Another splendid title from Hendrickson

Meet the Rabbis: Rabbinic Thought and the Teachings of Jesus
Brad H. Young
Hendrickson, 2007
270 pages
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Here is the TOC:
PART 1: Introduction to Rabbinic Thought

1. Introduction to Rabbinic Thought
2. Master Teachers and Their Disciples
3. Torah is More Than Law
4. The Great Sanhedrin
5. Parallel Rabbinic and New Testament Texts

PART 2: Introduction to Rabbinic Literature

6. Introduction to Early Jewish Writings
7. Ethics of the Fathers
8. The Amidah Prayer
9. Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles of Jewish Faith
10. Hillel’s Seven Principles of Bible Interpretation

PART 3: Introduction to the Rabbis

11. Meet the Rabbis
12. Both Torahs Were Revealed on Mount Sinai
13. Utopia or Plan of Action?

PART 4: Study Helps

• Of Books, Commandments, Laws, Holy Days, and Lineage
• Glossary of Terms
• Bibliographic Helps
• Index of Modern Authors
• Index of Subjects
• Index of Ancient Sources

Here’s the endorsement from the back:

Brad H. Young has published Jesus the Jewish Theologian and The Parables; now, he continues to illustrate how rabbinics is essential for understanding the New Testament documents and elucidates the historical Jesus. Moreover, Meet the Rabbis is an engagingly written introduction to rabbinic though, literature, and the lives of the most influential rabbis. Young proves how rabbinics helps to clarify the origins of Christianity. The rabbis come to life, providing insights into how to live, being faithful to God and the needy among us. He succeeds in illustrating how Jewish thought clarifies the theology of the Sermon on the Mount. This is a must read for everyone interested in Judaism and Christian origins. — James H. Charlesworth

Jim Charlesworth’s blurb really says it well. This is a clear and readable introduction to rabbinic thought and how it can illuminate the NT. Throughout the book, Young draws parallels with the Sermon on the Mount in particular (especially chapter 5). This book draws a nice balance in its introduction to rabbinic figures, writings, and thought and makes an excellent introductory textbook. My only quibble with this book has to do with the ancient text index. For a book focused on rabbinic literature, I am surprised how sparse the rabbinic literature section is. A very small taint in what is otherwise an excellent book.

Hendrickson strikes again!

The UBS Greek New Testament: A Reader’s Edition
Hendrickson, 2007
712 pages
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The concept of this GNT is pretty simple: help novices learn to read Greek. It assumes at least an introductory year of NT Greek.

In place of the standard UBS apparatus sits the footnotes. All words (except the obvious ones that can be ’sounded out’) that occur less than 30 times are footnoted in the running dictionary. Irregular and difficult verb forms are also footnoted with their parsing.
Additionally their is a small dictionary of words occuring more than 30 times in the back of the book. The 2nd year Greek student needs no more than this book to continue the journey of learning NT Greek.

I would heartily recommend this book to any students who have finished their first year and are either done with their formal Greek training, or are continuing on. This is the NT book you want to have with you on Sunday morning while you are following the sermon. And for Greek teachers doing second year reading courses, I would recommend it as a good choice for your students.

The second Hendrickson book is another excellent Greek reader they put out. I’m even more excited about this one, as I’ve never read any of the patristic literature in Greek before.

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Rodney A. Whitacre
Hendrickson
279 Pages

Here is the TOC:

1. Introduction
2. The Didache
3. 1 Clement
4. Ignatius’s To The Romans
5. The Epistle to Diognetus
6. Martyrdom of Polycarp
7. Justin’s Martyr’s First Apology
8. Melito of Sardis’ On Pascha
9. Clement of Alexandria’s Miscellanies
10. Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History and Life of Constantine
11. Athanasius’ On the Incarnation
12. Gregory of Nazianzus’ Orations
13. Desert Fathers and Mothers, Apophthegmata Patrum
14. Chrysostom’s Homiliae in Matthaeum
15. Hesychios the Priest’s on Watchfulness and Holiness
16. Symeon the New Theologian’s Hymns
17. PART 2 gives the translation of the above portions.

From the Back:
This is more than a book .It’s an opportunity to learn Greek from a superlative teacher and to learn Christianity from the greatest ancient masters. Dr. Whitacre’s anthology is unique, a model of both pedagogy and mystagogy. The Spirit has been leading the churches to “return to the sources” and A Patristic Greek Reader is a beautiful beginning for that journey. Very highly recommended. — Mike Aquilina

Many young theologians find themselves eager to read the Greek Fathers, but are hampered by their command of little more than elementary New Testament Greek . A Patristic Greek Reader is exactly what they need. It provides passages from the first millennium of varying difficulty, accompanied by commentary explaining point of grammar and syntax. On their own, or in classes, this book will enable such students to raise their sights to the sometimes rather difficult Greek of the Fathers. It is a thoroughly excellent initiative. — Andrew Louth

The book contains 3 appendixes: a vocab list, a principal parts chart, and a list of the selections arranged in order of difficulty.

