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Review: From Jesus to the Church by Craig Evans

If we were to travel back in time to the first century, would we recognize “Christianity?” How much of our imagination of the early church is inspired by our modern Western culture, whether it be our contemporary churches or movies such as The Passion? Or, asking the question in the other direction, would the apostles—even Jesus—recognize Christianity? Craig Evans’ From Jesus to the Church goes a long way towards addressing some of these questions. Evans himself presents his book as a study of “the clash between the family of high priest Annas and the family of Jesus of Nazareth” (p. 2), but the contents of his book far exceed this topic.

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September 6, 2018 / 0 Comments

Review: Conformed to the Image of the Son by Haley Goranson Jacob

Romans 8:28-30, among the most quoted passages in the Bible, has long been misunderstood. That is the thrust of Haley Goranson Jacob’s argument in Conformed to the Image of the Son. The problem: we do not properly understand glory, the glory of humanity, and what it means to be conformed to Christ’s image. This thorough and thoughtful book by a upcoming female scholar aims to set us right.

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August 21, 2018 / 1 Comment

Review of Micah (Two Horizons) by Stephen Dempster

I must admit I’ve delayed writing this review. It’s not that I didn’t like Stephen Dempster’s Micah commentary; in fact, it was the opposite. I liked it so much that I was intimidated to review it (even after writing so many reviews). It’s just that good. Micah all the expected features of a commentary in the Two Horizons series. A 50-page introduction discusses usual issues such as authorship, setting, and structure as well as Micah’s placement in the Book of the Twelve (interestingly, Micah’s prediction of the temple’s destruction is at the very center of the Twelve). A 120-page commentary follows; one that somehow doesn’t feel as brief as it may look. A 70-page theological reflection concludes the commentary, in which Dempster considers Micah’s themes (e.g. justice, land, temple, messiah), contribution to Biblical theology, and contemporary relevance (e.g. cheap grace, justice, idolatry).

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July 31, 2018 / 1 Comment

Review: Labor of God by Thomas Andrew Bennett

“Christians have become utterly inured to the cross” (p1). With this opening volley, Thomas Andrew Bennett in Labor of God provocatively challenges the church to revisit its thinking and speaking of the cross. Our images, concepts, and explanations Jesus’ work have become so familiar they have lost the scandal of the cross—they no longer shock. However, Bennett does not merely want to lament and deconstruct; he offers a solution to this problem. Bennett finds the solution in the freshness of a long-discarded image: the cross as labor.

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July 24, 2018 / 1 Comment

Review: Letters from the Pillar Apostles by Darian Lockett

The general, or Catholic, letters of James, Peter, John and Jude are the “final frontier” of NT studies (xiii). If it’s true that these letters are neglected individually individually, they are even more neglected as a unit. Darian Lockett’s Letters from the Pillar Apostles aims to remedy this neglect. His goal is “a sustained argument for reading the Catholic Epistles as an intentional, discrete collection set within the New Testament” (xvi).

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July 13, 2018 / 2 Comments

Review: Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle by Paula Frederiksen

This review first appeared in Kesher Journal, with small modifications. Paul persists as a polarizing and puzzling figure within and without the church and academy. Judging by the book of Acts, this was no less true in the first century! But are we stumbled by the same things as his contemporaries? Paula Frederiksen, author of Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle, insists that we misread Paul if we neglect his thorough Jewishness and imminent apocalyptic expectations; “racing on the edge of the End of time” (xii).