Southern Baptist Theology in the Late Twentieth Century
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 54, No. 2 – Spring 2012
Managing Editor: Malcolm B. Yarnell III
By Gary M. Burge, Lynn H. Cohick, and Gene L. Green. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009. 479 pages. Hardcover, $49.99.
The New Testament in Antiquity: A Survey of the New Testament within its Cultural Contexts is a beautiful volume and a student favorite taking you on a visual journey through the world of the New Testament. The twenty seven-chapter work covers the historical setting of the New Testament, the world of Jesus and world of Paul, each book of the New Testament (some books are grouped together), and the canon and text of the New Testament. In addition to written material, each chapter contains numerous color images, maps, charts, and sidebars which bring the world of the New Testament to life like no other book on the market today. The images, which are one of the strongest features of the volume, include archaeological sites, landscapes, statues, coins, pottery, mosaics, inscriptions, and manuscripts, to name only a few.
The authors give four goals for the work: academic rigor and thoroughness, accessibility, a focus on the ancient context of the New Testament, and a confessional commitment to the evangelical tradition. In my estimation, they have accomplished the final three while only partially meeting the first. Although the work approaches 500 pages, each chapter is brief and full of images, providing only a sketch of some of the detailed information that one would expect in a New Testament survey or introduction. By eliminating the images, charts, and sidebars (which would certainly be a mistake), the volume would decrease by approximately 50%. As an example of the brevity, the discussion of the authorship of Ephesians spans a page and a half and that of 2 Peter half a page. While it may be appropriate to eliminate some of these items altogether in order to make a specific contribution, by discussing many of these items briefly, the goal of thoroughness has not been met. At the same time, the brevity of each chapter provides students a valuable and scenic overview of the landscape of New Testament studies. At the graduate level, the book is best used in tandem with other volumes that more thoroughly address introductory issues. At the undergraduate level, the volume could stand on its own depending upon the focus of the course.
In its first edition, the book is tainted slightly by a few too many editorial mistakes. While this may seem pedantic, such mistakes are perhaps more troublesome for a volume of this sort. As an example, one of the first images is mistakenly identified as papyrus manuscript 52. If an image is not what it is meant to be, it may do more harm than good. Furthermore, if there is one error of this sort, the possibility of others seems likely. Nonetheless, one can certainly forgive the editors inasmuch as the book contains hundreds of images of many different sorts, and only experts in each field could verify the legitimacy of each.
My strongest criticism of the work pertains to the lack of thorough documentation. Each chapter contains only a handful of endnotes, often leaving the reader with no clear place to go to substantiate the authors’ claims. This too impacts the authors’ goals of academic rigor and thoroughness.
These reservations notwithstanding, The New Testament in Antiquity makes a solid contribution to the field and will likely find its way into many classrooms in the coming years.
