xviii | About the Authors
Craig has authored 20 books, four of which have won book awards in Christianity Today. His IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament( 1993), now in its 2nd revised edition( 2014), has sold more than half a million copies( including editions in several languages, including more than fifty thousand copies in Korean). His recent books include Acts: An Exegetical Commentary( 4 vols., 4500 pages; Baker Academic, 2012 – 2015); Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts( 2 vols., Baker Academic, 2011); The Historical Jesus of the Gospels( Eerd mans, 2009); The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary( Eerdmans, 2009); Romans( Cascade, 2009); 1 – 2 Corinthians( Cambridge, 2005); The Gospel of John: A Commentary( 2 vols., Hendrickson / Baker Academic, 2003).
Dr. Keener describes the origins of his interest in the cultures of the New Testament world:
“ Not everyone is called to spend their professional career studying the cultural settings of the Bible, but some of us are called to bring this information in an accessible way to the body of Christ, as in this Bible. I’ ve been studying the Bible’ s cultural settings since the beginning of my undergraduate work. But the Lord was preparing me for this field of study even before my conversion. Even as an early teenager I was reading the works of Plato and Tacitus, the Roman historian, and spent time studying many different ancient sources.
“ After my conversion I said to myself,‘ No, I don’ t need to study any of these sources. I’ m just going to read the Bible. The Bible is good enough on its own.’ But the more I read the Bible, often 40 chapters a day, the more I realized that the authors took for granted some information that their first readers knew— information that I didn’ t have without studying background. Additionally, cross-cultural experiences in Africa, Asia and Latin America have helped me to think more cross-culturally. Both in preaching and teaching contexts, I have found that understanding the culture of the Bible helps my hearers understand the Biblical text more concretely and accurately.”
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