How did the imperial cult affect Christians in the Roman Empire?"Jesus is lord, not Caesar." Many scholars and preachers attribute mistreatment of early Christians by Roman authorities to this fundamental confessional conflict. But this mantra relies on a reductive understanding of the imperial cult. D. Clint Burnett examines copious evidence—literary, epigraphic, numismatic, and archaeological—to more accurately reconstruct Christian engagement with imperial divin...

How did the imperial cult affect Christians in the Roman Empire?"Jesus is lord, not Caesar." Many scholars and preachers attribute mistreatment of early Christians by Roman authorities to this fundamental confessional conflict. But this mantra relies on a reductive understanding of the imperial cult. D. Clint Burnett examines copious evidence—literary, epigraphic, numismatic, and archaeological—to more accurately reconstruct Christian engagement with imperial divin...

This extract from the Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible provides Perkins' introduction to and concise commentary on the Pastoral Epistles. The Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible presents, in nontechnical language, the best of modern scholarship on each book of the Bible, including the Apocrypha. Reader-friendly commentary complements succinct summaries of each section of the text and will be valuable to scholars, students, and general readers.Rather than attempt a ve...

In this book respected New Testament scholar Pheme Perkins delivers a clear, fresh, informed introduction to the earliest written accounts of Jesus — Matthew, Mark, and Luke — situating those canonical Gospels within the wider world of oral storytelling and literary production of the first and second centuries. Cutting through the media confusion over new Gospel finds, Perkins's Introduction to the Synoptic Gospels presents a balanced, responsible look at how the Gospels of Matthe...

For over 50 years students, professors, clergy, and general readers have relied on The New Oxford Annotated Bible as an unparalleled authority in Study Bibles. This fifth edition of the Annotated, thumb-indexed and in a protective two-piece box, remains the best way to study and understand the Bible at home or in the classroom. This thoroughly revised and substantially updated edition contains the best scholarship informed by recent discoveries and anchored in the solid S...

For over 50 years students, professors, clergy, and general readers have relied on The New Oxford Annotated Bible as an unparalleled authority in Study Bibles. This fifth edition of the Annotated remains the best way to study and understand the Bible at home or in the classroom. This thoroughly revised and substantially updated edition contains the best scholarship informed by recent discoveries and anchored in the solid Study Bible tradition. · Introductions and...

The Fourth Gospel is at the same time a sublime work that has inspired and enriched the faith of countless Christians and a problematic text that has provided potent anti-Jewish imagery exploited in anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic discourse over the course of two millennia. The Fourth Gospel contains approximately 70 references to hoi ioudaioi, a designation most often (and best) translated as “the Jews.” Several of these references are neutral or descriptive, referring to Jewish festivals or...

First and Second Peter, James, and Jude have existed on the edges of the canon throughout the centuries. In this volume in the Interpretation series, Pheme Perkins casts light on these often neglected writings. She ably demonstrates that these "catholic epistles" have, in fact, much to offer to today's readers.

Accepting the widespread view that 1 Thessalonians is the earliest surviving Pauline letter, Furnish commends reading it as fully as possible on its own terms, without presupposing or imposing themes or positions that are explicit only in letters of a later date. While he agrees with commentators who note this letter's pastoral aims and character, he is more convinced than some that it also exhibits a rich and coherent theological point of view. Furnish interprets 2 Thessalonians as the wo...

In this volume, Pheme Perkins mines the writings from Nag Hammadi and Qumran for illuminating parallels to Ephesians, showing how a first-century audience would have heard and responded to the various parts of the letter. Under her sure guidance, contemporary readers are led to see the rhetorical power and the theological depth of this pseudonymous letter.

For decades students, professors, clergy, and general readers have relied on The New Oxford Annotated Apocrypha as an unparalleled authority on the Apocrypha. This fifth edition remains the best way to study and understand the material at home or in the classroom. This thoroughly revised and substantially updated edition contains the best scholarship informed by recent discoveries and anchored in the solid Study Bible tradition. · Introductions and extensive annotations for each b...

2023 Catholic Media Association Second Place Award, Scripture – Academic StudiesReading 1 Peter through the lens of feminist and diaspora studies keeps front and center the bodily, psychological, and social suffering experienced by those without stable support of family or homeland, whether they were economic migrants or descendants of those enslaved by Roman armies. In the new “household” of God, believers are encouraged to exhibit a moral superiority to ...