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2026.09.07 | Stanley Porter and Benjamin P. Laird, eds. The New Testament Canon in Contemporary Research. Leiden: Brill, 2026. 656 pp., $185.00. Review by Ched Spellman, Cedarville University Stanley E. Porter and Benjamin P. Laird’s edited volume, The New Testament Canon in Contemporary Research, provides a wide-ranging examination of the historical formation, content, and reception of the […]
2026.08.06 | Judith M. Lieu and Matthijs den Dulk. Early Christian Epistolarity. Critical Approaches to Christianity 5. Leiden: Brill, 2026. Pp. x + 380. ISBN: 9789004746145. Review by Jonathon Lookadoo, Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary, Seoul, Republic of Korea Judith Lieu, Lady Margaret’s Professor Emerita at the University of Cambridge, delivered the Radboud Prestige Lectures […]
2026.05.05 | Yurong Zhao. Early Christian Widows and their Social-economic Situation, Support, and Contribution to the Church. Library of New Testament Studies 687. London: T&T Clark, 2025. pp. xvii + 242. ISBN: 9780567721365. Review by Aogu Suzuki, University of St Andrews. Wayne Meeks, in his The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (1983), stated: […]
2026.03.04 | Vladimir Olivero. 1 Enoch: An Ethiopic Reader’s Edition. Resources for Biblical Study 110. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2025. pp. viii + 359. ISBN: 9781628377606. Review by Kai Akagi, Rikkyo University. While 1 Enoch is among the scriptures of the Ethiopic Orthodox Church and Geʿez serves as the liturgical language and language of scripture for various […]
2026.03.03 | Douglas S. Huffman. Understanding the New Testament Use of the Old Testament: Forms, Features, Framings, and Functions. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2024. pp. xix + 268. ISBN: 9781540966407. Review by Kai Akagi, Rikkyo University. The use of the Old Testament in the New Testament is studied within various frameworks, using various paradigms and methods, […]
2026.03.02 | Sofia Puchkova. Re-envisioning Theodore: Theodore of Mopsuestia’s Biblical Exegesis in His Catechetical Homilies. SVC 185. Brill, Leiden-Boston: 2024. Review by Marius Portaru, Pontificium Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, Rome. The present monograph addresses a gap in the scholarship on Theodore of Mopsuestia by examining his ‘invisible’ biblical exegesis in the Catechetical Homilies. While this topic […]
2026.01.01 | Mark Goodacre. The Fourth Synoptic Gospel: John’s Knowledge of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Eerdmans, 2025. 191 pp. Review by Ched Spellman, Cedarville University. Goodacre advances a straightforward thesis: John’s Gospel was written with an awareness of the Synoptic Gospels. More specifically, Goodacre argues that the author of this Gospel “knew, used, presupposed, and transformed the […]
2025.08.04 | Christian A. Eberhart and Wolfgang Kraus, eds. Covenant—Concepts of Berit, Diatheke, and Testamentum. WUNT 506. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2023. Review by Levi Baker, William Tennent School of Theology. Arising from a 2019 interdisciplinary conference at the Lanier Theological Library, this volume of twenty-eight essays explores various aspects of covenant across the social world and literature […]
2025.01.03 | Todd D. Still and David E. Wilhite. The Apologists and Paul. Pauline and Patristic Scholars in Debate. London: T&T Clark, 2024. Pp. xiv + 346. ISBN: 9780567715456. Review by Jonathon Lookadoo, Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary, Seoul, Republic of Korea The Apologists and Paul provides a wide-ranging analysis of how Paul’s letters were […]
2025.01.02 | Thea Gomelauri (with a contribution by Joseph Ginsberg). The Lailashi Codex: The Crown of Georgian Jewry (Oxford, UK: Taylor Institution Library, 2023). Review by Teófilo Correa, Adventist International Institute of Advance Studies (AIIAS) The Lailashi Codex is an ancient Hebrew manuscript, considered the earliest nearly complete surviving medieval version of the Pentateuch (Ori […]
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 »