Ben Witherington
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2 Corinthians
$49.99Add to cartThe Spirit who inspired the authors of the New Testament is at work today around the globe, as evidenced by the explosive growth of pentecostal, charismatic, and renewalist movements. There is a clear need for a balanced, affordable, and accessible commentary series aimed at Christians who identify as Spirit-filled.
The Word and Spirit Commentary on the New Testament series emphasizes how we listen alongside ancient audiences for the Spirit’s voice in our time and contexts. Written by pastorally sensitive biblical scholars from the Spirit-filled tradition, these commentaries explore how God works in the biblical texts and how Christians can expect God to work today, even if in new or culturally surprising ways. Series editors are Holly Beers, Westmont College, and Craig S. Keener, Asbury Theological Seminary.
In this addition to the series, senior scholar Ben Witherington III engages 2 Corinthians in its ancient setting and explores its message for Spirit-filled Christians today. Images, illustrations, and sidebars on pentecostal/charismatic/revival history or insights are included.
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Voices And Views On Paul
$32.99Add to cartWith Voices and Views on Paul, Ben Witherington and Jason Myers have teamed up to provide a reliable guide to the major terrain of Pauline scholarship. They explain and analyze developments over the past two decades, including the New Perspective, the apocalyptic Paul, and Paul within Judaism. After establishing the historical context, starting with the shift in Pauline studies begun by Krister Stendahl, Witherington and Myers interact with the thought of recent major Pauline interpreters. They conclude with an assessment of how these studies have advanced our understanding of Paul and where further work is needed. Through a distinctive combination of survey and evaluation, Voices and Views on Paul offers a helpful service to students, pastors, and anyone seeking to keep up with this dynamic field as scholars continue to wrestle with Paul and his work.
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Who God Is
$16.99Add to cartDo you know the character of our God–do you know who God is?
What does it mean to say that God is love, light, life, and spirit? In Who God Is, world-renowned New Testament scholar Ben Witherington III explores the nature and character of the God of the Bible by focusing specifically on the nouns used to describe who God is. This rich exploration has its foundation in a deep reading of the biblical text. Reflecting on these descriptions of God gives us a fresh understanding of the beauty and uniqueness of the character of our God.
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Priscilla : The Life Of An Early Christian
$22.99Add to cartWho was Priscilla? Ben Witherington combines biblical scholarship and winsome storytelling to give readers a vivid picture of this important New Testament woman. In this work of historical fiction, Priscilla’s story makes the first-century biblical world come alive as she looks back on her long life and remembers the ways she has participated in the early church.
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Torah Old And New
$49.00Add to cartReading the books of the Law, the Pentateuch, in their original context is the crucial prerequisite for reading their citation and use in later interpretation, including the New Testament writings, argues Ben Witherington III. Here, he offers pastors, teachers, and students an accessible commentary on the Pentateuch, as well as a reasoned consideration of how these books were heard and read in early Christianity. By reading “forward and backward,” Witherington advances the scholarly discussion of intertextuality and opens a new avenue for biblical theology.
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Week In The Fall Of Jerusalem
$17.99Add to cart22 Chapters
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It’s A.D. 70. Jerusalem and its temple have been destroyed by the Romans. As Jews and Christians escape the terror, we travel with some of them through an imagined week of flight and faith. A scribe heads for Galilee in search of records of Jesus’ life and teachings. And a company of women makes its way to a new life in Pella. -
Isaiah Old And New
$39.00Add to cartReading the Book of Isaiah in its original context is the crucial prerequisite for reading its citation and use in later interpretation, including the New Testament writings, argues Ben Witherington III. Here he offers pastors, teachers, and students an accessible commentary to Isaiah, as well as a reasoned consideration of how Isaiah was heard and read in early Christianity. By reading forward and backward Witherington advances the scholarly discussion of intertextuality and opens a new avenue for biblical theology.
