Dictionary of New Testament Background: a Compendium of Contemporary Biblical Scholarship

Brief Description: Written by known experts and edited by Craig A. Evans and Stanley E. Porter, this reference work with its full bibliographies and cross-references to other volumes in the series is the best for researching the New Testament in its ancient setting. Table of Contents: Preface How to Use This Dictionary Abbreviations Transliterations List of Contributors Dictionary Articles Scripture Index Subject Index Articles IndexMarc Notes: Includes bibliographical references and indexes. Publisher Marketing: 2001 ECPA Gold Medallion (Reference Works) The Dictionary of New Testament Background joins the Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, the Dictionary of Paul and His Letters and the Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Developments as the fourth in a landmark series of reference works on the Bible. In a time when our knowledge of the ancient Mediterranean world has grown by leaps and bounds, this volume sets out for readers the wealth of Jewish and Greco-Roman background that should inform our reading and understanding of the New Testament and early Christianity. The Dictionary of New Testament Background takes full advantage of the flourishing study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and offers individual articles focused on the most important scrolls. In addition, the Dictionary encompasses the fullness of second-temple Jewish writings, whether pseudepigraphic, rabbinic, parables, proverbs, histories or inscriptions. Articles abound on aspects of Jewish life and thought, including family, purity, liturgy and messianism. The full scope of Greco-Roman culture is displayed in articles ranging across language and rhetoric, literacy and book culture, religion and cults, honor and shame, patronage and benefactors, travel and trade, intellectual movements and ideas, and ancient geographical perspectives. No other reference work presents so much in one place for students of the New Testament. Here an entire library of scholarship is made available in summary form. TheDictionary of New Testament Background can stand alone or work in concert with one or more of its companion volumes in the series. Written by acknowledged experts in their fields, this wealth of knowledge of the New Testament era is carefully aimed at the needs of contemporary students of the New Testament. And its full bibliographies and cross-references to other volumes in the series will make it the first book to reach for in any investigation of the New Testament in its ancient setting. Review Citations:

Library Journal 11/15/2000 pg. 33 (EAN 9780830817801, Hardcover)

Library Journal 03/01/2001 pg. 72 (EAN 9780830817801, Hardcover)

American Reference Bks Annual 01/01/2001 pg. 587 (EAN 9780830817801, Hardcover)

Rec Ref Bks for Small/Med Libr 01/01/2001 pg. 217 (EAN 9780830817801, Hardcover)

Contributor Bio:  Evans, Craig A Craig A. Evans (Ph. D., Claremont) is Payzant Distinguished Professor of New Testament and director of the graduate program at Acadia Divinity College in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. He has written extensively on the historical Jesus and the Jewish background of the New Testament era. His books includeJesus and His Contemporaries: Comparative Studies (1995), Mark (in the Word Biblical Commentary, 2001), Jesus and the Ossuaries (2003) and Ancient Texts for New Testament Studies (2005). His edited volumes include (with Bruce Chilton) Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research (1994), (with Stanley E. Porter) Dictionary of New Testament Background (2000) and (with John Collins) Christian Beginnings and the Dead Sea Scrolls (2006). He has recently served on the advisory board on the Gospel of Judas for National Geographic Society and has appeared frequently as an expert commentator on network television programs, such as Dateline, and in various documentaries on the BBC, the Discovery Channel and the History Channel. Contributor Bio:  Porter, Stanley E Stanley E. Porter (Ph. D., University of Sheffield) is president, dean and professor of New Testament at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario. At McMaster he also holds the Roy A. Hope Chair in Christian Worldview. He is the author of numerous studies in the New Testament and Greek language, including The Paul of Acts: Essays in Literary Criticism, Rhetoric, and Theology; Idioms of the Greek New Testament and Verbal Aspect in the Greek of the New Testament, with Reference to Tense and Mood. He has also edited volumes such as History of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period, 330 B. C.-A. D. 400 and Handbook to Exegesis of the New Testament.