To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the journal Biblical Interpretation, a diverse group of innovative scholars come together in this collection of essays to examine and evaluate the present and future of biblical studies as an academic discipline.

What does global biblical studies look like in the early decades of the twenty-first century, and what new directions may be discerned? Profound shifts have taken place over the last few decades as voices from the majority of the globe have begun and continue to reshape and relativize biblical studies. With contributors from Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, and North America, this volume is a truly global work, offering surveys and assessments of the current situation and suggestions for the future of biblical criticism in all corners of the world. The contributors are Yong-Sung Ahn, George Aichele, Pablo R. Andiñach, Roland Boer, Fiona Black, Philip Chia, Nancy Cardoso Pereira, Jione Havea, Israel Kamudzandu, Milena Kirova, Tat-siong Benny Liew, Monica Melancthon, Judith McKinlay, Sarojini Nadar, Jorge Pixley, Jeremy Punt, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Fernando F. Segovia, Hanna Stenström, Vincent Wimbush, and Gosnell Yorke.

Many scholars in Bible are interpreting the biblical text from newer interdisciplinary approaches. These disciplines, such as modern literary theory, sociology, and anthropology, have their own technical vocabulary, presuppositions, questions, and methodologies, which a biblical scholar must learn in order to appropriate these approaches for study of the biblical text. This book will introduce the student and the interested teacher to these new approaches, providing bibliography for further study in the method. Moreover, this book will actually apply the method to a particular text in the Book of Judges, so that the reader may see the method "in action."

This book offers two things in particular: first, these are papers that have been commented on and re-worked in the context of a set of lively sessions from (International) SBL conferences from 2012 to 2014 (Amsterdam, St. Andrews, Vienna). Second, they offer an insight into the origins of the discipline as one which became conscious of itself in the early modern era and the turn to history and the analysis of texts, to offer something exegetical and synthetic. The fresh wind that the enterprise received in the latter part of the twentieth century is the focus of the second part of the volume, which describes the recent activity up to the present "state of the question." The third part takes a step further to anticipate the way forward for the discipline in an era where "canon"--but also "Scripture" and "theology"--seem to be alien terms, and where other ideologies are advanced in the name of neutrality. Biblical Theology will aim to be true to the evidence of the text: it will not always see clearly, but it will rely on the best of biblical criticism and theological discernment to help it. That is the spirit with which this present volume is imbued.

Few biblical topics are as important as mission. Mission is linked inextricably to humanity's sinfulness and need for redemption and to God's provision of salvation in the person and work of Jesus Christ. This good news of salvation must be made known. The saving mission of Jesus constitutes the foundation for Christian mission, and the Christian gospel is its message. This second edition of New Studies in Biblical Theology volume Salvation to the Ends of the Earth emphasizes the way in which the Bible presents a continuing narrative of God's mission—ranging from the story of Israel to the story of Jesus and that of the early Christians. At the same time, it provides a robust historical and chronological backbone to the unfolding of the early Christian mission. The apostle Paul's writings and the General Epistles are incorporated with the Gospel with which they have the closest and most natural canonical and historical affinity. Addressing key issues in biblical theology, the works comprising New Studies in Biblical Theology are creative attempts to help Christians better understand their Bibles. The NSBT series is edited by D. A. Carson, aiming to simultaneously instruct and to edify, to interact with current scholarship and to point the way ahead.

By almost any measure, a bold and confident use of the Bible is a hallmark of Christianity. Underlying such use are a number of assumptions about the origin, nature and form of the biblical literature, concerning its authority, diversity and message. However, a lack of confidence in the clarity or perspicuity of Scripture is apparent in Western Christianity. Despite recent, sophisticated analyses, the doctrine is ignored or derided by many. While there is a contemporary feel to these responses, the debate itself is not new. In this New Studies in Biblical Theology volume, Mark Thompson surveys past and present objections to the clarity of Scripture; expounds the living God as the Guarantor of his accessible, written Word; engages with the hermeneutical challenges and restates the doctrine for today. Addressing key issues in biblical theology, the works comprising New Studies in Biblical Theology are creative attempts to help Christians better understand their Bibles. The NSBT series is edited by D. A. Carson, aiming to simultaneously instruct and to edify, to interact with current scholarship and to point the way ahead.

One of the thorniest problems in theological study is the relationship between biblical studies on the one hand, and constructive theology on the other. Theologians know that the Bible is the core source document for theological construction, and hence that they must be in conversation with the best in critical study of Scripture. For many biblical scholars, the point of what they do is to help the biblical text speak to today’s church and world, and hence they would do well to be in conversation with contemporary theology. Yet too often the two groups fail to engage each other’s work in significant and productive ways. The purpose of the Library of Biblical Theology, and this introductory volume to it, is to bring the worlds of biblical scholarship and constructive theology together. It will do so by reviving biblical theology as a discipline that describes the faith of the biblical periods on the one hand, and on the other hand articulates normative understandings of modern faith and practice. In this volume the authors begin by providing an overview of the history and possible future of biblical theology. They introduce biblical theology as a fundamentally contrastive discipline, one that is neither dogmatic theology (seeking to explain the official teachings of a particular Christian tradition), nor is it a purely historical approach to Scripture, eschewing questions of the Bible’s contemporary message and meaning. Rather, biblical theology takes seriously both the need to understand the message of Scripture in its particular historical context, and the need to address that message to questions that confront contemporary human life.