The New Testament with Imagination: A Fresh Approach to Its Writings and Themes - Softcover

Loader, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802827462 ISBN 13: 9780802827463

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2007

Synopsis

The dynamic teachings of the New Testament are often lost in the dryness and formality of academic study. In The New Testament with Imagination William Loader seeks to solve this conundrum. He brings imagination into play to enter the world of the New Testament and carefully reads key sample passages to go right to the heart of its message.

This book offers a unique new way of approaching the New Testament -- nothing else like it is in print -- and will be accessible to a broad readership, although it will also give longtime students of scripture a fresh perspective. Loader's historically sound methodology remains focused on imagining what we know through established research, not fanciful reconstruction.

Loader's distinctive work has the strength of a standard introduction, but without an overload of information, and the depth of a New Testament theology, but written in language accessible to readers new to the New Testament.

About this title

About the Author

William Loader is professor emeritus of New Testament atMurdoch University, Perth, Australia. His other books onsexuality in early Judaism and Christianity are Philo,Josephus, and the Testaments on Sexuality;The Pseudepigrapha on Sexuality; TheDead Sea Scrolls on Sexuality; and Enoch,Levi, and Jubilees on Sexuality.,

Reviews

Loader, an Australian Research Council professorial fellow at Murdoch University in Perth, reintroduces the New Testament to the modern reader in this interesting and accessible study of the texts, considered within their cultural context. The author well understands that reading ancient documents requires a knowledge of how people lived and societies functioned at the time of the writing. By bringing readers into the everyday experience of the New Testament writers, we gain a wider context in which to read the sacred writings. Loader uses the methods of modern criticism to clarify some of the puzzling aspects of biblical study-why, for example, do the gospel accounts sometimes read differently? And his study of John's writings, especially his exposition of the book of Revelation, helps restore balance to the field of apocalyptic studies. Loader argues that for Jesus, "people mattered most and other laws, which he continued to respect, took second place after loving one's neighbor as oneself." Loader reminds us that, even as an inspired document, the New Testament remains the product of human hands, written in a time and place long distant from our own experience. Immersing oneself in that environment is essential to obtaining a correct view of the life and teachings of Jesus and the apostles.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802827462
• ISBN 13: 9780802827463
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 216