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Archive for the ‘Gospels’ Category


The Things that Make for Peace

In Gospels, Jesse Nickel, Kendall A. Davis, Second Temple, Violence on March 13, 2024 at 8:29 pm

2024.03.02 | Jesse P. Nickel. The Things that Make for Peace: Jesus and Eschatological Violence. BZNW 244. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2021.

Review by Kendall A. Davis, University of Edinburgh.

In this revision of his PhD thesis, Jesse Nickel seeks to answer the following question: “how does understanding eschatology and violence together … enable us to make better sense of the presence and/or absence of violence in Jesus’ life and ministry?” (p. 3). In particular, Nickel seeks to refute what he calls the “seditious Jesus hypothesis” (SJH), the idea that the historical Jesus was really a violent revolutionary and that Jesus’ rejections of violence are later additions to the Jesus tradition. Scholars who hold to the SJH, according to Nickel, include S. G. F. Brandon, Dale Martin, and Fernando Bermejo-Rubio. Nickel argues that such perspectives fail in large part because they misunderstand Jewish eschatology. In particular, they assume that eschatology is “other-worldly” and therefore “irrelevant to ‘this-worldly’ matters” (p. 5). By contrast, Nickel argues that “certain elements of Jewish eschatology … inherently involved violence; and that such expectations played a motivational role in the revolutionary violence that was frequent during the Second Temple period” (p. 7). Nickel calls such violence “eschatological violence” and argues that Jesus’ “nonviolence” should be understood as a rejection of this pervasive concept of eschatological violence. 

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To Recover What Has Been Lost

In Brill, Dale C. Allison Jr., Daniel Frayer-Griggs, Eschatology, Gospels, Intertextuality, Jonathan Rowlands, Nathan C. Johnson, NT reception history, Reception history, Tucker S. Ferda on June 11, 2021 at 3:00 pm

2021.6.13 | Tucker S. Ferda, Daniel Frayer-Griggs, and Nathan C. Johnson (eds). “To Recover What Has Been Lost”: Essays on Eschatology, Intertextuality, and Reception History in Honor of Dale C. Allison Jr. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 183; Leiden: Brill, 2021. ISBN: 978-90-04-44350-1.

Review by Jonathan Rowlands, St. Mellitus College.

The essays collected in this Festschrift are grouped into one of the three areas mentioned in the volume’s subtitle. As the helpful introduction from the editors notes, these are three areas that have each occupied a significant place in the writings of Dale C. Allison Jr. 

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Modern and Ancient Literary Criticism of the Gospels

In David P. Moessner, Fourfold Gospel, Gospels, Literary Criticism, Mohr Siebeck, Nathan Charles Ridlehoover, Robert Matthew Calhoun, Synoptic Gospels, Tobias NICKLAS on May 28, 2021 at 3:23 pm

2021.5.12 | Robert Matthew Calhoun, David P. Moessner, and Tobias Nicklas, eds. Modern and Ancient Literary Criticism of the Gospels. WUNT 451. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020.

Review by Charles Nathan Ridlehoover,  Columbia Biblical Seminary.

Modern and Ancient Literary Criticism of the Gospels is the product of a conference at Texas Christian University in November 2018. The conference commemorated the 25th year and 3rd edition of Richard A. Burridge’s seminal study, What Are the Gospels? The goal of the conference, and this subsequent volume, was to ask what more could be said about literary criticism and its application to the gospels genre.

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An Apostolic Gospel

In Cambridge University Press, Epistula Apostolorum, Francis B. WATSON, Gospels, Julia D. Lindenlaub on March 19, 2021 at 3:00 pm

2021.3.8 | Francis Watson. An Apostolic Gospel: The “Epistula Apostolorum” in Literary Context. Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series 179. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. ISBN 978-1-108-84041-5.

Review by Julia D. Lindenlaub, University of Edinburgh.

Francis Watson’s already wide-ranging work in gospels within and beyond the canon is here expanded with a new translation of a remarkably significant yet infrequently studied text: Epistula Apostolorum (EpAp). In addition to his translation work, this contribution to the limited secondary literature on this text exemplifies its overlooked potential to problematise generic classifications of texts about Jesus and to shed new light on the early use and reuse of written Jesus tradition. Watson presents EpAp alongside counterparts in its literary context and explores central themes that suggest intriguing avenues for further research—for which this translation will surely prove indispensable.

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Reading with the Grain of Scripture

In Eerdmans, Gospels, Intertextuality, Nathan Charles Ridlehoover, Paul, Richard HAYS, Scripture, theological Interpretation of Scripture on February 19, 2021 at 3:00 pm

2021.2.6 | Richard B. Hays. Reading with the Grain of Scripture. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2020. ISBN: 978-0-8028-7845-8.

Review by Charles Nathan Ridlehoover, Columbia Biblical Seminary.

Students and scholars of the New Testament hardly need an introduction to Richard Hays. Hays has written ground-breaking scholarship on the letters of Paul and New Testament ethics, and his latest full-length study examines intertextual echoes in the Gospels and their Christological significance (Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels). Just before his retirement in 2018, Hays assumed the mantle of dean of Duke Divinity School while maintaining his role as the George Washington Ivey Professor Emeritus of New Testament.

