Back Cover
Flip to Back Look inside

The Apostolic Fathers

Who were the Apostolic Fathers? What did they care about? Why did they write what they wrote? The Apostolic Fathers: A Narrative Introduction is the most engaging introduction to Apostolic Fathers you will ever read. Imagine what it would be like to ask Polycarp about the documents that were composed during his lifetime. You don’t have to imagine any longer. Situated during the final week of Polycarp’s life, these fictional dialogues will introduce you to the earliest Christian documents after the time of the apostles. You will come to know Clement, Ignatius, Hermas, Papias, and others. Freshly translated excerpts from the writings themselves are included after each chapter.

Paperback, Hardcover, eBook 154 Wipf & Stock 2017
Share

Meet The Author

Kenneth Berding

baker-bible-handbook
Buy product

The Baker Illustrated Bible Handbook

By, ,

One of the keys to enjoying an in-depth and rewarding experience of reading the Bible is recapturing the ancient world–its cultures, customs, and histories. With this innovative guide, readers can enrich their study with fascinating insights into the Bible and the world in which it was written. The Baker Illustrated Bible Handbook offers the most up-to-date evangelical biblical scholarship in a format that is readable and easy to understand. This book-by-book guide brings the Bible to life with more than 1,100 full-color pages packed with illustrations, maps, and photos, and 112 in-depth articles on a wide range of topics important to students of the Bible. Readers will discover how each part of the Bible fits into and informs every other part, giving them a cohesive understanding of God’s Word.

Biola University Contributor:
Douglas Huffman – “Martyrdom in the New Testament” and “Persecution in the Early Church”
Kenneth Berding – “Spiritual Gifts”
Jonathan Lunde – “Herod’s Temple” and “The Samaritans”

Buy product
polycarp-and-paul
Buy product

Polycarp and Paul

By

Polycarp and Paul: An Analysis of Their Literary and Theological Relationship in Light of Polycarp’s Use of Biblical and Extra-Biblical Literature (Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae, No. 62). This volume carefully analyses Polycarp of Smyrna’s literary dependencies, paying special attention to Polycarp’s verbal and conceptual relationships to the Apostle Paul and his writings.

Buy product
what-are-spiritual-gifts
Buy product

What Are Spiritual Gifts? Rethinking the Conventional View

By

In this groundbreaking work, New Testament scholar Kenneth Berding suggests that we have misunderstood spiritual gifts themselves and how they function, and thus have embarked on a misplaced search to find individualized spiritual gifts. Berding reconsiders at a fundamental level what spiritual gifts are and argues that the Holy Spirit does not give personalized abilities or enablements, but rather ministries to be undertaken.

Buy product
Version 1.0.0
Buy product

Sing and Learn New Testament Greek: The Easiest Way to Learn Greek Grammar – Audiobook Download

By

A new addition to the Zondervan line of biblical Greek resources. This resource includes everything a professor or a student will need. Sing and Learn New Testament Greek provides a way for learning (and remembering!) New Testament Greek grammar forms through simple songs. It is not designed to compete with existing Greek grammar books, but to serve as a required supplemental resource for elementary Greek classes. Indeed, it has been designed to be used alongside of any introductory grammar.

Buy product
three-views-of nt-use-of-ot
Buy product

Three Views on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament

By,

Is sensus plenior an appropriate way of explaining the New Testament use of the Old Testament? Do NT writers take into account the context of the passages they cite? Should modern scholars model their exegesis after the apostles’? Following the classic presentation-critique-response format, three scholars discuss questions relating to the literary relationship between the two Testaments.

Buy product
nt-authors-really-care-about
Buy product

What the New Testament Authors Really Cared About: Second Edition

By, ,

This second edition of What the New Testament Authors Really Cared About has a new cover and layout to correspond with the look of the popular corresponding volume, What the Old Testament Authors Really Cared About. This textbook is more accessible than many New Testament survey texts, with full color and photographs and to-the-point coverage of each New Testament book.

Buy product

Who were the Apostolic Fathers? What did they care about? Why did they write what they wrote? The Apostolic Fathers: A Narrative Introduction is the most engaging introduction to Apostolic Fathers you will ever read. Imagine what it would be like to ask Polycarp about the documents that were composed during his lifetime. You don’t have to imagine any longer. Situated during the final week of Polycarp’s life, these fictional dialogues will introduce you to the earliest Christian documents after the time of the apostles. You will come to know Clement, Ignatius, Hermas, Papias, and others. Freshly translated excerpts from the writings themselves are included after each chapter.

