The Book of Esther is one of the five Megillot. It tells the story of a Jewish girl in Persia, who becomes queen and saves her people from a genocide. The story of Esther forms the core of the Jewish festival of Purim. The commentary presents a literary analysis of the text, taking into account the inclusion and arrangement of different pericopes, and an analysis of the narration. Likewise, it will discuss the style, the syntax, and the vocabulary. The examination of the intellectual conte...

Geza Vermes, translator and editor of The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls and worldwide expert on the life and times of Jesus, tells the enthralling story of early Christianity and the origins of a religion.The creation of the Christian Church is one of the most important stories in the development of the world's history, but also one of the most enigmatic and little understood, shrouded in mystery and misunderstanding. With a forensic, brilliant re-examination of all the key su...

In his recent book How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher From Galilee historian Bart Ehrman explores a claim that resides at the heart of the Christian faith— that Jesus of Nazareth was, and is, God. According to Ehrman, though, this is not what the earliest disciples believed, nor what Jesus claimed about himself.The first response book to this latest challenge to Christianity from Ehrman, How God Became Jesus features the work of five interna...

A groundbreaking work in New Testament studies expanded and updatedWinner of the 2007 Christianity Today Book Award in Biblical Studies, this momentous volume argues that the four Gospels are closely based on the eyewitness testimony of those who personally knew Jesus. Noted New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham challenges the prevailing assumption that the Jesus accounts circulated as "anonymous community traditions," asserting instead that they were transmitted ...

How did the Bible we have come to be? What do biblical scholars mean when they talk about canon, the Septuagint, the Apocrypha, or the Masoretic Text? All this biblical study is interesting, but does it really matter? Leading international scholars explain that it does. This thought-provoking and cutting-edge collection will help you go deeper in your understanding of the biblical writings, how those writings became canonical Scripture, and why canon matters. Beginning with an explanation ...

Dr. Norman Golb's classic study on the origin of the Dead Sea Scrolls is now available online.Since their earliest discovery in 1947, the Scrolls have been the object of fascination and extreme controversy.Challenging traditional dogma, Golb has been the leading proponent of the view that the Scrolls cannot be the work of a small, desert-dwelling fringe sect, as various earlier scholars had claimed, but are in all likelihood the remains of libraries of various Jewish groups...

How did the New Testament writers and the earliest Christians come to adopt the Jewish scriptures as their first Old Testament? And why are our modern Bibles related more to the Rabbinic Hebrew Bible than to the Greek Bible of the early Church? The Septuagint, the name given to the translation of the Hebrew scriptures between the third century BC and the second century AD, played a central role in the Bible's history. Many of the Hebrew scriptures were still evolving when they were transla...

The NIV Application Commentary helps you communicate and apply biblical text effectively in today's context.This commentary shows how Esther is perfect guidance for us when we find ourselves in a situation where right and wrong are not so clearly defined and every choice we have seems to be a troubling mixture of good and bad. Esther is perfect inspiration for us when we find ourselves in situations we never sought, never planned for, and don’t think we have the gi...

Who is Jesus? This is the fundamental question for christology. The earliest Christians used various titles, most of them drawn from the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures, to express their faith in Jesus. They called him prophet, teacher, Messiah, Son of David, Son of Man, Lord, Son of God, Word of God, and occasionally even God. In Who Is Jesus? Thomas Rausch, S.J., focuses on the New Testament's rich variety of christologies.Who Is Jesus? covers the three quest...

One of the most widely praised studies of Jewish apocalyptic literature ever written, The Apocalyptic Imagination by John J. Collins has served for over thirty years as a helpful, relevant, comprehensive survey of the apocalyptic literary genre.After an initial overview of things apocalyptic, Collins proceeds to deal with individual apocalyptic texts — the early Enoch literature, the book of Daniel, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and others — concluding with an examination of apocal...

The Blackwell Companion to Paul presents a distinctive dual focus approach that encompasses both the historical Paul and the history of Paul's influence. In doing so, expert contributors successfully address the interests of students of early Christianity and those of Christian theology.Offers a complete overview of the life, writings and legacy of one of the key figures of ChristianityThe essays compass the major themes of Paul's life and work, as well as ...