T&T Clark Study Guides to the Old and New Testament (3 vols.)

by Francisco Lozada Jr.; Amy Peeler; Patrick Gray; Tchavdar S. Hadjiev

Publisher:

T&T Clark

, 2020

Overview

T&T Clark Study Guides present the latest in biblical scholarship in an engaging format for students and those approaching biblical texts for the first time. Each book covers the historical or introductory issues surrounding the text before moving on to consider interpretative issues and the range of approaches available to readers of the text. The books include further reading lists and pointers for students looking to further their knowledge.

Key Features

• Presents concise commentary on the text while inviting the reader to explore further
• Explores a variety of historical, textual, and theological issues
• Guides readers through a number of interpretive options

Product Details

• Title: T&T Clark Study Guides to the Old and New Testament (3 vols.)
• Series: T&T Clark Study Guides
• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Publication Date: 2020
• Volumes: 3
• Pages: 400
• Resource Type: Study Guides
• Topic: Biblical Studies

Joel, Obadiah, Habakkuk, Zephaniah: An Introduction and Study Guide

• Author: Tchavdar S. Hadjiev
• Series: T&T Clark Study Guides to the Old Testament
• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Publication Date: 2020
• Pages: 160

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Tchavdar S. Hadjiev introduces students to the books of Joel, Obadiah, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (the Minor Prophets) in their original historical contexts and to the issues surrounding their composition and interpretation.

Hadjiev pays particular attention to important topics such as eschatology, prophecy and cult, intertextuality, theodicy and the genre of the prophetic book. Readers will come to grips with the key themes of judgment, repentance, and salvation in relation to their historical and canonical contexts. Finally, Hadjiev provides a theological evaluation of the prophetic attitude to foreigners and the vision of their final destruction, which is pervasive in Joel, Obadiah, Habakkuk and Zephaniah, and helps readers to grapple with this theme in a modern context.

These prophetic books do not come top of the list for Old Testament study. Fortunately, in Hadjiev we have a master teacher who lucidly opens up their value for his readers. In addition to providing an amazing digest of all the latest research, he also gives guidelines to pick one’s way through the various opinions. As a bonus he also offers sensitive comments on approaches to their modern interpretation.

—H. G. M. Williamson, Regius Professor of Hebrew Emeritus, University of Oxford, UK

John: An Introduction and Study Guide: History, Community, and Ideology

• Author: Francisco Lozada Jr.
• Series: T&T Clark Study Guides to the New Testament
• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Publication Date: 2020
• Pages: 128

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

This study guide introduces gospel of John, also known as the Fourth Gospel, from an ideological perspective. First, Lozada deals with the key historical questions about how we come to understand John’s historical identity. Lozada explores debates around how scholars construct a picture of who, where, when, and why John was written helping readers to recognize how scholars construct an historical identity for John.

Second, Lozada introduces literary questions related to John such as its structure, plot, and narrative development, showing readers on how an ideological reading is constructed. Finally Lozada devotes three chapters to key ideological themes in the gospel related to otherness, such as the portrayal of women, the Samaritan woman, and “the Jews.”

This book is a lucid vade mecum to John’s Gospel with a difference. While offering succinct treatments of the main critical issues, it is profoundly committed to uncovering how Johannine interpretation is ideologically shaped by contemporary issues, especially power and identity. The methodological self-consciousness Francisco Lozada deploys both opens up John’s Gospel in unexpected ways and also allows it to speak to our own times with renewed power. Particularly engaging is his amplification of voices from the borderlands-of those caught in the dynamics of exclusion and inclusion. To acquaint, or reacquaint, yourself with John, you should read this book.

—Philip F. Esler, University of Gloucestershire, UK

Francisco Lozada Jr. is Charles Fischer Catholic Associate Professor of New Testament and Latino/a Church Studies at Brite Divinity School and author of A Literary Reading of John 5: Text as Construction and coeditor of New Currents through John.

Hebrews: An Introduction and Study Guide

• Author: Amy L. B. Peeler and Patrick Gray
• Series: T&T Clark Study Guides to the New Testament
• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Publication Date: 2020
• Pages: 112

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

This volume offers a compact introduction to one of the most daunting texts in the New Testament. The Letter to the Hebrews has inspired many readers with its encomium to faith, troubled others with its hard sayings on the impossibility of a second repentance, and perplexed still others with its exegetical assumptions and operations drawn from a cultural matrix that is largely alien to modern sensibilities. Long thought to be Paul, the anonymous author of Hebrews exhibits points of continuity with the apostle and other New Testament writers in the letter’s (or sermon’s) vision of life in the light of the crucified Messiah, but one also finds distinctive perspectives in such areas as Christology, eschatology, and atonement.

Gray and Peeler survey the salient historical, social, and rhetorical factors to be considered in the interpretation of this document, as well as its theological, liturgical, and cultural legacy. They invite readers to enter the world of one of the boldest Christian thinkers of the first century.

Clearly written and informed by the best in current scholarship, this volume is a welcome introduction to the study of Hebrews. Readers will gain the perspectives needed to appreciate Hebrews’ remarkable literary quality and theological depth. Gray and Peeler show us the remarkable impact Hebrews has had on people throughout the centuries and invite us to continue exploring the riches of the book for ourselves.

—Craig R. Koester, Luther Seminary, USA

Amy Peeler, Ph.D. Princeton Theological Seminary, is Associate Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College, IL, USA.

Patrick Gray is Associate Professor of New Testament at Rhodes College, USA.