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Epistles Of 2 Corinthians And 1 Peter
$60.99Add to cartRecently discovered in the Durham Cathedral Library, J. B. Lightfoot’s commentaries on the Epistles of 2 Corinthians and 1 Peter are of great significance to both church and academy. Carefully transcribed and edited, these texts give us a new appreciation for Lightfoot’s contributions to biblical scholarship.
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Letters And Homilies For Hellenized Christians
$55.99Add to cartLetters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians, Volume 2 is the third of three volumes extending Ben Witherington’s innovative socio-rhetorical analysis of New Testament books to the latter-Pauline and non-Pauline corpora. By dividing the volumes according to the socioreligious contexts for which they were written, Witherington sheds fresh light on the documents, their provenance, character and importance. Throughout, Witherington shows his thorough knowledge of recent literature on these texts and focuses his attention on the unique insights brought about through socio-rhetorical analysis that either reinforces or corrects those gleaned from other approaches. “Bridging the Horizons” sections point to the relevance of the text for believers today, making this volume of special value to pastors and general readers as well as to students and scholars.
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Letters And Homilies For Jewish Christians
$50.99Add to cartIn this commentary on Hebrews, James and Jude, Ben Witherington III applies his socio-rhetorical method to elucidate these letters within their primarily Jewish context, probing the social setting of the readers and the rhetorical strategies of the authors of the letters.
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New Testament Theology And Ethics 2
$44.99Add to cartAll too often, argues Ben Witherington, the theology of the New Testament has been divorced from its ethics, leaving as isolated abstractions what are fully integrated, dynamic elements within the New Testament itself. As Witherington stresses, “behavior affects and reinforces or undoes belief.” In this paperback edition of The Indelible Image, Volume 2, Witherington offers the second of a two-volume set on the theological and ethical thought world of the New Testament. The first volume looks at the individual witnesses, while the second examines the collective witness. The New Testament, says Ben Witherington, is “like a smallish choir. All are singing the same cantata, but each has an individual voice and is singing its own parts and notes. If we fail to pay attention to all the voices in the choir, we do not get the entire effect. . . . If this first volume is about closely analyzing the sheet music left to us by which each musician’s part is delineated, the second volume will attempt to re-create what it might have sounded like had they ever gotten together and performed their scores to produce a single masterful cantata.” What the New Testament authors have in mind, Witherington contends, is that all believers should be conformed in thought, word and deed to the image of Jesus Christ-the indelible image.
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New Testament Theology And Ethics 1
$44.99Add to cartAll too often, argues Ben Witherington, the theology of the New Testament has been divorced from its ethics, leaving as isolated abstractions what are fully integrated, dynamic elements within the New Testament itself. As Witherington stresses, “behavior affects and reinforces or undoes belief.” In this paperback edition of The Indelible Image, Volume 1, Witherington offers the first of a two-volume set on the theological and ethical thought world of the New Testament. The first volume looks at the individual witnesses, while the second examines the collective witness. The New Testament, says Ben Witherington, is “like a smallish choir. All are singing the same cantata, but each has an individual voice and is singing its own parts and notes. If we fail to pay attention to all the voices in the choir, we do not get the entire effect. . . . If this first volume is about closely analyzing the sheet music left to us by which each musician’s part is delineated, the second volume will attempt to re-create what it might have sounded like had they ever gotten together and performed their scores to produce a single masterful cantata.” What the New Testament authors have in mind, Witherington contends, is that all believers should be conformed in thought, word and deed to the image of Jesus Christ-the indelible image.
