In this book, Thomas Ogletree seeks to establish common ground between biblical understandings and contemporary ethical inquiry. Drawing upon phenomenological investigations, he criticizes and modifies some of the most prominent conceptions of ethics, and moves toward a more coherent and comprehensive ethical theory. Guided by this theory, he critically engages selected biblical treatments of the moral life, placing special emphasis on biblical accounts of eschatology in its import for the ordered life of emerging Christian communities.

This book explores the central function of the concept "repentance" in the narrative structure and implied social world of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, and provides an excellent synthesis and analysis of the usage of "repent" and "repentance" in Classical, Hellenistic, Hellenistic Jewish, and early Christian literature. Paperback edition is available from the Society of Biblical Literature (www.sbl-site.org)

This volume contains twenty-two essays in honor of Carl R. Holladay, whose work on the interaction between early Christianity and Hellenistic Judaism has had a considerable impact on the study of the New Testament. The essays are grouped into three sections: Hellenistic Judaism; the New Testament in Context; and the History of Interpretation. Among the contributions are essays dealing with conversion in Greek-speaking Judaism and Christianity; 3 Maccabees as a narrative satire; retribution theology in Luke-Acts; church discipline in Matthew; the Exodus and comparative chronology in Jewish and patristic writings; corporal punishment in ancient Israel and early Christianity; and Die Judenfrage and the construction of ancient Judaism.

In this widely-acclaimed study, Dr Esler makes extensive use of sociology and anthropology to examine the author of Luke Acts' theology as a response to social and political pressures upon the Christian community for whom he was writing. As well as interesting those concerned with recent developments in New Testament scholarship, Esler's book offers a New Testament paradigm for those interested in generating a theology attuned to the social and political realities affecting contemporary Christian congregations.

While several recent studies have suggested that the Gospel of Luke recommends generous almsgiving or a relatively benign sharing ethic that mimics existing redistibutive measures in early Roman Palestine, this book argues that a much more subversive reading of the Gospel's wealth and possessions traditions is defensible.

This study presents a coherent interpretation of the Malta episode by arguing that Acts 28:1-10 narrates a theoxeny, that is, an account of unknowing hospitality to a god which results in the establishment of a fictive kinship relationship between the Maltese barbarians and Paul and his God. In light of the connection between hospitality and piety to the gods in the ancient Mediterranean, Luke ends his second volume in this manner to portray Gentile hospitality as the appropriate response to Paul’s message of God’s salvation -- a response that portrays them as hospitable exemplars within the Lukan narrative and contrasts them with the Roman Jews who reject Paul and his message.