Richard Bauckham

How do historical and literary details contribute to a coherent theological witness to Jesus in the Gospel of John? A leading British evangelical New Testament scholar answers that question with studies on themes from messianism to monotheism, symbolic actions from foot-washing to fish-catching, literary contexts from Qumran to the Hellenistic historians, and figures from Nicodemus to "the beloved disciple" to Papias. Originally published in various journals and collections, these essays are now available for the first time in one affordable volume with a substantial new introduction that ties them all together. A must-have for serious students of the Fourth Gospel.

An important discussion of Moltmann's work on eschatology, to which Moltmann himself has contributed responses and new e

This volume is an original and important contribution to the study of the earliest Palestinian Jewish Christianity. For the first time all the evidence for the role which relatives of Jesus played in the early church is assembled and assessed. Dr. Bauckham discusses a wide range of evidence, not only from the New Testament but also from the Church Fathers, the New Testament Apocrypha, rabbinic literature and Palestinian archaeology. The letter of Jude, in particular, proves to have much to teach us about the theology of the brothers of Jesus and their circle. It illuminates their exegetical methods and their Christology and shows both to have been influential contributions to the development of early Christianity. This study shows that this neglected New Testament book is far more important for the study of early Christianity than has hitherto been recognized. By setting the letter of Jude within the context of the evidence for the role of relatives of Jesus in the early church, new insights can be revealed into the letter and early Jewish Christianity.

This engaging study provides a new way of looking at Scripture--one that takes seriously the biblical idea of mission. Richard Bauckham shows how God identifies himself with particular individuals or people in human history in order to be known by all. He is the God of Abraham, Israel, and David and, finally, the one who acts through Jesus Christ. Bauckham applies these insights to the contemporary scene, encouraging those involved in mission to be sensitive to postmodern concerns about globalization while at the same time emphasizing the uniqueness of Christian faith. In doing so, he demonstrates the diversity of Christian faith around the world. This book will be rewarding reading for pastors, lay readers, and students of Scripture, mission, and postmodernism.

This book outlines a biblical understanding of freedom and the particular ways in which Christians choose to exercise that freedom in response to major issues confronting the world today. Specifically, Bauckham constructs a Christian understanding of freedom, explores the authority of Scripture in modern and postmodern contexts, and also examines themes of tradition, ethics, oppression, and ecology as they relate to issues of freedom and authority.

There have been many studies of women in the Gospels, but rather than offering a general overview or focusing on a single theme, this book examines the individual women who appear in the Gospels and the specific passages in which they appear. This approach reveals much more about these characters than previous studies have assumed. Employing historical and literary readings of the biblical texts, Richard Bauckham aims to capture the particularity of each woman he studies. An opening look at the Old Testament book of Ruth introduces the possibilities of reading Scripture from a woman's perspective. Other studies examine the women found in Matthew's and Luke's geneaologies, the prophet Anna, Mary of Clopas, Joanna, Salome and the women featured in the Gospel resurrection narrative. Bauckham's work is not dominated by a feminist agenda and does not presume in advance that the Gospel texts support patriarchal oppression. He does, however, venture some of the new and surprising possibilities that arise when the texts are read from the perspective of their women characters.

The hopes by which the modern West has lived are widely understood to have failed. At the outset of the third millennium, we see the ideology of historical progress for what it is -- a myth that can no longer provide humanity with grounds for true hope. In "Hope against Hope" Richard Bauckham and Trevor Hart present a way forward -- through a radical faith in a global future that is in God's hands. Using the present failure of secular hope as the context for a renewal of the Christian vision for the future, Bauckham and Hart seek to re-source Christian hope from its rich heritage of biblical promises and their interpretation in the Christian tradition. In a fresh and skillful way they explore the major images of eschatology -- the Antichrist, the millennium, the last judgment, the kingdom of God, and others -- proposing the category of imagination as the key to understanding their significance today. The authors insist throughout on the cosmic scope of Christian eschatology, writing of God's future not just for human individuals but for the whole creation, and they explore the relevance of such an eschatology for Christian living in the present. A thoroughly interdisciplinary work that integrates biblical study, systematic theology, and astute analysis of contemporary Western culture, "Hope against Hope" is unique in offering a heartening look at the future from the perspective of life today.

The Apocalypse of John is a work of immense importance and learning. Yet among the major works of early Christianity included in the New Testament it has received relatively little scholarly attention. This work is a significant contribution to remedying this neglect. The author examines the meticulous literary artistry, creative imagination, radical political critique and profound theology of the Apocalypse of John. It is a sustained enterprise to understand both the form and the message of the Apocalypse in its literary and historical contexts. An invaluable and illuminating work for students, scholars and ministers

This text presents a collection of studies which focus on personal eschatology in the Jewish and early Christian apocalypses. The apocalyptic tradition, from its Jewish origins until the early Middle Ages, is studied as a continuous literary tradition, in which both continuity of motifs and important changes in understanding of life after death can be charted. As well as better-known apocalypses, much attention is given to those neglected apocalypses which portray human destiny after death in detail, such as the "Apocalypse of Peter," the "Apocalypse of the Seven Heavens," the later apocalypses of Ezra, and the four apocalypses of the Virgin Mary. Relationships with Greco-Roman eschatology are explored, and several chapters show how specific New Testament texts are illuminated by close knowledge of this tradition of ideas and images of the hereafter.

Argues from a wide range of evidence that the Gospels were not written each for a specific church or community, but were intended for general circulation throughout all the early churches.

The most comprehensive study available of one of the most influential of German Protestant theologians.

The Book of Revelation is a work of profound theology. But its literary form makes it impenetrable to many modern readers and open to all kinds of misinterpretations. Richard Bauckham explains how the book’s imagery conveyed meaning in its original context and how the book's theology is inseparable from its literary structure and composition. Revelation is seen to offer not an esoteric and encoded forecast of historical events but rather a theocentric vision of the coming of God’s universal kingdom, contextualised in the late first-century world dominated by Roman power and ideology. It calls on Christians to confront the political idolatries of the time and to participate in God’s purpose of gathering all the nations into his kingdom. Once Revelation is properly grounded in its original context it is seen to transcend that context and speak to the contemporary church. This study concludes by highlighting Revelation’s continuing relevance for today.