Hearing the New Testament: Strategies for Interpretation, Second Edition

by Joel B. Green

A distinguished group of scholars here introduces and illustrates the array of strategies and methods used in New Testament study today. Standard approaches -- text criticism, historical methods, etc. -- appear side by side with newer approaches -- narrative criticism, Latino-Latina hermeneutics, theological interpretation of the New Testament, and more. First published in 1995, Hearing the New Testament is now revised and updated, including rewritten chapters, new chapters, and new suggestions for further reading.

Genres: Biblical Studies, Theology, Christian, Christianity, New Testament, Religion, Scripture

444 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1995

About the author

Joel B. Green (PhD, University of Aberdeen) is professor of New Testament interpretation and associate dean of the Center for Advanced Theological Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. Prior to moving to Fuller, he taught at Asbury Theological Seminary for ten years. He is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Theological Interpretation and has authored or edited numerous books, including the Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics.

Reviews

[Patrick Berthalon · Rating 4 out of 5]

En route pour une nouvelle traduction pour la FATAD (faculté de théologie pentecôtiste)

[Greg Coates · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic tool for introducing biblical hermeneutical methods, but some essays are better than others.

[Orville Jenkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

The New Testament on its Own Terms

Green has edited a collection of essays by leading world Bible scholars on the insights for interpretation of the New Testament texts in light of their cultural background.

Green himself is a renowned professor of New Testament at American Baptist Theological Seminary of the West. He is the author of several important books on the New Testament and New Testament studies.

Here writers give attention to the interpretive process, looking at the various processes and approaches that provide insight to the context of the New Testament documents and the factors in understanding in a meaningful way how that applies to our very different context of life, culture and society today.

The contributors to the superb collectn are well-studied, it appears, in the various disciplines that clarify and sharpen our view of the variety of cultures and worldviews of the first century. Green himself provides three key essays in this collection.

He opens the volume by providing an introduction to the cross-cultural communication factors involved in reading and interpreting the New Testament texts.

His essay "The Challenge of Hearing the New Testament" clarifies the factors in the process of understanding the texts across the centuries through the disparate cultural heritages and our cultural worldview setting.

[Don Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good place to start to help one consider scriptural interpretation. This book too has many writers and thus bring different viewpoints. I found some to be unnecessarily technical,as though they were trying to impress. Overall, this is a book that I will continue to draw from as I continue to attempt to understand the scriptures

[Zachariah Kenney · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of essays explores many important concepts and methods for interpreting the New Testament.
I discuss it in more detail on my blog:
https://seminary2016.wordpress.com/20...

[Timothy Decker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good resource. Not as good as others.

[Porter Sprigg · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really helpful collection of introductory essays that have excited me to continue my exploration of the New Testament.

[Jordan Southerland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seminary book. Great content in different forms of exegesis. Book is full of saints and heretics so it’s a wide range of opinions.

[Joshua Pearsall · Rating 2 out of 5]

So I marked this book as heterodox, not because everything in it is but a fair amount is. There is a dangerous lack of critique on the various aspects of liberation theology and skepticism to the fact of objective meaning in Biblical text. There are some great essays in here, and this book represents well the views of heterodox interpretive methods, but it should critique those. It does well to present several far more orthodox views alongside them, but this doesn't offset the danger of this book used as an education work when it's not properly noting these dangerous groups. For example why is BART ERHMAN contributing instead of someone like Daniel Wallace? Bart is a good textual critic, but he is not an honest one. Even here where is not hamming up his rhetoric, his anti Christian language crept into various spots where it shouldn't have been.

Chapters:
1. The Challenge of Hearing the New Testament—Joel B. Green

2. Textual Criticism of the New Testament—Bart D. Ehrman

3. Historical Criticism and Social-Scientific Perspectives in New Testament Study—Stephen C. Barton

4. The Relevance of Extracanonical Jewish Texts to New Testament Study—Richard Bauckham

5. The Relevance of Greco-Roman Literature and Culture to New Testament Study—Loveday C. A. Alexander

6. Traditio-Historical Criticism—Holly J. Carey

7. The Use of the Old Testament by New Testament Writers—Richard B. Hays and Joel B. Green

8. Genre Analysis—James L. Bailey

9. Rhetorical Criticism—C. Clifton Black

10. Modern Linguistics and Word Study in the New Testament—Max Turner

11. Discourse Analysis and New Testament Interpretation—Joel B. Green

12. Narrative Criticism—Mark Allan Powell

13. The Reader in New Testament Interpretation—Kevin J. Vanhoozer

14. Feminist Criticism—F. Scott Spencer

15. African American Criticism—Emerson B. Powery

16. Latino/a Hermeneutics—Efrain Agosto

17. Reading the New Testament in Canonical Context—Robert W. Wall

18. The New Testament, Theology, and Ethics—Stephen E. Fowl

[Nicholas Quient · Rating 5 out of 5]

My only complaint was the chapter on the New Testament's use of the Old Testament: far too short. Of course, I *could* go read Hay's myself, but he's too high up on the shelf.

NQ