McMaster New Testament Studies Series

How did a first-generation Jewish messianic movement develop the momentum to become a dominant religious force in the Western world? The essays here first investigate the roots of God's mission and the mission of his people in the Old Testament and Second Temple Judaism, specifically in the Psalms, Isaiah, and Daniel. The contributions then discuss the mission of Jesus, and how it continued into the mission of the Twelve, other Jewish believers (in the Gospels, General Epistles, and Revelation), and finally into Paul's ministry to the Gentiles documented in the book of Acts and his epistles. These essays reach backward into the background of what was to become the Christian mission and forward through the New Testament to the continuing Christian mission and missions today.

How does a Christian render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's? This book is the result of the Bingham Colloquium of 2007 that brought scholars from across North America to examine the New Testament's response to the empires of God and Caesar. Two chapters lay the foundation for that response in the Old Testament's concept of empire, and six others address the response to the notion of empire, both human and divine, in the various authors of the New Testament. A final chapter investigates how the church fathers regarded the matter. The essays display various methods and positions; together, however, they offer a representative sample of the current state of study of the notion of empire in the New Testament.

Many opinions contend in the church today for what constitutes true worship of God and how best it can be practiced. This collection of essays carries on a conversation between biblical scholars and church music practitioners. It begins with three studies investigating what we can learn about worship in the Old Testament, followed by essays on the teaching about worship in the Gospels, Epistles, and the book of Revelation in the New Testament. The church music practitioners featured in the book respond to each of these essays. The final essay by Wendy Porter takes a historical journey of theological reflection on Christian worship from the days of the early church, tracing worship developments in the Western church through the centuries to today. This is an important book for anyone who wants to think theologically about how and why Christians worship God.

Although the cry for justice in human society is an important theme in the Bible, in many church and academic circles action for and discourse about social justice is carried on without a thorough exploration of this theme in Scripture. This volume brings together chapters by experts in the various sections of the Old and New Testaments to give a full spectrum of what the Bible has to say about social justice, and to point to ways forward for Christians seeking to think and act in harmony with God in pursuing social justice in the world today.

Written at a time when his ideas and practices were provoking opposition even from fellow Christians, the Apostle Paul articulates in his Letter to the Romans his understanding of God's plan for humanity and discusses the implications of this plan for different groups of people. Romans is considered by many as the most theologically significant and sophisticated book of the Bible. This volume is designed to bridge the gap between studying Romans as an academic enterprise and experiencing how Romans can speak today in the life of the church. All of the chapters in this volume--especially those devoted to the content of Romans--were written with both exegesis and application in mind. All of the contributors to this volume believe that Romans has a crucial voice within the church today and that those who preach, teach, and study the book need to be attentive to its witness and to its timeliness.

Is the Gospel Good News? was the theme of the 2015 H. H. Bingham Colloquium at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, held on June 4-5. The fourteen participants in this colloquium presented their own individual perspectives on the theme from three broad vantage points--Bible, theology, and crucial topics. The "good news" that Jesus proclaimed concerning the kingdom of God became the "gospel" proclaimed by his followers throughout church history. This gospel is about the coming of Jesus Christ in fulfillment of God's will for humanity. This volume presents some accounts of how this good news has been understood through the ages and continues to be understood in relation to some of the major topics and issues of our contemporary world. The papers in the Bible section discuss this good news from both Old and New Testament passages and themes. The papers in the Theology section address theological topics in light of the question of what constitutes the good news. Finally, the papers in the Crucial Topics section explore new and different perspectives on ways in which the gospel is good news. This volume highlights diverse perspectives and proposals by scholars from various locations in different stages of their academic careers, resulting in a stimulating discussion of the topic of the gospel as good news.

Throughout its history, the Christian church has had a troubled relationship with the arts, whether literature, poetry, music, visual arts, or other forms of artistic expression. This volume is not designed to resolve the issues, but it is designed to present a number of different statements about various dimensions of the arts in their relationship to the Bible. The Bible is the document that stands behind the Christian church as an inspiration to it and to its arts. As a result, we have divided this volume into six parts: perspectives on the arts, culture and art, visual enactments, contemporary interpretations, music, and the Bible and literature. Many of the issues that the history of the interaction of the arts and the Bible within the Christian church has uncovered are insightfully and artfully addressed by this book. The wide range of contributors runs the gamut from practicing artists of various media to scholars within varied academic fields.

In 2016, the Centre for Biblical Linguistics, Translation, and Exegesis (CBLTE), a research center located at McMaster Divinity College, hosted the annual Bingham Colloquium. Scholars from around North America were invited to participate in a collegial and collaborative dialogue on what is currently happening (or could happen) at the intersection of linguistics and biblical studies, particularly in regards to the linguistic study of biblical languages, their translation, and the way that linguistic methods can contribute to the interpretation of the biblical texts. This volume of essays publishes many of the presentations that took place at the Colloquium.