Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #193421 in Books
• Published on: 1998-01-16
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 1320 pages

Synopsis
Building on the strong reputation of the com panion volumes Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels and the D ictionary of Paul and his Letters, this book focuses on some less well-known parts of the New Testament, and the post-ap ostolic church. '

Customer Reviews

a must buy for all New Testament scholars
All you wanted to know about the Acts, Hebrews, Catholic Epistles and Revelation are in this dictionary. A must buy for anybody wanting to know more about the New Testament. Together with the other three volumes, (Jesus and the Gospels; Paul and his letters; and New Testament background) it makes a very interesting dictionary on the New Testament. I found the articles on the Catholic Epistles and Textual Criticism very interesting and informative. Look out for the Old Testament series in 2002.

Supreme quality scholarship and presentation make this indispensable for NT study
IVP's wonderful `Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Developments' is the third in IVPs four-ship dictionary series - the other three are listed below and are all equally superb.

This title constitutes over 1300 pages of top scholarly information and the excellent cross-referencing system (which also references the other three titles in the series) make this a very user-friendly resource.

Inside this treasure trove of biblical information you'll find articles on, the Apostolic Fathers (the first generation of Christian leaders, and their writings, after the Apostles), Apocalyptic writings (like Revelation), discussions on highly significant Christian theological terms (like Logos), as well as lots of discussion about the (hugely important) contacts & tensions between Judaism and Christianity.

For instance, looking up `Jewish Wars', you are directed to `Christianity and Judaism: Partings of the Ways'. This article looks at the `healthy Jewish-Christian dialogue' and is divided into five parts:

Jesus, the Apostles and the New Testament Writings
Christianity's Gentile Mission
The Divinization of Jesus
Historical Factors
Jewish and Christian Polemic

The larger parts are then further sub-divided with bold-type indented titles making it easy enough to navigate. The second section, for instance, notes that one significant factor in the split from Judaism was the Christian insistence on `removing the yoke of Torah' which the Jewish leaders could not tolerate: `the councils depicted in Acts 11 and 15 exemplify the nature of the problems brought on by early Christianity's aggressive Gentile mission'.

This book then is for anyone `who has felt the need for scholarly and sympathetic guidance... This Dictionary will, we trust, put the readers in a position to see the ways the formulation of the Christian message developed from the Synoptic Gospels... up to about... A.D. 150.'

I particularly like the emphasis on `sympathetic' scholarship - it makes this dictionary (and whole set) very accessible: we are not faced with a mountain of dry academia here.

If you are keen to understanding the greater New Testament, and how the church began to develop after Jesus death and resurrection (and the subsequent deaths of all the apostles), then this dictionary is indispensable. If you have more cash and want to go further (within the superb IVP family of dictionaries), the other three are just as good and as valuable:

Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels
Dictionary of Paul and his Letters
Dictionary of New Testament Background

All these amazing titles are available digitally, and more cheaply, as part of the fantastic new edition of The Essential IVP Reference Collection CD-ROM (or on download from Logos Bible Software).