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Gospel Of Saint John
$60.99Add to cartInterVarsity Press is proud to present The Lightfoot Legacy, a three-volume set of previously unpublished material from J. B. Lightfoot, one of the great biblical scholars of the modern era. In the spring of 2013, Ben Witherington III discovered hundreds of pages of biblical commentary by Lightfoot in the Durham Cathedral Library. While incomplete, these commentaries represent a goldmine for historians and biblical scholars, as well as for the many people who have found Lightfoot’s work both informative and edifying, deeply learned and pastorally sensitive. In addition to the material on the Acts of the Apostles, published in volume one, there were detailed notes on the Fourth Gospel, a text that Lightfoot loved and lectured on frequently. These pages contain his commentary notes for John 1-12. Lightfoot had long wanted to write a commentary on the Gospel of John, but he was unable to do so due to more pressing demands on his time, as well as his respect for his colleague B. F. Westcott. As a result, though he continued to compile notes on the text, they never saw the light of day until now. Included alongside the commentary are Lightfoot’s long out-of-print essays on the historical reliability of the Fourth Gospel. Now on display for all to see, these commentary volumes reveal a scholar well ahead of his time, one of the great minds of his or any generation.
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Acts Of The Apostles
$60.99Add to cartInterVarsity Press is proud to present The Lightfoot Legacy, a three-volume set of previously unpublished material from J. B. Lightfoot, one of the great biblical scholars of the modern era. In the spring of 2013, Ben Witherington III discovered hundreds of pages of biblical commentary by Lightfoot in the cathedral library of Durham University. While incomplete, these commentaries represent a goldmine for historians and biblical scholars, as well as for the many people who have found Lightfoot’s work both informative and edifying, deeply learned and pastorally sensitive. Among those many pages were two sets of lecture notes on the Acts of the Apostles. Together they amount to a richly detailed, albeit unfinished, commentary on Acts 1-21. The project of writing a commentary on Acts had long been on Lightfoot’s mind, and in the 1880s he wrote an article about the book for the second British edition of William smith’s Dictionary of the Bible. Thankfully, that is not all he left behind. Salvaged from the dustbin of history, these commentary notes reveal a scholar well ahead of his time, one of the great minds of his or any generation. Well over a century later, The Acts of the Apostles remains a relevant and significant resource for the church today.
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Week In The Life Of Corinth
$19.99Add to cartIn this fictional re-creation, the world-famous New Testament academic helps us enter into the concerns of everyday Christians in the first century. Through the eyes of a Corinthian merchant, we sense typical sights, sounds, and smells; the intellectual milieu; and moral quandaries. Includes helpful sidebars, maps, and diagrams throughout.
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Pauls Letter To The Philippians
$41.99Add to cartSkeptical of the trend among many biblical scholars to analyze Paul’s short, affectionate letter to the Philippians in light of Greco-Roman letter-writing conventions, Ben Witherington instead looks at Philippians as a masterful piece of long-distance oratory–an extension of Paul’s speech, dictated to a scribe and meant to be read aloud to its recipients.
In Paul’s letter to the Philippians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary Witherington examines Paul’s short but powerful letter in light of Greco-Roman rhetorical conventions, identifying Paul’s purpose, highlighting his main points and his persuasive strategies, and considering how his original audience would have heard and received Paul’s message.
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Work : A Kingdom Perspective On Labor
$22.99Add to cartRedefines work as a good gift from God
Most Christians spend most of their waking hours working, yet little has been written of late on the biblical theology and ethics of work. In this brief primer on work in the Bible, Ben Witherington shows that work is neither the curse nor the cure of human life but, rather, something good that God has given to us to do.
Unpacks the concept of work and its relationship to rest, play, and worship, showing the place of work in the normal cycle of human life
Discusses work as calling, work as ministry, work as a way to make a living, the unbiblical notion of retirement, and more
Offers Bible-based insights from Genesis to Revelation -
We Have Seen His Glory
$22.99Add to cartPrelude
We Have Seen His Glory: The Day Is Coming And Now Is
Glorifying The Creator And Redeemer
Worship As Sabbatical
The Legacy Of Judaism
Glorifying God In A Bolder Way
Illuminating The Good News
Work And Worship – Labors Of Love?
