kata ta biblia

I received a Christmas gift from Hendrickson Publishers while I was away visiting my wife’s family. They have graciously sent along what is a very important publication on “Jewish Christianity”: Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries edited by Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik. This book, along with Jewish Christianity Reconsidered edited by Matt Jackson-McCabe, was the subject of a particularly interesting session at this years meeting for the Society of Biblical Literature in San Diego last month. Joel Willits has been taking a look at the book and “Jewish Christianity” generally (see these two tags Euangelion). My fellow Fullerite, Matt Barnes, has taken on the topic of Donald Hagner’s chapter of Skarsaune/Hvalvik and Mark Nanos’ harsh critique of Hagner, given at the SBL session (see a PDF version of Nanos’ paper on his website). See other bits on Skarsaune/Hvalvik from Rick Brannon, Danny Zacharias, and Scot McKnight.

Since this book is not only commanding attention, but fits within my interests in the social history of the early followers of Jesus, I will be writing an extended review. I will keep an updated list of my posts reviewing Skarsaune/Hvalvik here.

Many thanks to Mary Riso at Hendrickson for sending my review copy of this tremendous book! Check out their website for PDF versions of its Table of Contents, the Preface, and Chapter 1.

Update (12/29/2007): I just noticed that the entire SBL session that I mentioned is available via audio downloads at TorahResource.com (HT: JC Baker). I actually remember seeing someone recording the session, but didn’t realize it would be available. This resource excites me because I wasn’t able to stay for the entire session. It should be helpful as I work on my review.