what the new testament authors really cared about -- a book review

Kenneth Berding and Matt Williams have given us a fresh approach for understanding what the New Testament is all about in their What the New Testament Authors Really Cared About:  A Survey of Their Writings.  The second edition brings together the introductory material from the first edition, with updated bibliographies, but with the same simple focus that most introductory texts don't have:  Learning the New Testament in light of the scholarly material rather than through it.  This text doesn't get bogged down in details.  In fact, there's a one-page brief introduction to the questions most introductory texts spend pages developing -- Who, what, where, when, and why.

Instead, What the New Testament Authors Really Cared About devotes nearly all its attention in each chapter to just that -- what the authors really cared about.  Which is to say, this introductory text aims to hone skills in reading the text theologically.

Written primarily for undergraduate students, the book does not stop with developing the intellect, either.  The authors are right to bring the focus, again and again, back to the reader's living relationship with the object of the New Testament writers:  Jesus.

Helpfully organized by writer instead of chronologically, the text includes a number of study helps for students:  Maps, sidebar discussions, and review vocabulary.  That makes What the New Testament Writers an invaluable resource that focuses more on themes than on particular scholarly trends.

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I received a free copy of this book from Kregel Academic in exchange for my honest review here.