. In other words, he did not claim the power-authority that caused the miracles.

The book is laid out in five sections and ten chapters. The first chapter lays out Twelftree’s methodological agenda in this chapter by gleaning Paul’s understanding of miracles in a historical reconstruction. Read the rest of this entry »


Miracle Discourse in the New Testament

In Brandon Walker, Duane F. WATSON, Gospel of John, Gospels, John, Miracle discourses, New Testament, Paul, Society of Biblical Literature, Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation, Synoptic Gospels on April 2, 2013 at 11:30 pm

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2013.04.03 | Duane F. Watson, ed. Miracle Discourse in the New Testament. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012. ISBN 1589831187.

Reviewed by Brandon Walker, University of Nottingham.

Many thanks go to SBL for kindly providing us with a review copy.

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Miracle Discourse in the New Testament is a collection of essays that were originally presented at the Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting in 2001.  Miracle discourse itself has been analyzed and critiqued since the Enlightenment and has come to the fore with the publication of the works of Wendy Cotter, Graham Twelftree and most recently Craig Keener. The papers presented in this particular volume dialogue with Cotter’s Miracles of Greco-Roman Antiquity and her latest work, The Christ of the Miracle Stories: Portrait through Encounter.  The book follows a canonical order and shows the advantages of examining miracle discourse from a socio-rhetorical method (15).

Read the rest of this entry »