This commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians, excerpted from Fortress Commentary on the Bible: The New Testament, engages readers in the work of biblical interpretation. Laura Nasrallah and David Fredrickson connect historical-critical analysis with sensitivity to current theological, cultural, and interpretive issues.The book is an introduction and commentary using three lenses: ancient context, the interpretative tradition, and contemporary questions and challenges.

The self-emptying of Christ (kenosis) in Philippians 2 has long been the focus of attention by Christian theologians and interpreters of Paul's Christology. David E. Fredrickson sheds dramatic new light on familiar texts by discussing the centuries-old language of love and longing in Greek and Roman epistolary literature, showing that a "physics" of desire was related to notions of power and dominance. Pauls kenotic Christology challenged not only received notions of the p...

David E. Fredrickson asks a key question for interpreters of the New Testament in the twenty-first century: Do established ways of reading the New Testament need to be challenged and new ones explored? His answer is "yes," but he takes care not to dismiss readers' experiences in the previous two millennia. He values the readings of the past even as he contests the insights of scholars, preachers, monks, nuns, skeptics, the devout, the disinterested, the keenly interested, and all the rest ...

How might the Christian church effectively engage today's politically charged, profit-motivated world while remaining faithful to its biblical and theological roots? The contributors in this book argue that public theology provides a promising pathway forward. The public theology emerging from these pages has been influenced by the theological interests and commitments of Gary M. Simpson, Lutheran pastor and systematic theologian. His approach to public theology is intersectional and globa...