One of my regrets in Bible college is not taking a class on the intertestamental period by Randy McCracken. Growing up as a Christian, I rarely ever heard much about the cultural background of either Testament. And honestly, it took a long time before I was able to connect that Jesus was born only decades after Julius Caesar died (despite having read Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in high school—”Et Tu Brutè?”), and despite having read some layman’s commentaries which noted that Jesus’ birth was only a decade after Caesar Augustus died. Jesus and Rome simply seemed like two different worlds. So different that I never saw the connection between them.
Either I really wasn’t paying attention or very few talked about Rome’s influence in Israel. To be fair, it’s probably a bit of both. I honestly didn’t pay nearly as much attention as I should have to sermons and teachings pre-Bible college. Regarding books, David deSilva’s An Introduction to the New Testament was my deep dive into understanding the culture and ways of life for the New Testament authors. Now I’ve finally been able to get my hands on Gary Burge and Gene Green’s The New Testament in Antiquity, 2nd edition, a textbook that surveys the New Testament in its cultural contexts.
Gary Burge is visiting professor of NT at Calvin Theological Seminary, and Gene Green is dean of Trinity International University’s Florida campus. He previously served as emeritus professor of NT at Wheaton College.
What’s New?
In their preface Burge and Green write that this second edition is “a vigorous overhaul” from the first. 25 percent of the book has been rewritten, and both the photographs and the bibliographies have been updated. Lynn Cohick is no longer one of the editors.
What are the Goals?
Burge and Green offer four goals for this work:
- This volume is academically rigorous. Each chapter offers up-to-date information informed by current scholarship.
- This volume is accessible to the student. The technical jargon is kept to a minimum, and the book is accessible even if you haven’t read much on the NT’s ancient context. Quality photographs, charts, and maps are added to enhance understanding.
- Per the title, this book highlights the New Testament’s ancient context. Interpreting the New Testament “requires an intimate understanding of its background, culture, and history” (13). In addition to the above are sidebars that point readers to contextual insights and primary sources outside of Scripture. The authors took great care in assembling a team of artists, editors, photographers, and consultants for the best graphic designs. They know how lousy it is to get a book which features “awesome photographs of the Holy Land,” only to end up having dinky pictures of terrible quality that are worse than having no picture at all! The pictures in this book are wonderful.
- This volume is responsive to confessional commitments in the evangelical tradition. This is a scholarly work that treats the Bible for what it is—Scripture, “which has spoken to the church through the centuries” (14).
Summary and Highlights
This book would be somewhat impossible and pedantic to summarize and explain completely. I’ll do a brief overview and offer some highlights and disappointments.
Chapter One (and 5–26)
Chapter One offers some perspective on what the NT is—Jesus of Nazareth was deemed the Messiah and killed in Jerusalem. He rose from the grave, his followers were transformed by what they experienced, and they took his message to the entire Mediterranean world. The four Gospels contain his life (chs. 5–11), and Acts gives a brief history of how the church began expanding (ch. 12). Then a few other important leaders penned numerous letters (Paul: chs. 13–21; James, Peter, Jude, John (plus whoever wrote Hebrews): chs. 22–26).
Burge and Green both hold the Bible to be Scripture. It is God’s Word. It is divinely inspired. We need to understand culture to understand what the authors meant, but we cannot write off their meaning as merely coming from a specific cultural understanding of the world that we no longer need to hold today. As the authors write, “The message of the Bible may be timeless, but the form of that message is not” (21). They continue by noting, “God is at work in and through these chapters to bring life and transformation to all who seek him there [in the New Testament]” (21).
We readers also come with our own cultural biases. When Jesus talks about “a sower” who “went out to sow,” what do we imagine? Do we imagine a farmer with a giant farm? A small farm? Do we place that farmer in Kansas? Would we know what a Mediterranean setting would look like? In our mind, does the church in ancient Thessalonica look like our churches today? WE have to embrace the cultural understandings of the ancients to understand what was important and why it was before we can move to application today. They emphasize knowing the land, the history, and the culture.
Chapter Two
With that stated, chapter two covers the intertestamental period in only 35-pages (and some of those are filled with pictures and illustrations). This is a really great way to get an overview of this oft-neglected period. They begin after Israel returned from Babylonian exile (539-332 BC), and they end with the second Jewish revolt (AD 132–135).
Chapter Three
Chapter three introduces us to Israel: Jesus’ Jewish world. They explain the land: the coastal plain, the coastal hills, the central mountains, the Jordan Valley, the Wilderness, the Eastern Plateau, and Galilee. Knowledge of these areas helps us understand the Bible text better. For example, “The northern region just east of the Jordan River was known as Perea and was under the authority of Herod Antipas (along with Galilee itself). This explains why John the Baptist, who lived in this desert, could be pursued by Antipas” (76). They introduce us to the Pharisees, giving a more well-rounded view of them, as well as other religious groups. You will learn about the Jewish temple, festivals, the Sanhedrin, the villages and synagogues—something I really enjoy reading about. What was normal life like for most people? As I learn that I am able to fill in the empty spaces in my mind when I picture Jesus walking around and teaching both in synagogues and on grassy hills.
Chapter Four
Chapter four covers the Mediterranean world of Paul. This covers many of the same aspects: geography, the journey (how Paul was able to take his missionary journeys), and the peoples. They survey the order of society (slaves, freedmen/women, and free), patrons and clients, family, and the government of the empire and how Caesar and the Senate functioned. They survey Roman religion and how Christianity invaded this polytheistic world of gods and magic.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
As mentioned above, the next chapters cover Jesus’ life, Acts, and the letters of the New Testament. The final chapter (ch 27) covers the preservation of the NT, manuscripts, how books became canonized, and how to understand how translation can be both faithful to the biblical authors’ meaning and understandable to modern people today.
The four Gospels, Acts, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Romans receive a section-by-section 30,000 foot flyover. As well numerous cultural aspects are looked at, such as going to court in the Roman world, conversations through letters, and Paul as an orator. After the chapter on Romans, the rest of Paul’s letters are boiled down to the message of the letter instead of a section-by-section survey. Hebrews and James both have enough themes that these are highlighted.
The chapters of most of the unmentioned letters are breezed through. There is important information there, but I wonder if instead of boiling down the letter’s message if more cultural context could have been given. The section on 1 Peter really covers only six pages (if you don’t count one page of illustrations). 2 Peter consists of 4 pages; Jude, 3 pages. Even the chapter on John’s Gospel was surprisingly short (17 pages) with little cultural background given to fill out the Gospel. It is more of a summary of the Gospel with a few added insights. But as I wrote above, sidebars number these pages to give the proper cultural insights.
Recommended?
As the authors state, this book can be used by laypeople outside of a seminary, but it is written as a textbook for students. And it looks very much like a textbook. The content here is very good, so if your old high school textbooks didn’t scar you for life, this is a great book to pick up. Pair this with David deSilva’s NT introduction for a double-whammy of cultural insights. The charts, illustrations, and sidebars are a huge plus in this book. Burge and Green have done a massive job helping readers get into the first-century world to better understand the Bible they pick up and read every day.
Lagniappe
- Authors: Gary M. Burge / Gene L. Green
- Hardcover: 623 pages
- Publisher: Zondervan Academic (April 14, 2020)
Buy it on Amazon or from Zondervan Academic!
Disclosure: I received this book free from Zondervan Academic. The opinions I have expressed are my own, and I was not required to write a positive review. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html.
Amazon Affiliate Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
spoiledmilks 