New Testament Background and Culture

What five (5) books do you consider indispensable for someone seeking to get an understanding on New Testament Background and culture?

I have Platinum, plus a lot of other stuff. I am focusing primarily on Logos software. If a must have is not in Logos, then list it please.

Thank you for your assistance.

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Philana Crouch

Hi Lynden,

Here are some of my favorites:

Honor, Patronage, Kinship and Purity by David A. deSilva

The Essential IVP Reference Collection Version 3

Christian Origins and the Question of God Series (3 vols.) by N. T. Wright

I haven't finished the N.T. Wright books but I think he provides good background information.

Lynden O. Williams

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/371019#Comment_371019

Thanks Philana.

Lynden O. Williams

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/371020#Comment_371020

bump

Pam Larson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/371043#Comment_371043

I second Wright, especially The New Testament and the People of God, and IVP Bible Background Commentary. Others I've found helpful (all in Logos):

Thiede, Carsten Peter. The Cosmopolitan World of Jesus: New Findings from Archaeology. London: SPCK, 2004.

du Toit, A. B., J. L. de Villiers, I. J. du Plessis et al. Vol. 2, The New Testament Milieu. Guide to the New Testament. Halfway House: Orion Publishers, 1998.

Mare, W. Harold. New Testament Background Commentary: A New Dictionary of Words, Phrases and Situations in Bible Order. Ross-shire, UK: Mentor, 2004.

Beale, G. K., and D. A. Carson. Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, MI; Nottingham, UK: Baker Academic; Apollos, 2007.

Alan Macgregor

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/371043#Comment_371043

Lynden

I would add Palestine in the Time of Jesus which gives insight into the social structures operating in Palestinian society in Jesus' day.

Every blessing

Alan

Jacob Hantla

http://www.logos.com/product/20158/zondervan-illustrated-bible-backgrounds-commentary-new-testament-and-old-testament

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/371043#Comment_371043

One more resource to consider => In the Shadow of the Temple Thankful for suggestion in thread => Advice on Logos resources on early Judaism/Second Temple, please

Last week, Logos shipped => Jerusalem: Portrait of the City in the Second Temple Period

Keep Smiling [:)]

Ken McGuire

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/371062#Comment_371062

Many good books have been mentioned, but if I may suggest Wayne Meeks - The First Urban Christians, the social world of the Apostle Paul.

Philana Crouch

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/371063#Comment_371063

Here is a short excerpt from the book Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity : Unlocking New Testament Culture it was one of my textbooks from undergrad.

[quote]

“My words were taken out of context!” We frequently hear some prominent individual saying these words to object that a journalist has misrepresented his or her speech. Perhaps you have used this familiar expression to correct a false impression that has been created by a third party. This person may have used your exact words but removed them from the close connection with an event, a place or a series of other words that would have allowed them to convey your true meaning. Your words convey a very different meaning if a listener repeated them without also relating the social setting in which you said them or without explaining the events that evoked them. The potential for misunderstanding increases exponentially if that listener is communicating with someone from another culture, with different customs and even a different language. The reporter would need to explain what significations your words would have in your cultural context or else risk serious misunderstanding. If we would concern ourselves that our words not be taken out of context, or that we not report someone else’s words out of context, we should be far more careful with the words of Jesus, Paul or James—or, as so many Christians take these words to be, the words of God.

Biblical scholars have grown increasingly aware of the importance of looking at texts not only in their historical or literary or social contexts but also in their cultural contexts. “Culture” includes those values, ways of relating and ways of looking at the world that its members share and that provide the framework for all communication. The readers of the New Testament shared certain values, such as honor, and codes of forming and maintaining relationships, such as patronage and kinship, and ways of ordering the world, expressed frequently in terms of purity. If we are to hear the texts correctly, we must apply ourselves to understand the culture out of which and to which they spoke. We need to recognize the cultural cues the authors have woven into their strategies and instructions. This enterprise prevents potential misreading of the texts. Modern readers, too, are fully enculturated into a set of values, ways of relating and so forth. Without taking some care to recover the culture of the first-century Greco-Roman writers and addressees, we will simply read the texts from the perspective of our cultural norms and codes. Negatively, then, this task is essential as a check against our impositions of our own cultural, theological and social contexts onto the text.

David Arthur deSilva, Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity : Unlocking New Testament Culture (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 16-18.

Michael Kinch

Lynden you might find "The Promise and the Blessing" by Michael Harbin helpful. It is not available in Logos though I have found the print version very helpful. I would like to see it in Logos. Here is a description from christian book.

Product Description

Michael A. Harbin has written a book to fill the need for a single text that gives overviews of both Old and New Testaments in a unifying manner. This book shows how the entire Bible fits into a historical continuum. It traces the writing of the Bible as part of the history of the Israelite people and the nation of Israel, showing how the New Testament naturally flows out of the Old Testament, not only theologically, but historically. As such, it follows an historical order rather, than a strict canonical one.

Demonstrating the historical unity between the two testaments, the book traces God's working in history to provide salvation. It begins with God's creation of the cosmos and the initial problem of the fall of man. It then traces God's solution to that problem as he selects first a man, Abraham, his line, and then the nation of Israel to provide the Messiah. Finally, it focuses on identifying the Messiah in the person of Jesus Christ and how the message of the gospel was promulgated to the world.

Product Information

Format: Hardcover
Number of Pages: 640
Vendor: Zondervan
Publication Date: 2003

Simon’s Brother

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/371019#Comment_371019

Thanks Philana somehow I seem to have missed the deSilva title looks good. I'll have to check that one out further.

Philana Crouch

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/371087#Comment_371087

Thanks Philana somehow I seem to have missed the deSilva title looks good. I'll have to check that one out further.

It's a very good book. Also the IVP Dictionaries (OT and NT have articles on Honor and Shame).

Lynden O. Williams

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/371091#Comment_371091

Thanks everyone. Got some good advice.

Dennis Parish

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/371976#Comment_371976

Many good books mentioned above. For another reference text, consider

http://www.logos.com/product/9934/the-eerdmans-dictionary-of-early-judaism

Lynden O. Williams

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/371980#Comment_371980

Many good books mentioned above. For another reference text, consider

http://www.logos.com/product/9934/the-eerdmans-dictionary-of-early-judaism

Thanks Dennis, looks very promising.

David Salazar

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/371051#Comment_371051

Lynden

I would add Palestine in the Time of Jesus which gives insight into the social structures operating in Palestinian society in Jesus' day.

Every blessing

Alan

At the Seminary at Andrews University, the book mentioned above was one of our textbooks. Can't remember what particular NT class because it was an intensive week as part of a NT Study Tour of Israel, Greece and Turkey.

Room4more

What five (5) books do you consider indispensable for someone seeking to get an understanding on New Testament Background and culture?

I have Platinum, plus a lot of other stuff. I am focusing primarily on Logos software. If a must have is not in Logos, then list it please.

Thank you for your assistance.

I would do a search for books concerning the Manners and Customs, since they would be era specific. Logos lists a few…..