Dictionary of New Testament Background: A Compendium of Contemporary Biblical Scholarship (IVP Bible Dictionary Series)
Editors: Craig A. Evans & Stanley E. Porter
Hardcover: 1328 pages
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Year: 2000
ISBN:9780830817801

Buy: IVP; Amazon

Many thanks to Adrianna Wright at IVP for forwarding a review copy! Though this was the last of the New Testament dictionaries in this series by IVP, it has been out for quite some time–nearly a decade. Yet, I hadn’t picked it up until now. As it turns out, after looking through, this is probably my favorite out of the bunch from IVP. The topics span quite a range, from Second Temple Judaism, Greco-Roman history and culture, Rabbinic Judaism (coverage especially from Jacob Neusner and Bruce Chilton), etc. It’s difficult to review a dictionary, but I thought I might highlight a sampling of some notable articles (from my perspective):

• Several articles related to apocalyptic thought: Apocalyptic Literature (John J. Collins); Apocalypticism (David Aune; Timothy Geddert [a fellow Anabaptist! I was in a seminar or two with his daughter-in-law at Fuller Seminary]; Craig Evans); Eschatologies of Late Antiquity (John J. Collins – not to be confused with Roman late antiquity). These are all very solid works, great entry points for those interested. Related, of course, are many individual apocalyptic texts that receive their own coverage, such as the Books of Enoch, the Sybilline Oracles (both entries written by John J. Collins), the Apocalypse of Abraham, or the Apocalypse of Zephaniah (entries for these last two both done by Stephen E. Robinson).
• Social issues: Cities, Greco-Roman (Duane Watson); Economics of Palestine (Douglas Oakman); Education: Jewish and Greco-Roman (Duane Watson); Family and Household (Craig Keener); Roman Social Classes (Duane Watson); Ruler Cult (David deSilva – not sure why they didn’t call it “imperial cult”); Social Values and Structures (S. C. Barton); Writing and Literature: Greco-Roman (the late, great David Scholer)
• Roman Society: Pax Romana (J. E. Bowley); Religion, Greco-Roman (David Aune); Rhetoric (D. L. Stamps); Roman Administration (G. L. Thompson); Roman Emperors (T. S. Johnson); Roman Empire (Duane Watson); Roman Govenors of Palestine (B. M. Rapske); Roman Law and Legal System (C. S. Wansink); Roman Military (G. L. Thompson); Roman Political System (D. W. J. Gill); Rome (R. B. Edwards and M. Reasoner, rev. by Stanley Porter)

The Dead Sea Scrolls are well represented with contributors including William Schniedewind (of UCLA!) and Lawrence Schiffman. One can get a grand overall picture of the types of literature in Greece, Rome, and in Jewish history. We learn about how history is conceived and the understanding of scholarship in the ancient world. We can read about authors from the classics, such as Plutarch, Suetonius, or Cicero. The dictionary covers philosophies such as Epicureanism, Stoicism, Neo-Pythagoreanism and Platonism. The breadth of the entries is astounding. Outside the Anchor Bible Dictionary, this may now be the most useful dictionary that I own. If you’re interested in Christian origins in general, this is the perfect dictionary. At UCLA, Scott Bartchy has a course coming up in the fall on the religious environment of early Christianity and students planning on taking that course would do well to purchase this in advance and get to know the topics–it is also a great source to help fill out study guides for the midterm and final!

All of this said, out of the entries I scanned, the only entry I have strong reservations about is the single one in the book by D. A. Carson: Pseudonymity and Pseudepigraphy. While it could be worse, considering Carson’s typical bias and usual polemical tone, he quite strongly and too easily tosses aside any “mediating positions” on pseudonymity. Instead–going against James Dunn’s entry on the same topic in IVP’s Dictionary of the New Testament and Its Developments–Carson offers that either “some NT documents are psuedonymous and . . . the real authors intended to deceive their readers, or . . . the real authors intended to speak the truth and . .. . pseudonimity is not attested in the NT” (863). Though Carson’s entry is not without value on the whole, this idea that pseudonymity simply equals deception is problematic. Still, if the reader simply ignores this “editorial” assesment by Carson, the article is quite useful.

Dictionary articles are written by individuals, of course, and you’ll get a mixture of views and quality among them. But on the whole, the Dictionary of New Testament Background is a quality volume that NT scholars, pastors, and interested lay persons should all grab a hold of–if they haven’t already!