Do professional historians and New Testament scholars use the same methods to explore the past? This interdisciplinary textbook introduces students of the New Testament to the vocabulary and methods employed by historians. It discusses various approaches to historiography and demonstrates their applicability for interpreting the New Testament text and exploring its background. Overviews of the philosophy of history, common historical fallacies, and the basics of historiography are followed by three exegetical studies that illustrate the applicability of various historical methods for New Testament interpretation.

What is the purpose of studying history? How do we reflect on contemporary life from a historical perspective, and can such reflection help us better understand ourselves, the world around us, and the God we worship and serve? Written by an accomplished historian, award-winning author, public evangelical spokesman, and respected teacher, this introductory textbook shows why Christians should study history, how faith is brought to bear on our understanding of the past, and how studying the past can help us more effectively love God and others. John Fea shows that deep historical thinking can relieve us of our narcissism; cultivate humility, hospitality, and love; and transform our lives more fully into the image of Jesus Christ. The first edition of this book has been used widely in Christian colleges across the country. The second edition provides an updated introduction to the study of history and the historian's vocation. The book has also been revised throughout and incorporates Fea's reflections on this topic from throughout the past 10 years.

The stories and contributions of the apostles provide an important entrée into church history. This comprehensive historical and literary introduction uncovers their lives and legacies, underscoring the apostles' impact on the growth of the early church. The author collects and distills the histories, legends, symbols, and iconography of the original twelve and locates figures such as Paul, Peter, and John in the broader context of the history of the apostles. He also explores the continuing story of the gospel mission and the twelve disciples beyond the New Testament.

Veteran historian Robert Tracy McKenzie offers a concise, clear, and beautifully written introduction to the study of history. Laying out necessary skills, methods, and attitudes for historians in training, this resource is loaded with concrete examples and insightful principles that show how the study of history—when faithfully pursued—can shape your heart as well as your mind.

There has been consistent apathy in recent years with regard to the long-standing debate surrounding the date of Acts. While the so-called majority of scholars over the past century have been lulled into thinking that Acts was written between 70 and 90 CE, the vast majority of recent scholarship is unanimously adamant that this middle-range date is a convenient, political compromise. Karl Armstrong argues that a large part of the problem relates to a remarkable neglect of historical, textual, and source-critical matters. Compounding the problem further are the methodological flaws among the approaches to the middle and late date of Acts. Armstrong thus demonstrates that a historiographical approach to the debate offers a strong framework for evaluating primary and secondary sources relating to the book of Acts. By using a historiographical approach, along with the support of modern principles of textual criticism and linguistics, the historical context of Acts is determined to be concurrent with a date of 62–63 CE.

For over twenty years, Craig Blomberg's The Historical Reliability of the Gospels has provided a useful antidote to many of the toxic effects of skeptical criticism of the Gospels. He offers an overview of the history of Gospel criticism. Thoroughly updated edition with added footnotes and two new appendixes.

For centuries scholars have analyzed the composition of Luke-Acts presupposing that the reference to “many” accounts in Luke’s Preface indicates the written texts which served as the author’s primary sources of information. To justify this portrait of Luke as a text-based author, scholars have appealed to analogies with the text-based authors Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch, and Arrian. Luke among the Ancient Historians challenges this portrait of Luke’s method through surveying the origins and development of ancient Greek historiography in chapters on Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius, Josephus, and Luke. By focusing on the values and practices of ancient historians, Peters demonstrates not only that ancient authors following the model of Thucydides regarded the testimony of eyewitnesses, as opposed to texts, as the proper sources for historians but that Luke emulated the values, practices, and craft terminology of the contemporary historiographical tradition. Taking seriously the self-presentation of Luke as a reporter of contemporary events who claims to write on the basis of “eyewitnesses from the beginning,” and personal investigation, this book argues against analogies with text-based historians who wrote about non-contemporary events and instead situates Luke within a portrait of the values and practices of historians of contemporary events.

Few would deny that a person named Jesus lived and died during the first century of this era. Yet opinions differ widely as to the reliability of the New Testament record of his life. In I Believe in the Historical Jesus, Marshall surveys the quest for the historical Jesus from the 19th century to the present, examines the methods used to extract historical information from the gospels, and investigates the role faith plays in a study of the life of Jesus. The gospel accounts of Jesus are reliable historically, not merely literary productions impossible to penetrate from an historical perspective, and Marshall's work is a ringing affirmation of belief in the historical Jesus. This edition includes a new epilogue and updated bibliography. I. Howard Marshall is Emeritus Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Honorary Research Professor at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, where he supervises postgraduate students in their theological studies. Professor Marshall's area of research has been Luke-Acts, the Pastoral Epistles and the theology of New Testament writers.

This paradigm-shifting study is the first book-length investigation into the compositional dates of the New Testament to be published in over forty years. It argues that, with the notable exception of the undisputed Pauline Epistles, most New Testament texts were composed twenty to thirty years earlier than is typically supposed by contemporary biblical scholars. What emerges is a revised view of how quickly early Christians produced what became the seminal texts for their new movement.

This volume provides an up-to-date introduction to the diverse ways the Bible is being interpreted by scholars in the field.