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Having devoted the past ten years of his life to research for this major new work, John Nolland gives us a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew that engages with a notable range of Matthean scholarship and offers fresh interpretations of the dominant Gospel in the history of the church.

Without neglecting the Gospel’s sources or historical background, Nolland places his central focus on the content and method of Matthew’s story. His work explores Matthew’s narrative technique and the inner logic of the unfolding text, giving full weight to the Jewish character of the book and its differences from Mark’s presentation of parallel material. While finding it unlikely that the apostle Matthew himself composed the book, Nolland does argue that Matthew’s Gospel reflects the historical ministry of Jesus with considerable accuracy, and he brings to the table new evidence for an early date of composition.

Including accurate translations based on the latest Greek text, detailed verse-by-verse comments, thorough bibliographies for each section, and an array of insightful critical approaches, Nolland’s Gospel of Matthew will stimulate students, preachers, and scholars seeking to understand more fully Matthew’s presentation of the gospel narrative.

Author:
John Nolland is academic dean and lecturer in New Testament studies at Trinity College, Bristol, England. An ordained minister of the Church of England, he is also the author of the three-volume Word Biblical Commentary on the Gospel of Luke.

theWord Features:

• Fully searchable text
• Easy navigation through the topic tree
• Bible-verse synchronization
• Bible-reference links and verse popups
• Internal cross-references
• Footnote popups with backlinks
• Native tables
• Resource images
• Print-page markers and bookmarks
• Pgs: 1579
• Apocrypha passage popups with labeled reference notes
• Special Text Colors
  • Normal: Text
  • Internal link: Abbreviations
  • Bible reference: Matthew 1:1
  • Greek: πίστις
  • Hebrew: א
  • Transliteration: rûaḥ
  • Latin: ex hypothesi
  • Page Number: ^[p1>

The letters of Paul to the newly founded Christian community at Thessalonica hold a special place within the Christian tradition as possibly the earliest extant Christian writings. They are also of special interest not only for their theological value but for their sociological context. Among the communities established by Paul, the church at Thessalonica appears to have been the only one to have suffered serious external oppression. These two important epistles, then, speak uniquely to contemporary Christians living in a society often ideologically, if not politically, opposed to Christian faith.

In this innovative commentary Charles A. Wanamaker incorporates what may be called a social science approach to the study of 1 and 2 Thessalonians, taking into full account the social context that gave rise to Paul’s correspondence. While Wanamaker in no way ignores traditional historical-critical, linguistic, literary, and theological approaches to writing a commentary — in fact, at several points he makes a significant contribution to the questions raised by traditional exegesis — at the same time he goes beyond previous commentaries on the Thessalonian correspondence by taking seriously the social dimensions both of Christianity at Thessalonica and of the texts of 1 and 2 Thessalonians themselves. In blending traditional exegetical methods with this newer approach, Wanamaker seeks to understand Pauline Christianity at Thessalonica as a socio-religious movement in the first-century Greco-Roman world and attempts to grasp the social character and functions of Paul’s letters within this context.

Author:

Charles A. Wanamaker, Associate professor in the department of religious studies and director of postgraduate studies at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He received his doctorate in New Testament studies at the University of Durham under C. K. Barrett.

theWord Features:

• Fully searchable text
• Easy navigation through the topic tree
• Bible-reference links and verse popups
• Internal cross-references
• Footnote popups with topic-end notes and backlinks
• Native tables
• Resource images
• Print-page markers and bookmarks
• Special Text Colors
  • Normal: Text
  • Internal link: Abbreviations
  • Bible reference: Gal. 1:1
  • Greek: πίστις
  • Page Number: ^[p1>