Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels

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Eerdman’s have sent a copy of James D.G. Dunn’s newest book- Jesus, Paul and the Gospels.

This compact theological primer from a widely respected scholar offers a well-integrated and illuminating approach to a variety of basic issues in the study of the New Testament:

  • Where, why, and how the Gospels were written and what we should expect from them
  • The reliability and historicity of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry
  • The continuing significance of the apostle Paul and his teaching
  • Points of continuity and discontinuity between the teaching of Jesus and of Paul — and how to bridge the two

In Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels James Dunn has gathered texts from three sets of lectures given in 2009 to Catholic and Jewish audiences in Italy, Spain, and Israel. The resulting book uniquely presents the Gospels to a Jewish audience and Paul to a Catholic audience — all from a scholarly Protestant perspective. Written to introduce well-informed people to topics that are perhaps new or unfamiliar to them, this book is ideal for readers and students of various backgrounds both within and beyond the Christian community.

So, Chapters 6-9, ‘Who Did Paul Think He Was’, ‘Apostle or Apostate’, ‘The Gospel- For all who Believe’, and ‘The Church- Paul’s Trinitarian Ecclesiology’ were lectures delivered at a conference in Rome.

Chapter 5, ‘From Jesus’ Proclamation to Paul’s Gospel’ was a paper read in Spain.

And Chapters 1-4, ‘Fact or Fiction?  How Reliable are the Gospels’, ‘Between Jesus and the Gospels’, ‘The Birth of a New Genre: Mark and the Synoptic Gospels’, and ‘A Very Different Version!  John as a Source for the Historical Jesus’ were all lectures given at Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheva, Israel.

Let me first say to potential readers of this volume, don’t overlook the Preface.  The details above are spelled out there and Dunn writes, in what I can only assume is a bit of tongue in cheekiness

Since I will be unknown to many of my readers … I have added a brief ‘Personal Introduction’ after the preface (p. xi).

Really?  The only way a reader of this volume will not know Dunn’s name and work is if he or she is an absolute neophyte or has been living under a rock in some hinterland where New Testament studies are completely unknown.  For students of the New Testament, not knowing the name of Jimmy Dunn is like not knowing the name of Rudolf Bultmann.

And it is for this reason, i.e., that Dunn is so very well known and so very widely respected (even by those unwise enough to disagree with him) that the present volume will here simply only be commended.   In short, Dunn’s body of work commends itself and needn’t be commended by any of us.

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing him lecture or deliver a paper at a Conference, you know how lively his style is.  His written work shares that characteristic.  So, I suggest you grab a copy, sit in a comfortable chair, open up the tome, and learn at the feet of one of the true giants in the field of New Testament studies.

[I hate to sound too effusive, but Dunn’s work is really exciting and I’ve never read anything by him that I didn’t learn a lot. ]