Norman Perrin

The Parables

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“The main purpose of this book is to interpret the parables 'in dialogue with aesthetic and (non-biblical) literary-critical thought' and by means of 'an existentialist hermeneutic.' Its excitement -- and this is an exciting book -- comes from the fact that the author brings to his task qualifications that are rare among interpreters of the parables. Moreover, these qualifications are probably attainable only in an academic, theological situation which is peculiarly American; and this book may therefore represent a wholly new and characteristically American kind of biblical scholarship . . .”

Trajectories through Early Christianity

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“One can only begin by welcoming this book. For too long now we have been handicapped in our appreciation of the New Testament. On the one hand, by an unduly monolithic view of the development of early Christianity, wherein there was a main line of orthodoxy and various fallings off into heresy, and on the other hand, by a view of the New Testament which unduly set its books apart from other early Christian literature. It is the fundamental claim of Robinson and Koester that we must instead think of early Christianity as a many-hued phenomenon out of which both orthodoxy and heresy ultimately crystallized in various ways; as we must also recognize that we cannot write an 'Introduction to the New Testament' but only a 'History of Early Christian Literature.' . . . All in all I find this book immensely stimulating.”