Just Published
The Dead Sea Scrolls Today
by James C. VanderKam
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans), 221 pp., $12.99
This book provides a complete history of the discovery of the scrolls, as well as a discussion of the scrolls’ chronology, literary character and background.
The Essential Jesus: Original Sayings and Earliest Images
by John Dominic Crossan
(San Francisco, CA: Harper San Francisco, 1994), 199 pp., $18
Jesus Seminar member Crossan’s fresh translations of Jesus’ teachings alternate with black-and-white prints of 30 of the earliest images of Jesus.
From Eve to Esther: Rabbinic Reconstructions of Biblical Women
by Leila Leah Bronner
(Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1994), 214 pp., $19 (paper)
Bronner explores the portrayal of biblical women in ancient Rabbinic writings in midrash and Talmud.
Great Women of the Bible in Art and Literature
by Dorothee Solle, Joe H. Kirchberger, Herbert Haag and Anne Marie Schnieper Muller
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994), 295 pp., $75
This well-illustrated volume examines how women in the Bible have been portrayed in art and literature from the early Christian period to the present.
The Historical Figure of Jesus
by E.P. Sanders
(New York: Allen Lane/Viking, 1994), 337 pp., $27.50
Drawing on the New Testament and Roman and Judaic historical documents, Sanders identifies what we know or can infer about Jesus’ life, teaching and beliefs.
Jesus the Sage: The Pilgrimage of Wisdom
by Ben Witherington III
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 436 pp.
Considering the influence of Wisdom literature on the New Testament, Witherington suggests that Jesus’ contemporaries viewed Jesus as a Jewish prophetic sage whose teaching and style reflected the convergence of Hebrew wisdom and prophetic forms and ideas.
Inclusion here does not preclude a longer review in a future issue.