Reviews of
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Biblical and Early Christian Studies
Contesting Languages
2023.02.05 | Ekaputra Tupamahu. Contesting Languages: Heteroglossia and the Politics of Language in the Early Church. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023. Review by Isaac T. Soon, Crandall University, Moncton, NB. The author begins the book with three subjects that experience struggle at the site of language: Medea, the Corinthian community, and Tupamahau himself. From its first […]
The Shema in John’s Gospel
2023.02.04 | Lori A. Baron. The Shema in John’s Gospel. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament. 2. Reihe, 574. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022. Review by R. B. Jamieson, Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Washington, DC. What causes John’s Gospel to stand out when set against the backdrops of the Synoptic Gospels, the whole New Testament, and early Judaism? In The […]
Philosophy at the Festival
2023.02.03 | Byron MacDougall, Philosophy at the Festival: The Festal Orations of Gregory of Nazianzus and the Classical Tradition. Mnemosyne Supplements 461; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2022. Review by Robert G. T. Edwards; University of Göttingen. Gregory of Nazianzus’ seven Festal Orations, preached at Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, and Pentecost during his short-lived episcopacy in Constantinople from 379 […]
Hebrews’ Cosmogonic Presuppositions
2023.01.02 | Benjamin Rojas Yauri. Hebrews’ Cosmogonic Presuppositions: Its First-Century Philosophical Context. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2022. Review by Judson D. Greene, Cambridge University. In this revised version of his PhD dissertation at Stellenbosch University under the supervision of Jeremy Punt, Benjamin Rojas Yauri endeavors to answer the question, “What are the relationships between Hebrews’ […]
What John Knew and What John Wrote
2023.01.01 | Wendy E. S. North, What John Knew and What John Wrote: A Study in John and the Synoptics (Lanham: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2020). Review by Elizabeth Corsar; St Padarn’s Institute, Cardiff. In her monograph, what John knew and what John wrote, North successfully puts forward a positive case for John’s use of the Synoptic Gospels, […]
The Oldest Gospel and the Formation of the Canonical Gospels
2022.12.13 | Matthias Klinghardt. The Oldest Gospel and the Formation of the Canonical Gospels. Biblical Tools and Studies 41; Leuven: Peeters, 2021. Review by Jordan Almanzar, Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts. Matthias Klinghardt’s study, The Oldest Gospel and the Formation of the Canonical Gospels, is a two-volume work in which he proposes Marcion’s Evangelion […]
Mark, A Pauline Theologian
2022.12.12 | Mar Pérez i Díaz, Mark, a Pauline Theologian: A Re-reading of the Traditions of Jesus in the Light of Paul’s Theology. WUNT II 521. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020. Review by Gregg S. Morrison, Birmingham, Alabama. Petrine influence on the Gospel of Mark has been a well-attested assertion in Gospel studies for centuries, based primarily […]
Ethnicity and Inclusion
2022.12.11 | David G. Horrell. Ethnicity and Inclusion: Religion, Race, and Whiteness in Constructions of Jewish and Christian Identities. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2020. Review by Jonathan Rowlands, St. Mellitus College In Ethnicity and Inclusion, Horrell examines the ways in which the contested categories of ethnicity, race, and religion coalesce in and arise from conceptions of the […]
Pauline Theology and the Problem of Death
2022.11.10 | Joseph Longarino, Pauline Theology and the Problem of Death. WUNT II/558 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2021). Review by Isaac T. Soon, Crandall University. This book is a revised version of the author’s dissertation, completed at Duke University under the supervision of Douglas Campbell in 2019. Longarino’s study focuses on a truly disregarded problem in Pauline theology: given […]
Jesus the Jew in Christian Memory
2022.11.09 | Barbara U. Meyer. Jesus the Jew in Christian Memory: Theological and Philosophical Explorations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Review by Jonathan Rowlands, St. Mellitus College. Barbara Meyer’s monograph is concerned with “the theological implications of Jesus’ Jewish identity as well philosophical questions raised by the ongoing presence of Jewishness within Christian ethical and dogmatic […]
Biblical and Early Christian Studies 
John H. Walton
Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary
In Ancient Israel, Ancient Near East, Archaeology, commentary, HB/OT, John H. Walton, Kurtis Peters, Zondervan on June 11, 2015 at 9:52 pm2015.06.13 | Walton, John H., ed. Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary. 5 vols. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009. $249.95. ISBN 978-0-310-25572-7).
Review by Kurtis Peters.
Many thanks to Zondervan for providing a review copy.
John Walton, chief editor of Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, has taken on an enormous task. Enormous, of course, is simply the gathering of data and contributors for a multi-volume commentary. But perhaps more significant yet is his aim: to have the evangelical world engage with the ancient Near East (hereafter ANE) in a meaningful way. 5 volumes, 32 contributors, and nearly 3,000 pages later, Walton has, it seems, succeeded at least insofar as he has provided the evangelical community with perhaps the most thorough and most accessible resource for them to grapple with the reality of the Old Testament and its ANE setting. Read the rest of this entry »