Doxology: The End And Aim Of All Things
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We Have Seen His Glory asks – and answers – the question of what worship would and should look like in light of the eschatological future, of kingdom come. Ben Witherington here contends that it cannot be a matter of merely continuing ancient practices. Instead, it must also be a matter of preparation for worship in the Kingdom of God when it comes on earth. / “I am convinced that one of the great problems to having a more reflective and more Christian approach to worship is that even many of our ministers and worship leaders have very little understanding of what the New Testament actually says about worship, what it is meant to be, what it entails, and what we ought to do. In this study I hope to remedy some of that problem and tease some minds into active thought about what worship should look like if we really believe that God’s Kingdom is coming. . . . It is time for us to explore a more Biblical and Kingdom-oriented vision of worship.” / – Ben Witherington, from the prelude -
Imminent Domain : The Story Of The Kingdom Of God And Its Celebration
$15.99Add to cartWhat is the kingdom of God? Where is it? How should the church celebrate the coming of the kingdom? In this popularly written study Ben Witherington addresses these and various other questions about the ever-elusive kingdom of God. Clearly defining the kingdom in terms of God’s dominion, Witherington discusses both its present (“already”) and future (“not yet”) dimensions, and he brings out at length the implications of kingdom thinking for theology, ethics, and worship.
Filled with practical wisdom on the kingdom of God and how to celebrate it faithfully, Imminent Domain fills a real niche.
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Letters To Philemon The Colossians And The Ephesians
$42.99Add to cartThis volume completes Ben Witherington’s own contributions to the Eerdmans socio-rhetorical series of commentaries on the New Testament. Besides the usual features of this series, Witherington offers an innovative way of looking at Colossians, Ephesians, and Philemon as inter-related documents written at different levels of moral discourse. Colossians is first order moral discourse (the opening gambit), Ephesians is second order moral discourse (what one says next after the opening salvo to the same audience), and Philemon is third order moral discourse (what one says to a personal friend or intimate). Witherington successfully analyzes these documents as examples of Asiatic rhetoric, explaining the difference in style from earlier Pauline documents. He further shows that Paul is deliberately engaging in the transformation of existing social institutions. As always, Witherington’s work is scholarly and engaging, and will be welcome on any shelf.
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What Have They Done With Jesus
$16.99Add to cartStrange theories about Jesus seem to ooze from our culture with increasing regularity. Ben Witherington, one of the top Jesus scholars, will have none of it. There were no secret Gnostic teachings in the first century. With leading scholars and popular purveyors of bad history in his crosshairs, Witherington reveals what we can-and cannot-claim to know about the real Jesus. The Bible, not outside sources, is still the most trustworthy historical record we have today.
Utilizing a fresh “personality profile” approach, Witherington highlights core Christian claims by investigating the major figures in Jesus’s inner circle of followers: Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Thomas, Peter, James the brother of Jesus, Paul, and the mysterious “beloved disciple.” In each chapter Witherington satisfies our curiosities and answers the full range of questions about these key figures and what each of them can teach us about the historical Jesus. What Have They Done with Jesus? is a vigorous defense of traditional Christianity that offers a compelling portrait of Jesus’s core message according to those who knew him best.
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Gospel Code
$28.99Add to cartIVP Print On Demand Title
Blurring the line between fact and fiction, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code raises a controversial question. Did the early church suppress ancient documents revealing long-buried secrets about Jesus? Witherington takes you back to the time following Christ’s death to reveal what we can really know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, the canonical Gospels, and their Gnostic rivals.
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New Testament Story Print On Demand Title
$32.99Add to cartA Print on Demand Title
This informative, clearly written book introduces the New Testament in two main ways: (1) it explains where the New Testament came from, and (2) it examines the New Testament writings themselves.
Ben Witherington first tells how and why the New Testament documents were written and collected and how they came to be known as the New Testament that we have today. He then discusses the main stories and major figures in the New Testament. Witherington looks particularly at the Gospels, examining how and why their stories differ and pointing out what these ancient biographies actually say about Jesus. He also surveys the ways that these stories were told and retold, explaining how this literary development has influenced Christian theology, ethics, and social thought. Each chapter ends with a section called “Exercises and Questions for Reflection and Study” (written by Darlene Hyatt), making this book especially useful for Sunday school classes and group Bible studies.
