Greg E. Sterling on Luke-Acts +

Watch out for this new book by Gregory E. Sterling, to be published by Eerdmans:

Greg E. Sterling, Shaping the Past to Define the Present. Luke-Acts and Apologetic Historiography. Eerdmans, 2023. 301 pages. Price $ 44. Scheduled for publication this spring.

Description: “Shaping the Past to Define the Present comprises both new and revised essays by esteemed New Testament scholar Gregory E. Sterling on Jewish and early Christian historiography. A sequel to his seminal work, Historiography and Self-Definition, this volume expands on Sterling’s reading of Luke-Acts in the context of contemporary Jewish and Greek historiography. These systematically arranged essays comprise his new and revised contributions to the field of biblical studies, exploring: 

• the genre of apologetic historiography exemplified by Josephus and Eusebius
• the context of Josephus’s work within a larger tradition of Eastern historiography
• the initial composition and circulation of Luke and Acts
• the relationship of Luke-Acts to the Septuagint
• the interpretation of the Diaspora in Luke-Acts
• the structure of salvation history as it is manifested in Luke-Acts 
• Socratic influences on Luke’s portrayal of Jesus’s death
• the early Jerusalem Christian community as depicted in Acts compared with other Hellenized Eastern traditions such as Egyptian priests and Indian sages
• the establishment of Christianity’s “socially respectability” as a guiding purpose in Luke-Acts 

Engaging with current critical frameworks, Sterling offers readers a comprehensive analysis of early Christian self-definition through Judeo-Christian historiography.”

The Table of Contents can be found here.

The Jesus Movement in its Jewish Setting

The Journal of the Jesus Movement in its Jewish Setting (JJMJS), is freely available online from Oct 20. JJMJS is a new interdisciplinary peer-reviewed online journal, published in cooperation with Eisenbrauns.

The purpose of the Journal is stated thus by the editors:

The purpose of the journal is, then,  to publish research on any topic that directly addresses or has implications for the understanding of Judaism and the Jesus movement from the first to the seventh century. We welcome the submission of studies within any of the following fields: Christian origins, New Testament studies, early Jewish studies including Philo and Josephus, the Dead Sea scrolls, the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, rabbinic studies, patristics, history of ancient Christianity, reception history, and archaeology. Since methodological diversity is an important factor in interdisciplinary research, we encourage authors to apply any type of methodology that is effective for the task at hand, including but not limited to literary, rhetorical, linguistic, socio-historical, intellectual-historical, social-scientific, and archaeological approaches.

The editors are: Prof. Torleif Elgvin (NLA University College, Oslo), Prof. Paula Fredriksen (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Dr. Anders Runesson (McMaster University) and Dr. Alexei Sivertsev (DePaul University).
The first issue is available by going here.