An Introduction to the New Testament: History, Literature, Theology

An Introduction to the Testament: History, Theology. By M. Eugene Boring. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012. xxxiv + 720 pp. $50.00 (paper).An Introduction to the is a welcome contribution to the discipline of scholarship, and represents the latest results of the academic study of writings with an eye on historical, literary, and theological dimensions. M. Eugene Boring, of Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University, is the author of biblical studies such as People's Commentary and commentaries on Mark, 1 Peter, and Revelation. In this introduction, Boring utilizes three principal methods to unpack the Testament: (1) history, (2) literature, and (3) theology.First, Boring employs the historical method so as to approach the books as fixed historical documents composed within the early Christian movement. In the first five chapters, the author expands his discussion of the church's role in writing, selecting, preserving, transmitting, translating, and interpreting the documents of the Testament. Chapter 1, What is the Testament? sets the stage for the unfolding discussion by expounding the terms New and Testament against the Jewish background of the Hebrew Tanak. Teachers and students will appreciate the clear diagram on page 6, Formation of Literature, which lays out the chronological development of various kinds of Christian oral and written traditions. Chapter 2 on The as the Church's Book is particularly interesting, with its focus on the stages of writing and selecting the Christian writings. In turn, chapter 3 embarks on the church's preservation and transmission of the Testament, and traces the development of textual criticism from manuscripts to electronic text. next chapter, LXX to NRSV: No Translation without Interpretation, explains the church's role in translating the to foreign languages. concluding chapter on the as the church's book deals with the history of interpretation from early Jewish exegesis to contemporary historical scholarship.Having introduced the reader to the core issues surrounding the studies, the next three chapters provide a thorough analysis of historical matters pertaining to Second Temple Judaism and the early Christian movement across the first-centuiy Mediterranean. Chapters 6-8 expose the reader to the Jewish history during the reign of the Greek and Roman empires, Palestinian Judaism, and the quest for the historical Jesus within Judaism. …