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Brother Of Jesus (Revised)
$15.99Add to cartThe first definitive account of what scholars and the media are calling ‘the most important archaeological discovery’ about Jesus and his family.
This is the definitive story of the recent discovery of the first-century ossuary (limestone bone box) with the legend ‘James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus’, and its implications for understanding Jesus, his family (mother, father, brothers), his followers, the first Christians and the Jewish Christian movement in Jerusalem that James led. This ossuary is the first ever archaeological discovery directly confirming the existence of Jesus, and his relationship to his father, Joseph, and brother, James, who became the leader of the important Jewish Christian community in Jerusalem. No one is as qualified and well connected to recount the discovery and its authentication as Hershel Shanks, whose magazine first broke the story.
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Pauls Letter To The Romans
$48.99Add to cartContinuing his series of highly regarded and innovative socio-rhetorical commentaries on the New Testament, Ben Witherington now tackles Romans, perhaps the most profound and difficult book of the New Testament.
Interacting with recent treatments of this Pauline letter and with ancient Christian commentators, Witherington shows that the interpretation of Romans since the Reformation has been far too indebted to Augustinian readings of the text as filtered through Luther, Calvin, and others. Instead, Witherington urges a reading of the text in light of early Jewish theology, the historical situation of Rome, and Paul’s own rhetorical concerns.
Offering a new translation of the Greek text and new insights into Paul and his world, this commentary sheds fresh light on the meaning of Romans for its original audience and for Christian readers today.
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Shadow Of The Almighty
$21.99Add to cartThe Shadow of the Almighty introduces readers to the nature of God by exploring the biblical references to God as “Father,” “Son,” and “Holy Spirit.” This fruitful approach offers fresh insight into the meaning of the biblical language used for God, giving readers the background necessary for properly understanding the trinitarian perspective of the New Testament and of the Christian faith.
Divided into four chapters, the book looks at “Father” language in early Judaism, at “Father” language in early Christianity, at “Son” language, and at language designating the Spirit. This thorough review of the traditional God language across the biblical texts shows what the earliest Christians understood by using these terms and, ultimately, what these terms mean for modern faith and practice.
While much of this material is deceptively familiar, the authors’ close examination of how and where the different terms are used reveals some surprising results. It makes clear, for example, that speaking of God in trinitarian terms was not as radical a departure from early Jewish monotheism as many have thought, and it shows that while early Christianity was characterized by disparate ideas, the first Christians nevertheless shared a common understanding of God. Equally engaging findings of the book include the authors’ support for the traditional gendered term “Father” when speaking about God.
Complete with helpful questions at the end of each chapter, The Shadow of the Almighty provides an excellent place to begin a deeper study of God.
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Paul Quest : The Renewed Search For The Jew Of Tarsus
$42.99Add to cartIn this paper edition of The Paul Ben Witherington examines the various profiles of the historical Paul that have been newly discovered or refurbished. One of the great gains of this quest has been a reencounter with Paul the Jew. The flood of new insight into Judaism of the first century has illuminated features of Paul that were previously obscured. In this timely work, a reacquaintance with the classical Roman world has filled in even more details of Paul’s life and work.
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Gospel Of Mark
$47.99Add to cart472 Pages
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This superb commentary offers the first sustained attempt to read the Gospel of Mark both as an ancient biography and as a form of ancient rhetoric. Leading New Testament scholar Ben Witherington applies to Mark the socio-rhetorical approach for which he is well known, opening a fresh new perspective on the earliest Gospel. Witherington’s work provides us with a fascinating view of how the life and teachings of Jesus were presented to a largely non-Jewish auidence – and what this presentation of Jesus still holds for Christians today. -
Jesus The Sage
$32.00Add to cartIn the early Jesus movement, wisdom in the person of Jesus was believed to have returned to heaven, exalted to the right hand of God, and to reign from there. But Jesus as wisdom had left both his legacy and his influence behind. The sayings of Jesus recorded in the Gospels reflect not only the influence of the Israelite wisdom traditions, but also the tradition of the personification of wisdom.