This reader is presented a little differently than Hendrickson’s Philippians reader that I mentioned in my previous book blurb. The greek portions for reading do not give any translation — these are found in section 2. I like this presentation, as it forces the user to try a hand at translating themselves rather than relying on the given translation. The grammatical notes within the Greek sections are thorough, giving both parsing of difficult forms and lexical forms of difficult words as well.

This is another fine addition to Hendrickson’s expanding list of Greek readers. The one little nitpicky complaint I have is that the author recommends bible software in the introduction, and Whitacre is clearly a PC user as he neglects to mention Accordance. Readers may get the impression that you can only get Greek digital editions of the material on a PC, which is not the case. It is good for authors to hit both Mac and PC users when recommending software.

Another great book to add to my recommended list for the 2nd semester of my intro Greek class!

I received 2 fine books from Hendrickson that I have been looking over. As I am now teaching intro Greek, I am very interested in these books for recommended reading, or for encouraging students to continue with Greek once the year is done.

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Jerry L. Sumney
Hendrickson
161 Pages

Here is the TOC:

1. Philippians 1:1-2 Epistolary Greeting
2. Philippians 1:3-11 Thanksgiving and Prayer
3. Philippians 1:12-26 Report of Paul’s Circumstances with Related Examples to Imitate and to Avoid
4. Philippians 1:27-2:18 Exhortations to Conform Community Life to the Example of Christ
5. Philippians 2:19-3:16 Contrasting Examples of Responses to the Gospel
6. Philippians 3:17-4:9 Application of Examples of Living in Accord with the Gospel with Explicit Exhortations
7. Philippians 4:10-20 Paul’s Thanksgiving to the Philippians for Their Gift to Him
8. Philippians 4:21-23 Epistolary Closing

The book includes an overview of the syntactical structure of NT Greek, a glossary of other terms, resources for further study, and an index of subjects.

From the Back:
“Jerry Sumner provides exactly what is needed to help students learn the challenging art of Greek exegesis. Its exceptional clarity and practical usefulness make this an ideal textbook. Sumney enables students to see the unique potential of Greek exegesis for understanding the New Testament. This is the perfect book for those who have completed beginning Greek. And if I could, I would put it into the hands of every such student.” — Donald A. Hagner

“This handbook will not only help students to interpret Philippians, but will greatly facilitate their grasp of the many grammatical categories of an intermediate Greek grammar. The book would serve as an excellent supplement to a second-year course or as a great refresher for pastors and teachers who have let their Greek New Testament get a little dusty.” — Clinton E. Arnold

Each section is broken down into smaller pericopes, and from here each verse is tackled one at a time. Along the way the grammar is clearly explained, with exegetical nuggets along the way.

I’m very greatful for this coming across my desk. It will be going on to my recommended books for my Greek class. Its my hope that I will inspire a few students to purchase this and work through it on their own to keep up their Greek.

I apologize for my lack of blogging. My first year as an adjunct faculty and p/t work has proven time-consuming. I hope life will return to a manageable hurricane so I can return to some more regular blogging soon.

For now, I’d like to offer a blurb for a book that has been mentioned on a view biblioblogs before. It is worth the overlap, believe me. I intend to offer another post beyond this one to discuss the book, but I didn’t want to hold off on the blurb.

Earlier this year I made an authoritative declaration that every NT scholar ought to read Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. This is now my second binding authoritative declaration: Every NT scholar needs to have this book on his or her shelf.

Jewish Believers in Jesus: the early centuries
Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik, editors
Hendrickson, 2007
a whopping 903 pages
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Here’s the TOC:

Part One: Introduction
1. Jewish Believers in Jesus in Antiquity—Problems of Definition, Method, and Sources. By Oskar Skarsaune
2. The Definition of the Terms Jewish Christian and Jewish Christianity in the History of Research. By James Carleton Paget,
   Part Two: Jewish Believers in Jesus in the New Testament and Related Material

3. James and the Jerusalem Community. By Richard Bauckham
4. Paul as a Jewish Believer—According to His Letters. By Donald A. Hagner
5. Paul as a Jewish Believer—According to the Book of Acts. By Reidar Hvalvik
6. Named Jewish Believers Connected with the Pauline Mission. By Reidar Hvalvik
7. Jewish Believers and Jewish Influence in the Roman Church until the Early Second Centur y. By Reidar Hvalvik
8. Jewish Believers in Asia Minor according to the Book of Revelation and the Gospel of John. By Peter Hirschberg
9. The Jewish Christian Gospel Tradition. By Craig A. Evans,
10. Jewish Christian Editing of the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. By Torleif Elgvin
11. Jewish Christian Elements in the Pseudo-Clementine Writings. By Graham Stanton
12. Fragments of Jewish Christian Literature Quoted in Some Greek and Latin Fathers. By Oskar Skarsaune
13. Jewish Christian Sources Used by Justin Martyr and Some Other Greek and Latin Fathers. By Oskar Skarsaune
    Part 4: Jewish Christian Groups according to the Greek and Latin Fathers

