Bøger af Frederick J. Murphy

Apocalypticism is not a peripheral topic in biblical studies. It represents the central, characteristic transformation of Hebrew thought in the period of the Second Temple. It therefore constituted the worldview of Jesus, Paul, and the earliest Christians, and it is the context in which the New Testament books were written. In this volume, Frederick Murphy defines apocalypticism while discussing its origins, where it comes into play in the Hebrew Bible, and how it relates to Jesus and the New Testament.

The Book of Revelation is one of the most difficult of biblical books to understand, depicting the clash of cosmic powers, the interplay of bizarre images, and the specific problems of particular churches in the Roman province of Asia. Despite its opacity, Revelation has enjoyed great influence down through the ages, an influence felt in art, literature, and theology. The relative ease with which its images can be adapted to varied situations, however, has produced problematic interpretations that are far from what the author intended.Many misinterpretations of Revelation result from lack of appreciation of its original contexts: historical, social, literary, theological. To address this problem and to enable today''s readers to understand how the book would have been read by early Christians, this commentary makes available the best in recent and classic biblical scholarship on Revelation and its setting. The result is that the reader will see Revelation in its original contexts and thereby fully comprehend it as one possible Christian response to specific conditions in the eastern Roman Empire in the first century."Murphy''s commentary is insightful and a pleasure to read. It is an excellent introduction to a fascinating and complex biblical book. I recommend it highly for students, pastors, and lay people." -- Adela Yarbro Collins, University of ChicagoFrederick J. Murphy is professor of religious studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, and the author of The Religious World of Jesus and Pseudo-Philo: Rewriting the Bible.

Introduces students to the Second Temple period (520 BCE-70 CE), the formative era of early Judaism and the milieu of Jesus and of the earliest Christians.