2018.02.04 | Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, Micah: A Commentary. OTL. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2015.
Reviewed by Mark Glanville.
Daniel L. Smith-Christopher has produced a new commentary on Micah in the Old Testament Library series. This commentary follows an earlier commentary on Micah in this respected series by James Luther Mays, published in 1976.1 The body of the text comes to 227 pages, the first forty-four of which are introduction.
2017.12.25 | Lester L. Grabbe. 1 & 2 Kings, An Introduction and Study Guide: History and Story in Ancient Israel. London: Bloomsbury T & T Clark, 2017.
Review by Mark R. Glanville
Lester L. Grabbe has written 1 & 2 Kings, An Introduction and Study Guide: History and Story in Ancient Israel as a part of the T&T Clark series, ‘Study Guides to the Old Testament’. This series aims to introduce students to a particular book within the Hebrew Bible, focusing, in particular, upon recent biblical scholarship.i Grabbe’s study is necessarily brief, and the main text totals 95 pages. Chapters one and two orientate the reader to questions of historiography and sources in order to lay the groundwork for the analysis of the texts to follow in chapters three through five. Grabbe’s goal throughout is to explore the historical reliability of the text. Read the rest of this entry »
2017.05.09 | Michael J. Chan and Brent A. Strawn, eds. What Kind of God? Collected Essays of Terence E. Fretheim (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2015). ISBN: 978-1-57506-343-0.
Review by Mark Glanville
Michael J. Chan and Brent A. Strawn have collected thirty essays of Terence E. Fretheim that explore the question, in various ways: what kind of God is presented in the Old Testament?
The volume begins with two introductory essays, one by the editors, the other by Fretheim himself (Part I). Crucial for Fretheim’s reading of the Old Testament is the relationality of God to the both the human world and the non-human world. “For Fretheim, ‘genuine’ relationship is marked by risk, sacrifice, commitment, limitation, change, power-sharing, and the ability of both parties to shape the future, even God’s future” (4). Part II, “God and the World,” is concerned with an understanding of God and of the divine relationship to the world. Read the rest of this entry »
2017.03.06 | Don C. Benjamin. The Social World of Deuteronomy: A New Feminist Commentary. Cascade: Oregon, 2015. ISBN: 9781498228701.
Review by Mark Glanville.
Don C. Benjamin’s commentary on Deuteronomy, The Social World of Deuteronomy: A New Feminist Commentary (2015), is one of a number of recent commentaries on this book, including those by Daniel I. Block, (2012), Jack R. Lundbom (2013), and Eckart Otto (German, 2012-17). Benjamin’s commentary is unique, first, in that its primary methodology is to bring insights from the social sciences to bear upon the text, and, second, in that a feminist hermeneutic that is sensitive to the voices of women and other populations that are given a “small voice” in the text of Deuteronomy strongly shapes both the interpretative method and the content focus of the book. Read the rest of this entry »
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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’ […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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