New Testament History

In 2007, two Israeli news publications, Israel Today and News First Class, reported that the most famous rabbi in Israel's modern history, 108-year-old Yitzhak Kaduri, had left a cryptic death note revealing the name of the long-awaited Messiah. Within a year after the rabbi's death, the note was reported to have been verified as authentic by some of Kaduri's closest followers and then placed on Kaduri's own website (Kaduri.net).

The Gospel According to Judas, by Benjamin Iscariot, sheds new light on the mystery of Judas (including his motives for the betrayal and what happened to him after the crucifixion) by retelling the story of Jesus through the eyes of Judas, using the canonical texts as its basic point of reference. Ostensibly written by Judas' son, Benjamin, and following the narrative style of the Gospels, this re-creation is provocative, compelling, and controversial.

Letters from Jesus: Studies from the Seven Churches of Revelation explores Christ’s warnings to the seven most prominent churches in Asia Minor in the book of Revelation. These letters date back to 95 AD, but they help us make a fascinating discovery about civilization: Life hasn’t changed that much over the last two millennia. Author Chris Palmer illustrates the truths contained in the Letters from Jesus using modern, everyday examples.

Alexandria was the epicenter of Hellenic learning in the ancient Mediterranean world, yet little is known about how Christianity arrived and developed in the city during the late first and early second century CE. In this volume, M. David Litwa employs underused data from the Nag Hammadi codices and early Christian writings to open up new vistas on the creative theologians who invented Christianities in Alexandria prior to Origen and the catechetical school of the third century.

Between 50 and 90 CE, the various writings that comprise the New Testament were written, including the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles of Paul, and other letters to more general communities of the early Church. But what is recognized as the 26 books of the New Testament today, in literally hundreds of English translations, actually took several more centuries to be determined as "canonical" by the Church.

Who was Jesus? Historical sources portray a person who was complex, multi-layered, and often contradictory to the tidy portrait that much of modern Christianity paints him as. Even the gospel accounts render him as both judge and healer, teacher and temple, servant and savior. A Doubter's Guide to Jesus is a persuasive and often challenging investigation into the historical figure found in the earliest sources. These sources, which include references both direct and indirect - from Roman, Jewish, and Christian accounts - offer us more than simple evidence that Jesus existed.

This Very Short Introduction audiobook offers a clear, accessible, and concise account of the apocryphal gospels - exploring their origins, their discovery, and discussing how the various texts have been interpreted both by the Church and beyond.

Wills turns his remarkable gift for biblical analysis to the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Wills examines the goals, methods, and styles of the evangelists and how these shaped the gospels' messages.

圣经是一本上帝神跨越约一千六百年通过感动四十多个作者而编写的六十六本书的合集这些作者中有先知国王祭司贵族渔夫农民教育水平不一尽管这些人互相不认识但是他们写的这些书从头到尾前后呼应天衣无缝圣经里有八百多个预言到现在为止只剩下不到二十个还没有得到应验只是因为时候未到

Some questions about the New Testament canon are far from settled, either in the academy or the church—to say nothing of misconceptions and confusion. This is a crucial topic, given the importance of the canon's formation for our understanding of early Christianity and the nature of the Christian faith itself. In Creating the Canon, Benjamin P. Laird explores misunderstood, disputed, and overlooked matters tied to the composition, collection, and authority of the New Testament canon.

Modern readers of the New Testament often notice its varying ideas about women. Some passages encouraged women to be submissive and remain silent. Yet in others, women characters owned property, headed households, or spoke with approval. Women in the New Testament World helps listeners understand this conflicting evidence. It argues that social norms of the time encouraged traditional feminine virtues. However, as Susan Hylen argues, women in the culture enacted these virtues in a variety of ways, including active leadership in households, associations, and cities.

In A Stranger in Jerusalem, Trevan Hatch attempts to situate the stories about Jesus within their Jewish context. Jesus was a Jew, his friends were Jews, his first followers were Jews, he studied the Hebrew Scriptures (either orally or from texts), he worshiped in the synagogue, and he occasionally traveled to Jerusalem to observe the Israelite festivals. Hatch illustrates that Jesus does not seem to have rejected Judaism or acted as a radical outsider in relation to his Jewish peers, but rather, he worked within a Jewish framework.

Before the gospels were written, there were proto-gospels, notes, lists, and collections used to construct the gospels we have today. Some gospels were used and built upon to form other, expanded gospels. The “Q” Document was used as a memory tool and literary scaffolding by Matthew and Luke in the writing of their gospels. Although many scholars believe Mark had access to the oldest parts of Q, others believe he did not. Since Mark predates Matthew and Luke, they believe Mark was used as a template for Matthew and Luke.

It’s not often that you come across a document of such religious and historical importance as The Septuagint Genesis – in fact its significance would be hard to overstate. But what is the Septuagint? Well, its name refers to the “seventy’ (actually 72) translators – six from each tribe of Israel – who translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, the primary language of Jews in Egypt at the time. This, the oldest and arguably most important translation, was the version of The Bible that Jesus himself would have read – and the one from which almost all the New Testament’s writers were quoting.

Engross yourself in an intimate exploration of the Gospel and researched details of the relationship between Jesus and his family, especially the startling specificity concerning his mother. Discover how Jesus’ stepbrothers fostered the founding of the new religion. Enjoy learning how Jesus’ heritage, Palestinian lifestyle, and politics influenced his ministry.

Much of the contemporary discussion of the Jesus tradition has focused on aspects of oral performance, storytelling, and social memory, on the premise that the practice of communal reading of written texts was a phenomenon documented no earlier than the second century CE. Brian J. Wright overturns that premise by examining evidence that demonstrates communal reading events in the first century.

Ready for the Rapture presents a powerful and inspiring in-depth study of two of the most important and revelatory books of the Bible with respect to end-time events or eschatology in theological terms - first and second Thessalonians. While from a theological perspective this two-part volume is an exegetical treatise of these two vital New Testament books, it is masterfully narrated in a way that makes the Pauline letters' doctrine-rich content readily understandable and intriguing to listeners with as little as an elementary education.

Long before the followers of Jesus declared him to be the Son of God, Jesus taught his followers that they too were the children of God. This ancient creed, now all but forgotten, is recorded still within the folds of a letter of Paul the Apostle. This ancient creed said nothing about God or Christ or salvation. Its claims were about the whole human race: there is no race, there is no class, there is no gender. Followers of Jesus proclaimed: "You are all children of God. There is no Jew or Greek, no slave or free, no male and female, for you are all one."

Imagine following Jesus along the road, listening in on his conversations and gleaning from the lessons He taught in the holy places He traveled. Join author Wayne Stiles as he walks in the steps of Jesus: through Bethlehem, Samaria, Jerusalem, Nazareth, Galilee and beyond. Experience the places where Jesus met a lonely woman in Samaria, a den of hypocrites in the Temple, a Jerusalem Pharisee still searching for truth, fishermen with a sea of false expectations and a hometown ashamed of Him.

In this new audiobook, Hall makes the airtight case that America's Founders were not deists; that they did not create a "godless" Constitution; that even Jefferson and Madison did not want a high wall separating church and state; that most Founders believed the government should encourage Christianity; and that they embraced a robust understanding of religious liberty for biblical and theological reasons. In addition, Hall explains why and how the Founders' views are absolutely relevant today.