Stephen Westerholm

Defending Substitution

Theology

“Acadia Studies in Bible and Theology Craig A. Evans and Lee Martin McDonald, General Editors The last two decades have witnessed dramatic developments in biblical and theological study. Full-time academics can scarcely keep up with fresh discoveries, recently published primary texts, ongoing archaeological work, new exegetical proposals, experiments in methods and hermeneutics, and innovative theological syntheses. For students and nonspecialists, these developments are confusing and daunting. What has been needed is a series of succinct studies that assess these issues and present their findings in a way that students, pastors, laity, and nonspecialists will find accessible and rewarding. Acadia Studies in Bible and Theology, sponsored by Acadia Divinity College in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, and in conjunction with the college’s Hayward Lectureship, constitutes such a series. The Hayward Lectureship has brought to Acadia many distinguished scholars of Bible and theology, such as Sir Robin Barbour, John Bright, Leander Keck, Helmut Koester, Richard Longenecker, Martin Marty, Jaroslav Pelikan, Ian Rennie, James Sanders, and Eduard Schweizer. The Acadia Studies in Bible and Theology series reflects this rich heritage. These studies are designed to guide readers through the ever more complicated maze of critical, interpretative, and theological discussion taking place today. But these studies are not introductory in nature; nor are they mere surveys. Written by leading authorities in the field, the Acadia Studies in Bible and Theology series offers critical assessments of the major issues that the church faces in the twenty-first century. Readers will gain the requisite orientation and fresh understanding of the important issues that will enable them to take part meaningfully in discussion and debate. “Addressing a hot topic in Pauline studies, Gathercole’s Defending Substitution agrees with those who see Christ’s death as one in which believers participate and as effecting apocalyptic deliverance. At the same time, he argues persuasively for the less-fashionable view that Paul also speaks of that death as substitutionary: Christ died in the place of others, and for their sins. A model of scholarly clarity and sobriety.”

Dictionary of Paul and His Letters

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Students of Paul will welcome this updated version of InterVarsity Press's Dictionary of Paul and His Letters. Here, in a single volume, they will find accessible articles dealing with an impressive spectrum of topics related to the apostle's life and writings, authored, in a number of cases, by the expert on the subject. Ample bibliographies will more than satisfy readers who wish to pursue a particular subject further. The editors are to be commended on the completion of a massive and most worthwhile undertaking.”

God's Glory Alone—The Majestic Heart of Christian Faith and Life

Theology

“A timely project, and not simply because the 500th anniversary of the Reformation will soon be upon us. Much of ‘who we are’ is determined by “where we have come from”; at a time when even so significant a part of our past as the Reformation is, for many, little more than a name, informed, accessible treatments of its basic principles are welcome indeed.”

If One Uses It Lawfully

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Matthew Ferris’s If One Uses It Lawfully argues forcefully for the view that, while Christians are indeed called to holy living, the path to sanctification does not lie in conforming with the law’s commandments. The author has read widely and thought much about his subject, and there can be few readers who will not learn something new or find something challenging in his work.”

Paul and His Life-Transforming Theology

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Clearly written, informed in its scholarship, and incisive in its treatment of the main issues in the apostle's life and thought, Mohrlang's book will serve as an excellent introduction to Paul. Solidly within the evangelical tradition, the book nonetheless offers a biblical challenge to a number of trends in contemporary evangelicalism. It will warrant and reward careful study.”

Paul's Early Period

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“A work of prodigious scholarship, certain both to provoke reconsideration of the crucial period it covers and to remain a standard of reference for years to come.”

Paul's Gospel in Romans

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“No subject could be more crucial than the gospel, and no body of literature is better suited to its illumination than Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. Eschewing narrow understandings of the gospel and its effects, and drawing on the entire canon of Scripture while focusing on Romans, Williams shows that the gospel promises a right relationship with God to individual believers; it reconciles Jews and Gentiles to one another and, by the Spirit, enables them to live righteously in an unrighteous world; and, in the end, it will effect the liberation of all creation from enslavement to sin and from the cosmic curse that followed Adam’s sin. A welcome corrective.”

Reformation Readings of Paul

Theology

“Modern Pauline scholarship has largely done away with caricatures of Early Judaism, which arose out of ignorance of the sources, and replaced them with caricatures of the Protestant Reformers, spawned by a similar ignorance. This volume sets the record straight on a number of counts and raises the question of whether the concerns of the Reformers in their day may not have made them sensitive to aspects of Paul's thought to which moderns are oblivious. A provocative and timely study.”

Sacred Tradition in the New Testament

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Ranging more widely than traditional treatments of the Old Testament in the New, Porter's study illustrates the broad role such traditions played in shaping the way Jesus was understood by New Testament authors and in shaping Jesus's own self-understanding. This is a significant contribution on much-debated issues.”

The Crucifixion

Theology

“If churches of the twenty-first century are to bear any relation to those of the first, then the cross of Christ must return to the center of their proclamation and life: that, in essence, is the message of Fleming Rutledge's Crucifixion, a book that should serve to mediate much contemporary biblical scholarship on the subject to ministers and other interested readers. Unlike a good deal of that scholarship, however, Rutledge treats a variety of New Testament motifs that speak to the salvific effects of Christ's death, refusing to allow any one motif to so dominate the discussion as to exclude the others. Richly illustrated with examples from literature and current events, this book should prove a gold mine for preachers at the same time as it invites the careful reflection of every reader on the mystery of salvation.”

The Letter to the Romans

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“The passing of two decades has by no means rendered the careful exegesis of Moo’s 1996 commentary out of date. Still, this second edition allows him to interact with the most recent Pauline scholarship. To this scholarship it serves as a reliable guide—at the same time as it remains, and will continue to remain, a fine guide to the argument of Paul’s most weighty epistle.”