Since the second edition of this book appeared in 1954, two major discoveries in the field of Aramaic studies—the Qumran texts and the Neofiti Targum—have been made available to scholars. These, along with some important publications on the subject, have made this third edition necessary. The book has been completely revised and reset and the supplementary notes of the second edition incorporated in the text; a new chapter has been added to take account of the implications of the new discoveries for previous views about the language of Jesus. Those parts of the book dealing with Acts have been revised and supplemented in the light of Dr. Max Wilcox’s important book on the Semitisms of Acts; and an Appendix by Dr. Geza Vermes, Reader in Jewish Studies in Oxford, has been added containing fresh evidence for the use of the expression “son of man” in Palestinian Aramaic.

This second edition of An Introduction to the New Testament provides readers with pertinent material and a helpful framework that will guide them in their understanding of the New Testament texts. Many new and diverse cultural, historical, social-scientific, sociorhetorical, narrative, textual, and contextual studies have been examined since the publication of the first edition, which was in print for twenty years. The authors retain the original tripartite arrangement on 1) The world of the New Testament, 2) Interpreting the New Testament, and 3) Jesus and early Christianity. An appropriate book for anyone who seeks to better understand what is involved in the exegesis of New Testaments texts today.

Much has changed in the more than two decades since the first edition of this book appeared. Parable scholarship continues to be a dynamic area of New Testament research, and a number of important studies were published and significant developments have occurred during those years. Jesus’s parables, these simple but profound stories, continue to challenge us, and, even after many readings, continue to reveal new insights.

This second volume of A Key to the Peshitta Gospels again provides a range of information, previously unpublished, essential to the study of the Peshitta Gospel text as a translation of the Greek and as a literary work in its own right. It is designed to serve both scholar and student. The Key, in which each word is classified according to its Syriac root, provides a) a Syriac-English dictionary, b) the notation of the part of speech for each Syriac term, c) referenced contextual phrases in English that illustrate a word’s meanings, d) Syriac words of similar meaning, e) the corresponding Greek term for each Syriac term, f) a complete analytical concordance, g) an alphabetical index of Syriac catchwords, h) an index of Syriac verbal and nominal forms, i) an English index, j) an index of grammatical and general information. The Key can be used as a lexicon, concordance, thesaurus, critical guide to Syriac-Greek correspondences, or resource for the critical investigation of the Syriac text of the Peshitta Gospels..

This book explores the Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis (MPH), a largely neglected solution to the Synoptic Problem which holds that the author of the Gospel of Luke used the Gospel of Mark as a source, and that the author of the Gospel of Matthew used both the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Luke as sources. MacEwen begins with a survey of the scholars who have defended various forms of the MPH. Chapter 2 discusses two key lines of evidence which support the MPH. The first line of evidence is textual - demonstrating that Matthew could have known the contents of Luke's Gospel beyond merely the double tradition material. The second line of evidence, involving a study of strings of verbatim agreements in the Gospels, supports the view that Matthew depended directly on Luke. Chapter 3 explores evidence and arguments which can be seen as problematic for the MPH. MacEwen concludes that the MPH has been neither definitely proved nor disproved, and deserves further scholarly scrutiny.

Updated ed. of: Targum and Testament. 1972.

V. 1. How to study the historical Jesus -- v. 2. The study of Jesus -- v. 3. The historical Jesus -- v. 4. Individual studies.