The Jewish World Around the New Testament

New Testament texts cannot be adequately understood without careful attention to their Judaic and Second Temple roots. This volume contains twenty-four studies that shed essential light on the religious and biblical-interpretive matrix from which early Christianity emerged.

Richard Bauckham covers many aspects of the literature and thought of early Judaism, including life after death, the provenance of the Pseudepigrapha, the Jewish apocalypses, the book of Tobit, and more. He discusses the "parting of the ways" between early Judaism and early Christianity and the relevance of early Jewish literature for the study of the New Testament. Bauckham also includes studies that explore specific aspects or texts of early Christianity by relating them to their early Jewish context, such as the delay of the parousia, the restoration of Israel in Luke-Acts, and the use of Latin names by Paul and other Jews in the early Christian movement.

"Bauckham's essays are fresh in their approach, inspiring, erudite, and well argued throughout. They show the methods and the promise of studying early Judaism for its own sake and in order to understand the New Testament in the Jewish world around it. The volume has left me with new insights and much to ponder and pursue."--Christoph Stenschke, Review of Biblical Literature

Originally published by Mohr Siebeck in Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 233, The Jewish World around the New Testament is a corecipient of the Franz-Delitzsch Award for 2010, offered by the Institute for Israel Studies in Giessen, Germany.