In this provocative volume newly available in paperback, Ben Witherington provides both an introduction to Israel’s wisdom traditions and insight into how Jesus and his sayings fit in that tradition. Beyond this, he demonstrates the on-going significance and influence of these traditions on other New Testament writings. He concludes that Jesus may be viewed primarily as a prophetic sage emphasizing instruction, insight, and humor in a vein counter to the dominant culture.
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Jesus Paul And The End Of The World
$35.99Add to cartIVP Print On Demand Title
Ben Wetherington takes a hard look at the Gospel texts and makes a thorough and critical assessment of Paul’s eschatology. For each topic examined; the language of imminence, the dominion of God, the community of Christ, the Israel of God, the day of the Lord and the resurrection of the dead; he compares and contrasts Jesus and Paul. The result is an important contribution to our understanding of New Testament eschatology.
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Grace In Galatia
$62.99Add to cartFocusing on Paul’s most polemical letter, Ben Witherington’s groundbreaking Grace in Galatia features the latest discussion of major issues in Pauline studies. Paul’s view of the law and the relationship between the historical data in Galatians and Acts are meticulously explored, while special sections at the end of each chapter highlight the relevance of the text for today’s believer. An illuminating, accessible commentary for general readers, as well as students and scholars!
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Jesus Quest
$38.99Add to cartIn recent years, John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, and Burton Mack have sparked controversy with their conclusions on the historical Jesus. Professor Witherington, in this popular critical review, presents the work of E.P. Sanders, N.T. Wright, and other noted scholars to give a clear, balanced understanding of the debate.
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History Literature And Society In The Book Of Acts
$135.00Add to cartThese essays use an interdisciplinary approach for recent Book of Acts scholarship. Insights from the social sciences, narratological studies, Greek and Roman rhetoric and history, and classics, set Acts in its original historical, literary and social context. These methods of interpretation have only recently been applied to Acts in a systematic way. This is a valuable overview of some of the chief preoccupations of current biblical studies from leading scholars in Old and New Testament studies and the history of antiquity.
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Johns Wisdom : A Commentary On The Fourth Gospel
$58.00Add to cartJesus as depicted in the Fourth Gospel is remarkably dissimilar to the Jesus found in the Synoptic Gospels. In this book, Ben Witherington III places the Gospel of John within its proper literary, historical, social, and theological contexts, especially those dealing with the wisdom traditions of Hellenistic Judaism. What emerges is a compelling argument that the Gospel of John has an agenda for mission in addition to concerns for discipleship and community life.
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Conflict And Community In Corinth
$46.99Add to cartThis unprecedented commentary by Ben Witherington III sheds fresh light on the context and content of Paul’s message by analyzing 1 and 2 Corinthians in terms of Greco Roman Rhetoric– the standard means of persuasion in his day– and ancient social conditions and customs. This innovative approach, combined with commentary that discusses the text according to its rhetorical units rather than the usual verse-by-verse procedure, offers a new way of looking at Paul’s relationship with his Corinthian converts.
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Women In The Earliest Churches (Reprinted)
$63.99Add to cartThis book examines the roles and functions that women assumed in the early Christian communities from AD 33 to the Council of Nicaea. It surveys, too, the views about women held by various New Testament authors including Paul and the Evangelists.
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Women And The Genesis Of Christianity
$49.99Add to cartThis study explores the role of women in New Testament times. Beginning with the woman’s place in Judaism, in the Hellenistic world, and in the Roman Empire, Witherington demonstrates how Jesus broke significantly with convention in how he viewed women, offering as he did a wholly new conception of the legitimate rights of women in society.
