Wayne A. Meeks

1 Corinthians

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“The Hermeneia series has established itself among the most useful tools available for biblical research, whether by professionals or by laypersons. These commentaries present solid scholarship, but the editors have not been afraid to include some fresh, even venturesome interpretations. Excellence in content is matched by handsome design and production; the books are a pleasure to use.”

A Home for the Homeless

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Attempts to look through the New Testament texts into the lives of real human communities of the past received a significant boost with the first publication of A Home for the Homeless. Elliott's work has had a central and provocative role in the debate that has grown and matured during the subsequent decade and which continues vigorously today: What are the appropriate ways of using methods of the social sciences to understand texts from antiquity?”

Communal Reading in the Time of Jesus

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Why did early Christians write? When and where did they read? What did reading mean in the social contexts and practices of the first century? Meticulously sifting a wide range of evidence, Wright introduces us to ‘a complex, multifaceted cultural field’ that shaped that reading. His results demand a reconsideration of the whole process by which texts were controlled and, eventually, a canon emerged.”

Early Christian Families in Context

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Hardly any issue is more central to the social history of early Christianity than understanding the structure and character of the ancient household. This fine collection of diverse but richly complementary studies moves the discussion of that topic significantly forward.”

Paul and Palestinian Judaism

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“In the past three decades reasons have accumulated for a transformation of our whole picture of Judaism in first-century Palestine. Sanders has listened to those reason; he has done his homework; and he undertakes here to shift the question about Paul's relation to that Judaism into a fundamentally different perspective. For New Testament students still trapped in Billerbeck-and-Kittel scholarship, the book will be revolutionary. For everyone who tries to understand early Judaism or the Christian movement that emerged from it, Sanders' work requires a thorough re-thinking of our assumptions.”

Slaves in the New Testament

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“Harrill combines wide-ranging knowledge of ancient sources with a sharp eye for the jugular of a text. The result is that rare thing in biblical scholarship, genuinely fresh insights into an old question. A book both delightful and disturbing, Slaves in the New Testament demolishes a card house of wishful thinking about early Christian views on slavery. Everyone who believes that the Bible has something to say about moral issues needs to pay attention.”

The Jesus Movement

History & Biography

“Remarkable for its comprehensiveness...a most useful addition to any reference collection and certainly valuable as a textbook...”

Walking Between the Times

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“J. Paul Sampley has provided a simple and attractive map of a complicated terrain: Paul's moral reasoning. Pastors laypeople, and students will be surprised to discover a fresh way of reflecting on moral issues in texts they thought were all too familiar.”

Walking in Love

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“A lifetime of scholarship hides behind the plain and straightforward language of this book. Not that it is simple, for the central question it addresses is as complicated as could be: What does it mean, as conceived by the apostle Paul, to live life as a Christian? Anyone for whom that question is important will find here a guide and a goad to think afresh about it.”