James A. Kugel is Director of the Institute for the History of the Jewish Bible at Bar Ilan University in Israel Rowan A. Greer is Professor Emeritus of Anglican Studies at Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut. A highly recognized scholar with specializations in both the New Testament and the early church, he is the author of seven books and numerous articles.
The initial volumes of this new series bring refreshing critical perspectives to the question of early Christian identity. Grant argues that the religious activity of the New Testament must be placed within the matrix of the Greco-Roman experience. After exploring the functions, deeds, and doctrines of the pagan gods, he clearly points out the extent to which the development of Christologies and the doctrine of the Trinity are indebted to pagan expression and reflection. Distilling recent social/historical analyses, Stambaugh and Balch review the history of the period in which Christianity arose and spreadrelevant rural and urban environments and their common economic patterns and assumptions. Chapters on mission and Christian adaptation of urban social forms are major contributions. Kugel and Greer explore the major factors that shaped scriptural interpretation within early Judaism and Christianity. Kugel shows how, when the Jewish past turned into present problematic, scriptural interpretation became a religious activity. Refining past tendencies and presaging future doctrinal debates, Greer demonstrates the notion of a Christian Bible on Irenaeus's synthesis. For university and seminary collections. Arthur J. Dewey, Xavier Univ., Cincinnati
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