How did New Testament authors use Israel’s Scriptures? Use, misuse, appropriation, citation, allusion, inspiration—how do we characterize the manifold images, paraphrases, and quotations of the Jewish Scriptures that pervade the New Testament? Over the past few decades, scholars have tackled the question with a variety of methodologies. New Testament authors were part of a broader landscape of Jewish readers interpreting Scripture. Recent studies have sought to understand the various compositional techniques of the early Christians who composed the New Testament in this context and on the authors’ own terms. In this landmark collection of essays, Matthias Henze and David Lincicum marshal an international group of renowned scholars to analyze the New Testament, text-by-text, aiming to better understand what roles Israel’s Scriptures play therein. In addition to explicating each book, the essayists also cut across texts to chart the most important central concepts, such as the messiah, covenants, and the end times. Carefully constructed reception history of both testaments rounds out the volume. Comprehensive and foundational, Israel’s Scriptures in Early Christian Writings will serve as an essential resource for biblical scholars for years to come. Contributors: Garrick V. Allen, Michael Avioz, Martin Bauspiess, Richard J. Bautch, Ian K. Boxall, Marc Zvi Brettler, Jaime Clark-Soles, Michael B. Cover, A. Andrew Das, Susan Docherty, Paul Foster, Jörg Frey, Alexandria Frisch, Edmon L. Gallagher, Gabriella Gelardini, Jennie Grillo, Gerd Häfner, Matthias Henze, J. Thomas Hewitt, Robin M. Jensen, Martin Karrer, Matthias Konradt, Katja Kujanpää, John R. Levison, David Lincicum, Grant Macaskill, Tobias Nicklas, Valérie Nicolet, Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr, George Parsenios, Benjamin E. Reynolds, Dieter T. Roth, Dietrich Rusam, Jens Schröter, Claudia Setzer, Elizabeth Evans Shively, Michael Karl-Heinz Sommer, Angela Standhartinger, Gert J. Steyn, Todd D. Still, Rodney A. Werline, Benjamin Wold, Archie T. Wright

This book explores the ways in which early Christian writers and communities, from late antiquity through the New Testament period, interpreted the scriptures of Israel, as they sought to understand Jesus and the Gospel in relation to God's revelation and past acts in history. These essays represent work on the growing edge of studies of the relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament. The contents, authored by both veteran and younger scholars, treat methods and canons, Jesus and the Gospels, and Acts and the Epistles.

Opening Israel's Scriptures is a collection of thirty-six essays on the Hebrew Bible, from Genesis to Chronicles, which gives powerful insight into the complexity and inexhaustibility of the Hebrew Scriptures as a theological resource. Based on more than two decades of lectures on Old Testament interpretation, Ellen F. Davis offers a selective yet comprehensive guide to the core concepts, literary patterns, storylines, and theological perspectives that are central to Israel's Scriptures. Underlying the whole study is the primary assumption that each book of the canon has literary and theological coherence, though not uniformity. In both her close readings of individual texts and in her broad demonstrations of the coherence of whole books, Davis models the best practices of contemporary exegesis, integrating the insights of contemporary scholars with those of classical theological resources in Jewish and Christian traditions. Throughout, she keeps an eye to the experiences and concerns of contemporary readers, showing through multiple examples that the critical interpretation of texts is provisional, open-ended work--a collaboration across generations and cultures. Ultimately what she offers is an invitation into the more spacious world that the Bible discloses, which challenges ordinary conceptions of how things "really" are.

The Scriptures of Israel in Jewish and Christian Tradition is a collection of studies in honour of Professor Maarten J.J. Menken (Tilburg/Utrecht) and illustrates the rich diversity of approaches to biblical interpretation at the beginning of the Common Era. An international team of specialists share their insights on such topics as the availability of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts, Jewish and Christian hermeneutics, notions of authority and inspiration and even a study of inscriptions. Each in its own way demonstrates that the relationship between text and tradition, culture and belief is always complex.

"Magisterial. . . . A learned, brilliant and enjoyable study."—Géza Vermès, Times Literary Supplement In this exciting book, Paula Fredriksen explains the variety of New Testament images of Jesus by exploring the ways that the new Christian communities interpreted his mission and message in light of the delay of the Kingdom he had preached. This edition includes an introduction reviews the most recent scholarship on Jesus and its implications for both history and theology. "Brilliant and lucidly written, full of original and fascinating insights."—Reginald H. Fuller, Journal of the American Academy of Religion "This is a first-rate work of a first-rate historian."—James D. Tabor, Journal of Religion "Fredriksen confronts her documents—principally the writings of the New Testament—as an archaeologist would an especially rich complex site. With great care she distinguishes the literary images from historical fact. As she does so, she explains the images of Jesus in terms of the strategies and purposes of the writers Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John."—Thomas D’Evelyn, Christian Science Monitor

Matthias Henze has prepared the editio princeps of the Syriac Apocalypse of Daniel, a hitherto unknown apocalypse composed in the early seventh century A.D. in Syriac and preserved in a single manuscript only. Following an introduction to the Apocalypse, the book includes an edition of the Syriac text, an English translation, and a detailed commentary.Like the biblical Daniel on which it is closely modelled, the Syriac Apocalypse of Daniel is an 'historical' apocalypse, i.e. it has two parts: the 'historical' first part relates the adventures of Daniel in midrashic form, from his deportation by Nebuchadnezzar until his return to Persia from Jerusalem which he visits with King Darius. Upon returning to Persia, Daniel has a sequence of apocalyptic visions which are recorded in the latter, eschatological part of the text and which describe the gradual unfolding of the end of time.The Syriac Apocalypse has preserved a number of motifs worth exploring: the messianic woes, the Gates of the North erected by Alexander the Great, a description of Antichrist's physiognomy, the Second Coming of Christ, and the new Jerusalem. Equally important, the Syriac Apocalypse of Daniel bears testimony to the vibrant apocalyptic currency in Syriac Christianity.