Editorial Reviews

Berding’s experience of living in Smyrna, the home of Polycarp, serves him well as he brings to life its famous bishop. The stories of the church leaders who once sat at the feet of apostles are little known unfortunately. Hopefully Berding’s volume will rectify that. All Christians will enjoy this creative retelling of the stories of Polycarp and the other apostolic fathers as well as the readable translations of their writings.
Mark Wilson, Founder/Director, Asia Minor Research Center

Berding’s historical novelization brings characters to life, putting flesh and bones on a skeletal framework of early Christianity. Through a creativity rooted in competent scholarship, he draws readers into the socio-historical world of the Apostolic Fathers. His narrative introduction is both enjoyable and informative, both imaginative and insightful. The fictional storyline is a spoonful of sugar, but the pedagogical nourishment is substantial.
Paul Hartog, Professor of Christian Thought, Faith Baptist Theological Seminary

Product Type

Book

Related products

christianity-greco-roman-world
Buy product

Christianity in the Greco-Roman World: A Narrative Introduction

By

A creative introduction to the world of the New Testament. Background becomes foreground in Moyer Hubbard’s creative introduction to the social and historical setting for the letters of the Apostle Paul to churches in Asia Minor and Europe. Hubbard begins each major section with a brief narrative featuring a fictional character in one of the great cities of that era. Then he elaborates on various aspects of the cultural setting related to each particular vignette, discussing the implications of those venues for understanding Paul’s letters and applying their message to our lives today. Teachers, students, and laypeople alike will appreciate Hubbard’s unique, illuminating, and well-researched approach to the world of the early church.

Buy product
world-new-testament
Buy product

The World of the New Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts

By

This volume addresses the most important issues related to the study of New Testament writings. Two respected senior scholars have brought together a team of distinguished specialists to introduce the Jewish, Hellenistic, and Roman backgrounds necessary for understanding the New Testament and the early church. The book includes seventy-five photographs, fifteen maps, numerous tables and charts, illustrations, and bibliographies. All students of the New Testament will value this reliable, up-to-date, comprehensive textbook and reference volume on the New Testament world.

Buy product
biblical-theology
Buy product

Biblical Theology: Past, Present, and Future

By

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.

Buy product
justified-by-faith
Buy product

Since we are Justified by Faith: Justification in the Theologies of the Protestant Reformation

By

It is often assumed that the Reformation taught justification by faith as if there was a monolithic view of the doctrine. Since We Are Justified By Faith is a collection of important essays that dispel this myth, demonstrating the diverse theologies of that period. Experts in the field, including Cameron MacKenzie, Aaron OKelly, Jeff Fisher, Kirk MacGregor, Mary Patton Baker, Karin Spiecker Stetina, David Hall, Bonnie Pattison, Timothy Shaun Price, Andre Gazal, and Chris Ross, write on the theologies of Luther, Melanchthon, Oecolampadius, Marpeck, Calvin, and the English reformers to give a nuanced reading of the doctrine in sixteenth-century Protestant theology.

Buy product
how-we-got-the-bible
Buy product

How We Got The Bible: A Visual Journey

By

How did the Bible come to be? How has it been passed down to us through the ages? Is it still trustworthy and relevant after all these years? The Bible is the bestselling book of all time and the basis of faith for billions of people around the world. Encompassing the fields of archaeology, biblical studies, and history, the story of how the Bible has come to us today is a fascinating one. It is told here, accompanied by beautiful full-color photographs and illustrations. You’ll marvel at the care and reverence with which this ancient book has been preserved. Just a few of the remarkable insights you’ll gain include scriptural origins on animal skins and clay tablets and the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Buy product
mos-christianorum
Buy product

Mos Christianorum: The Roman Discourse of Exemplarity and the Jewish and Christian Language of Leadership

By

James Petitfils explores Jewish and Christian participation in this widespread pedagogical practice. After surveying Roman discourse on exemplary leadership, the author consults several texts, written in significantly Romanized environments, celebrating Jewish or Christian ancestral leaders (Josephus’ Antiquities 2-4, Philo’s Mosis 1-2, 1 Clement, and The Letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons ). He highlights their respective appropriation, adaptation, and redeployment of the Roman moral idiom on exemplary leadership in the promotion of self-consciously non-Roman ancestral exempla and languages of leadership.

Buy product