New Testament Basics: A Guide for Reading and Interpreting the Text

New Testament Basics introduces college, university, seminary, and divinity school students to the study of the New Testament. Authors Stefan Alkier and David M. Moffitt adopt five major aims: (i) to explore how the Bible came to exist, dealing with the formation and significance of the Christian canon; (ii) to discuss the ways the Bible continues to exert influence on contemporary culture, demonstrating the ongoing value and importance of biblical literacy; (iii) to introduce readers to some of the most fundamental methods used in the study of the New Testament, including a substantial discussion of semiotics and its usefulness for New Testament interpretation; (iv) to provide a survey of central historical, social, and economic information as important contextual knowledge for interpreting the New Testament; and (v) to offer some brief discussion of the contents of several New Testament texts and consider ways they might inform theological reflection. In the end, Alkier and Moffitt's New Testament Basics fosters within students important competencies needed to read and interpret the New Testament for themselves.

Stefan Alkier is professor of New Testament and the history of the early church at Fachbereich Evangelische Theologie, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He is the author of numerous volumes, including Reading the Bible Intertextually (2009), Revelation and the Politics of Apocalyptic Interpretation (2012), Miracles Revisited: New Testament Miracle Stories and Their Concepts of Reality (2013), and The Reality of the Resurrection: The New Testament Witness (2013).

David M. Moffitt is professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews. He is the author of Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in the Epistle to the Hebrews (2011), which was the recipient of a Manfred Lautenschläger Award for Theological Promise in 2013. He is coeditor of Son, Sacrifice, and Great Shepherd: Studies on the Epistle to the Hebrews (2020) and A Scribe Trained for the Kingdom of Heaven: Essays on Christology and Ethics in Honor of Richard B. Hays (2021). He has also published numerous scholarly articles and essays.