Abstract
Given the variety in context, genre, literary design, and thematic emphasis evident across the New Testament, it is to be expected that the chapters will vary in specific content. Nevertheless, Skinner has enhanced the cohesiveness of the work through a consistent pattern of presentation in the chapters: (1) a brief orienting profile of the particular New Testament writing; (2) a sketch of the work’s origins and early audience; (3) an “overview,” sequential summary of the content of the writing; and (4) a consideration of select themes and theological emphases. This last section of each chapter highlights themes specific to the New Testament book(s) in view, while also drawing particular attention throughout the companion to five “avenues of inquiry” (vol. 1, p. 9): the writing’s relation to Jewish Scriptures (the Old Testament); its engagement with the realities of the Roman Empire; its depiction of the roles and status of women; the influence of apocalyptic theology; and the continuing theological relevance of the book.
Skinner’s companion follows the canonical order of the New Testament writings rather than a chronological sequence. Before taking up the Gospels and Acts, vol. 1 addresses the question “What is the New Testament?” (ch. 1) and describes the “New Testament World” (ch. 2), with attention to Roman imperial rule, varieties of Judaism, and social-cultural matters such as honor and shame, patronage, economic life, slavery, and the status of women and children. Chapter 3 discusses the genre, composition, and interrelationships among the canonical Gospels. Skinner then considers the challenge of historical inquiry into the man Jesus of Nazareth and profiles the character and activity of Jesus as suggested by the Gospel accounts as a whole (ch. 4). The rest of volume 1 treats in turn Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Acts of the Apostles (chs. 5–9). The volume closes with a select bibliography of significant, accessible resources for further study (the same bibliography appears at the end of each of the three volumes).
Skinner accents the “apocalyptic vehemence” that marks Jesus’s teaching toward the end of Matthew (vol. 1, p. 134), yet observes that forgiveness stands at the center of Jesus’s mission (p. 137). Mark’s rhetoric highlights “Jesus’ inscrutability” (p. 143) and the “challenging nature of discipleship” (p. 142). Luke pictures Jesus as the Lord and Savior, who brings salvation that is “comprehensive, touching all facets of human existence”—and “invert[ing] social statuses” (p. 173). John’s distinctive presentation of Jesus highlights his role as “revealer of divine mysteries,” as “God’s means of self-disclosure,” in whom God initiates a relationship with humanity that “brings salvation and prevails over everything that sets itself up to obstruct God’s purposes” (p. 225). Acts is “not a dispassionate chronicle of people and events but a theological description of Christian community and ministry”; it describes “the fulfillment of divine intentions . . . as essentially the necessary consequence of a world-altering theological event, centered in Jesus himself” (pp. 231–32).
Volume 2 focuses on the letters of Paul, taking them up in their canonical order, after two chapters that introduce Paul the man and his strategy of writing letters to deliver “pastoral care from a distance” (vol. 2, p. 40). Skinner holds that interpreters “do well to approach Paul first on his own terms, as a person inhabiting a first-century cultural and intellectual context,” before considering the “far-reaching transhistorical influence” of his letters (p. 18). So each chapter reads the Pauline letter as a pastoral-rhetorical—and theological!—response to its particular social, historical, and cultural setting. To illustrate the way in which Skinner navigates the hermeneutical task of listening to first-century communication with wise twenty-first-century ears, I point to one example. On Paul’s emphasis on the cross in First Corinthians, one reads: “It is a mistake to view the cross as a call to invite victimization or to tolerate abuse as if it is somehow a redemptive or virtuous thing to suffer oppression . . . . Paul directs his appeals in 1 Corinthians instead to those who possess power and to those who exalt themselves over others . . . . The cross for Paul is primarily a story of power relinquished, not a story of powerlessness imposed” (p. 103).
Volume 3 surveys Hebrews, the General Epistles, and Revelation, which Skinner contends are not “optional reading for anyone who intends to explore the New Testament library”; indeed, these nine writings “provide an enduring reminder of the diversity, change, vitality, and occasional struggle” that characterized early Christian communities and their attempts to fashion a “distinctively Christian theological identity” (vol. 3, p. 2). While presenting even-handed summaries of each of these books, Skinner also includes a sharp critique of some features of their rhetoric. For example, readers are cautioned regarding the dangers of supersessionism in Hebrews (ch. 1), the potential for harmful readings of First Peter on suffering and abuse (ch. 4), the belligerence of the “moral and theological outrage” in Jude (ch. 7), and one-sided caricatures of sexual violence in Revelation (ch. 8).
As one would expect for such a wide-ranging work, there are points for criticism. For example, reference to Mark’s “habitual stinginess for detail” (vol. 1, p. 140) is misleading, given this Gospel’s penchant for supplying details that Luke and Matthew sometimes omit in narration of individual episodes. The chapter on John’s Gospel mentions the healings in John 5 and 9 but does not discuss the significant narrative development of these contrasting characters. And in volume 2, the chapter on Romans does not address the much debated “I” section in Romans 7. Moreover, because the chapters follow the canonical sequence, the treatment of Pauline letters moves back and forth between letters of undisputed and disputed authorship, which may confuse some readers—though Skinner does explain clearly the issues surrounding each letter’s authorship. These quibbles are few in number, far outweighed by the keen insights and suggestive interpretations that are evident throughout the three volumes. Skinner writes for an audience that includes especially students (theological schools, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates), but the work will be useful, and accessible, to others who have interest in exploring the content and contemporary relevance of the New Testament. The three volumes reflect the breadth and depth of knowledge and the skill of a superb exegete and master teacher.