Just Published
Old Testament Prophecy: From Oracles to Canon
by Ronald E. Clements
(Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1996), 278 pp., $29
Clements, the author of major commentaries on the books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, here presents essays, written at various stages in his career, on the entire Old Testament prophetic tradition. This volume also includes an introductory essay summarizing recent interpretations of prophecy.
Three Gospels
by Reynolds Price
(New York: Scribner, 1996), 288 pp., $23
Two of the three gospels, Mark and John, appear here in original translations from the Greek; they are accompanied by extensive introductory essays. The third gospel is that of Reynolds Price himself: This prolific poet-novelist rewrites the story of Jesus and, in an introductory essay, explains what the gospels have meant to him and how he has come to recast the events they relate in his own “apocryphal” gospel.
Jewish Contemporaries of Jesus
by Gunter Stemberger
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 161 pp., $15
Who were the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes? Equally important, what are our sources of information on these groups and how reliable are they? Stemberger evaluates the evidence provided by Josephus, the New Testament and Rabbinic sources.
Interested Parties
by David J.A. Clines
(Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 296 pp., $58.50 (cloth), $18.50 (paper)
“The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible” reads the subtitle of this work. Clines raises questions such as “Why Is There a Book of Job, and What Does It Do to You If You Read It?” (a chapter that appeared in different form in our April 1995 issue as “Deconstructing the Book of Job”) and provides consistently provocative answers.
The Beloved Disciple
by James H. Charlesworth
(Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1995), 481 pp., $30
From the second century on, traditional readings of the Gospel of John have assumed that “the disciple whom Jesus loved” was John the son of Zebedee. Charlesworth makes the case for another figure entirely and explains how his candidate fits eight critical criteria for a satisfactory identification.