14. The Ebionites. By Oskar Skarsaune.
15. The Nazoraeans. By Wolfram Kinzig,
16. Cerinthus, Elxai, and Other Alleged Jewish Christian Teachers or Groups. By Gunnar af Hällström and Oskar Skarsaune.
    Part 5: Other Literary and Archaeological Evidence for Jewish Believers

17. Evidence for Jewish Believers in Greek and Latin Patristic Literature. By Oskar Skarsaune
18. Evidence for Jewish Believers in the Syriac Fathers. By Sten Hidal
19. Evidence for Jewish Believers in Christian-Jewish Dialogues through the Sixth Century (excluding Justin). By Lawrence Lahey
20. Evidence for Jewish Believers in “Church Orders” and Liturgical Texts. By Anders Ekenberg
21. Jewish Believers in Early Rabbinic Literature (2d to 5th Centuries). By Philip S. Alexander
22. Archaeological Evidence of Jewish Believers? By James F. Strange
    Part 6: Conclusion and Outlook

23. The Histor y of Jewish Believers in the Early Centuries— Perspectives and Framework. By Oskar Skarsaune

The book also has an excellent bibliography (over 100 pages), as well as modern authors, Subject, and Ancient Source indexes.

Here are two of the jacket blurbs:
This is a first-rate contribution by top scholars to our understanding of Jews who believed in Jesus during the first few centuries of Christianity. Not only does the volume address in depth the many complexities of the historical, social, literary, and religious aspects of Jewish believers in Jesus, it also admirably engages the very construction of scholarship on the topic. This is a comprehensive work of meticulous and careful scholarship that should be the standard reference on the subject for years to come. — Jeffrey S. Siker, Loyola Marymount University

Tor a long time, the accepted view on the early Jewish Christian community has been that after the Jewish war against the Romans that ended in A.D. 70 with the destruction of Jewusalem, the Jewish Christian community became a marginal phenomenon and soon disappeared in the Gentile Christian church. The contributions to the present book on Jewish believers in Jesus result in a fundamental revision of this picture. It shows that more or less close relations between Jewish believers in Jesus Christ and Judaism continued at least into the Constantinian period (4th century) in spite of the endeavors of leaders on both sides to get their view of a fundamental opposition between Judaism and Christianity generally accepted. I consider the accumulated evidence for the revision of this picture very persuasive. It amounts to a strong suggestion that for a long period the disagreements concerning the person of Jesus did not prevent a continuing awareness of the fact that Jewish believers in Jesus and even Christians from the Gentiles could feel they believe in the same God as the Jews did. This view of the relationship should also have an impact on contemporary Jewish Christian dialogue.” — Dr. Wolfhart Pannenberg, University of Munich (Emeritus)

Oskar Skarsaune wrote 238 pages out of 778 written pages. That’s just below a 3rd of the essays. It is to Skarsaune’s credit that other voices were brought into dialogue with his substantial amount of work on the subject— between the two editors a 350 page book could have been published. This book seeks to take a fresh look at the make-up of early Christianity. I am looking forward to digging into this book further, and recommend it to Deinde readers.

This is the second of 2 great books I received from Hendrickson. It has been a busy summer (hence the lack of blogging) but I want to blurb this book and 2 new books I recently received from IVP as well. So here goes:

Johannine Discipleship as a Covenant Relationship
Rekha M. Chennattu
Hendrickson, 2006
256 pages
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Here is the TOC:
1. An Introduction to the Discipleship Motif
2. The Old Testament Covenant Motif and John 13-17
3. Discipleship and Covenant in John 13-17
4. Covenant-Discipleship Motifs in John 20-21
5. The Covenant-Discipleship Motif and the Johannine Community
The book includes an excellent bibliography as well as author, subject, and ancient text indexes.

From the back:
“Working on the literary, theological, and historical levels, Rekha Chennattu has produced a remarkably fine example of modern Gospel study. Her apprach has produced a remarkably fine example of modern Gospel study. Her approach to biblical theology—embracing close readings of the Johannine discipleship texts, the biblical motif of covenant, Johannine theology in general, and the historical situation of the Johannine community—is a model of how this discipline can be carried out effectively and fruitfully. Her scholarly study of discipleship in John’s Gospel has important implications for understanding Christian life today.” — Daniel J. Harrington

“This book is a masterful fusion of the historical-critical method and narrative criticism. Exegesis of the discipleship narratives and discourses in the Fourth Gospel is combined with an analysis of the Old Testament covenant motifs behind its concept of discipleship and of the function and relevance of the discipleship paradigm for the Johannine community. It makes a major original contribution to Johannine scholarship and may well serve as a model for future New Testament Studies.” — Francis T. Gignac

The book also contains a fine foreward by Francis J. Moloney

There is also a fine review of this book available here, which points out the strengths and weaknesses of the book.

For my part, I enjoyed poking through this book and jotted down some notes in my Accordance notes, its exegesis of the passages in question are illuminating. The discussion of covenant motif is also very good. It is worth being on the shelf of any Johannine scholar.