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Gospel as Manuscript

In Chris Keith, Gospels, Jonathan Rowlands, Manuscript Studies, Manuscripts, Oxford University Press, Transmission history on December 28, 2020 at 6:40 pm

2020.12.21 | Chris Keith. The Gospel as Manuscript: An Early History of the Jesus Tradition as Material Artifact. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. ISBN: 9780199384372.

Review by Jonathan Rowlands, St. Mellitus College.

Chris Keith is Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, and Director of the Centre for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham. His previous single-author monographs have examined the pericope adulterae, Jesus’ literacy, and his conflict with the scribal elite. Now, in The Gospel as Manuscript, Keith turns his attention to the study of manuscripts as material objects and its implications for New Testament studies.

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The Sermon on the Mount and Spiritual Exercises

In Brill, George Branch-Trevathan, Gospels, Matthew, Nathan Charles Ridlehoover, Philosophy on October 23, 2020 at 2:54 pm

2020.10.18 | George Branch-Trevathan. The Sermon on the Mount and Spiritual Exercises: The Making of the Matthean Self. NovTSup 178. Leiden: Brill, 2020. ISBN 978-90-04-42444-9.

Review by Charles Nathan Ridlehoover, Columbia International Seminary.

George Branch-Trevathan is Assistant Professor of Religion at Thiel College, Greenville, PA. As a recent graduate of Emory University (PhD), Branch-Trevathan presents in The Sermon on the Mount and Spiritual Exercises: The Making of the Matthean Self a revised version of his doctoral dissertation. The following monograph is an ambitious project. Although Branch-Trevathan begins with a simple enough question (and incidentally ends with the same question): how do people attain rigorous moral ideals? —the answer is much more complicated.

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Gender in the Rhetoric of Jesus

In Ashe Materou, Fortress Press, Gender Studies, Gospels, Lexington Books, Q, Sara Parks, Synoptic Gospels, Women on August 21, 2020 at 3:00 pm

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2020.08.15 | Sara Parks. Gender in the Rhetoric of Jesus: Women in Q. Lanham/Boulder/New York/London: Lexington/Fortress, 2019. ISBN 978-1-9787-0198-4.

Review by Ashe Materou, KU Leuven.

In Gender in the Rhetoric of Jesus Sara Parks investigates the parallel parable pairs of Q. The book illustrates how Q gendered pairs pays equal attention to both male and female characters as agents for the basileia movement. Parks situates her work as a contribution to the reconstruction of the position of women in early Jewish and early Christian Antiquity. She argues that there has not been much research done so far on the earliest evidence of the historical Jesus’ attitude towards women. Accordingly, Parks aims to fill this gap with the analysis of “parallel gender pairs” (p. 2), where men and women characters are addressed explicitly or implicitly through a rhetorical literary device reflected in Jesus’ sayings material. Parks holds that this literary device has not yet caught the attention of many feminist scholars and advocates for a deeper study of Q gendered pairs. Read the rest of this entry »


Jesus Becoming Jesus

In Catholic University of America Press, Gospels, Nathan Charles Ridlehoover, NT Theology, Synoptic Gospels, theological Interpretation of Scripture, Thomas G. Weinandy on April 16, 2020 at 1:00 pm

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2020.04.07 | Thomas G. Weinandy, Jesus Becoming Jesus: Theological Interpretation of the Synoptic Gospels. Washington: CUA, 2018. 

Review by Charles Nathan Ridlehoover, Columbia International Seminary.

Thomas G. Weinandy is an author of more than fifteen books and recently completed his appointment with the Vatican International Theological Commission. The following volume initially started as Weinandy’s attempt at a one-volume systematics text suggested through the gentle nudges of John Webster. Weinandy worried that starting in the Synoptics would obscure his plan to stress God’s saving activity but felt it was extremely important to begin with the first recordings of the incarnation/infancy narratives. As Weinandy admits, what initially was perceived as a problem became an opportunity to write a thorough theological and doctrinal interpretation of the New Testament. Read the rest of this entry »


Jesus the Priest

In Baker Academic, Gospels, Historical Jesus, Nathan Charles Ridlehoover, Nicholas Perrin, Priest, Synoptic Gospels on February 27, 2020 at 2:00 pm

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2020.02.05 | Nicholas Perrin. Jesus the Priest. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018.

Review by Charles Nathan Ridlehoover, Columbia International Seminary.

Nicholas Perrin is the president of Trinity International University, Deerfield, IL. Previously, he was the Franklin S. Dyrness Professor of Biblical Studies and associate professor of New Testament at Wheaton College Graduate School, Wheaton, IL. Jesus the Priest is the second installment in a planned three-part series. Following the 2010 release of Jesus the Temple, the current volume forms the lynchpin to the expected Jesus the Sacrifice.

Jesus the Priest is Perrin’s argument concerning Jesus’s mission to invigorate the priestly role in conjunction with the predictive prophecies of Ezekiel 36. In so doing, Jesus takes on priestly functions in creating a cultic space of renewal for the final temple where his people will worship. Read the rest of this entry »