This groundbreaking study poses a solution to what one scholar has called "one of the most difficult research problems in the history of ideas"—the Synoptic problem. The phenomenon and mystery of three similar but different Synoptic Gospels has for centuries challenged some of the best minds of academia and the church. How can we explain the differences and similarities among Matthew, Mark and Luke? Which Gospel was written first? To what extent did the Evangelists depend on oral tradition, written sources or each other? John Wenham courageously opposes the reigning two-document theory-that Mark was the first Gospel, with Matthew and Luke independently using Mark and a lost source of sayings of Jesus labeled Q. Through careful argument and analysis, he seeks to defend an alternative theory that satisfactorily accounts for what he argues is some degree of structural dependence but nevertheless a surprising degree of verbal independence among the Synoptics. This brave new revisioning of the writing of the Synoptics redates Matthew, Mark and Luke prior to A.D. 55. Insightful and provocative, Redating Matthew, Mark and Luke offers a fresh look at a hard problem as well as an interesting perspective on the inner workings of the early church. It is a book to be reckoned with—and sure to stir up scholarly controversy.

This groundbreaking study poses a solution to what one scholar has called "one of the most difficult research problems in the history of ideas"—the Synoptic problem. The phenomenon and mystery of three similar but different Synoptic Gospels has for centuries challenged some of the best minds of academia and the church. How can we explain the differences and similarities among Matthew, Mark and Luke? Which Gospel was written first? To what extent did the Evangelists depend on oral tradition, written sources or each other? John Wenham courageously opposes the reigning two-document theory-that Mark was the first Gospel, with Matthew and Luke independently using Mark and a lost source of sayings of Jesus labeled Q. Through careful argument and analysis, he seeks to defend an alternative theory that satisfactorily accounts for what he argues is some degree of structural dependence but nevertheless a surprising degree of verbal independence among the Synoptics. This brave new revisioning of the writing of the Synoptics redates Matthew, Mark and Luke prior to A.D. 55. Insightful and provocative, Redating Matthew, Mark and Luke offers a fresh look at a hard problem as well as an interesting perspective on the inner workings of the early church. It is a book to be reckoned with—and sure to stir up scholarly controversy.

Offers a fresh reading of the much-debated Synoptic Problem.

The inerrancy of God's Word has been attacked throughout church history. Today's assaults are unique since neo-evangelicals now surrender to post-modernistic ideas of history and historical-critical ideologies that assault this vital doctrine. They seek to redefine the orthodox meaning of inerrancy. Since the signing of the Chicago Statements, troubling signs have once again appeared in recent years among many who either did not fight the battles for the inerrancy of Scripture as did the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy, or who do not remember the troubling times that caused their development. The nature and definition of "inerrancy" are now being changed to include ideas of fallibility. History is forgotten. The need arises for sounding the alarm for Vital Issues in Inerrancy. Evangelical schools and churches that broke away earlier to defend inerrancy surrender now to academic prestige and scholarly fads instead of faithfulness to God's inerrant Word. The contributors pray that the Lord will raise up a new generation with the spiritual fervency of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy to uphold the inerrancy of God's Word: Isaiah 40:8--"The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever."

This study explores the way in which, by way of the Christian mysteries, divine action impacts human life. The triune God acts in Jesus Christ by means of historical events whose effects transcend time and which are mediated through their celebration in memorial and worship. Drawing on both Evangelical and Catholic writers, Nichols provides evidence that the general portrait of Jesus found in the Pauline letters and the four Gospels rests on reliable historical witness. On this basis, he offers a concise Christology which presents Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of the Messianic hope of the Old Testament; explores his unique being as laid out in the teaching of the great Ecumenical Councils of the first Christian millennium, and describes how the classic theologian of the Latin tradition, St Thomas Aquinas, sees the chief historical events of Christ’s life as affecting humanity throughout future time. Nichols then looks at the Christian concept of God – namely, Trinitarian monotheism. God so conceived can act efficaciously in the created order and does so by the deployment of his Word and Spirit in ways which express for a fallen, historical world, the dynamics of the interaction of the divine Persons in eternity – Persons who now draw human beings within their range. Those gains in understanding are then applied to the individual mysteries of the life of Christ, from his biological conception to his coming Parousia. For each mystery, Nichols describes a biblical preamble; an account of how the mystery is seen by the Liturgy and the Fathers of the Church; illumination from the three theological masters whom the author makes his own in this work – Aquinas, Balthasar and Bulgakov;- and a visual image drawn from the treasury of sacred art.

The publication of the King James version of the Bible, translated between 1603 and 1611, coincided with an extraordinary flowering of English literature and is universally acknowledged as the greatest influence on English-language literature in history. Now, world-class literary writers introduce the book of the King James Bible in a series of beautifully designed, small-format volumes. The introducers' passionate, provocative, and personal engagements with the spirituality and the language of the text make the Bible come alive as a stunning work of literature and remind us of its overwhelming contemporary relevance.

The study analyses the current state of research on the synoptic problem and proves that the Synoptic Gospels were written in the Mark, Luke, Matthew order of direct literary dependence. Moreover, the work demonstrates that the Synoptic Gospels are results of systematic, sequential, hypertextual reworking of the contents of the Pauline letters. Accordingly, the so-called 'Q source' turns out to be an invention of nineteenth-century scholars with their Romantic hermeneutic presuppositions. Demonstration of the fact that the Gospels are not records of the activity of the historical Jesus but that they narratively illustrate the identity of Christ as it has been revealed in the person and life of Paul the Apostle will certainly have major consequences for the whole Christian theology.