The IVP Bible Critical Commentary on the New Testament is a single-volume New Testament commentary that encompasses the latest scholarly information available to readers today.
Edited by James Dunn and written by 26 leading biblical scholars, including John Barclay, Richard Bauckham, and Scott McKnight, this book condenses the latest research findings and provides biblical approaches, perspectives, and insights that allow you to see both the forest of the New Testament and the trees of individual texts simultaneously.
By incorporating the best of modern scholarship, it will not only provide valuable insights for scholars and pastors, but also help readers delve deeper into the Bible through its accessible presentation.

※The book is produced in limited quantities based on current stock. Once stock runs out, it will be republished as the 『IVP Bible Study Commentary New Testament』 at the increased price.

One feature of the Bible that is both surprising and familiar to people is the wide variety of writings it contains.
The Bible contains legal codes, historical narratives, poetry, psalms and proverbs, prophetic oracles, apocalyptic visions, gospels, and epistles.
All of these genres require detailed study to explain their respective riches, and countless commentaries and specialized studies have been conducted on all 66 documents—not to mention the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha.
Another proof of the Bible's truly important significance is that it has spawned far more secondary literature than any other single book or collection of works published in human history.
For this reason, students or study groups who seriously study the Bible are quickly overwhelmed by the sheer number of research findings.
The enormous disparity between a single book of the Bible and all the writings about it is simply astonishing.
On the other hand, many briefer studies of various books and topics of the Bible have been written at an overly simplistic level.
Such studies not only fail to grapple with the complexities of many texts, but also fail to delve deeply into other texts, nor do they adequately acknowledge the various possible interpretations or the challenges and benefits of recent scholarship.
(…)

Therefore, each new generation desperately needs a guidebook to help serious Bible students see the forest for the trees without getting lost among them.
Because the Bible too easily becomes a field of study reserved for specialists, it is necessary to summarize the best research of modern scholars in a single volume, while providing additional references for interested readers.
And in the 20th century, through constant debate, many new translations and Bible study methodologies emerged, leading to great advancements in the way we read and listen to the Bible.
Therefore, students of the Bible deserve an authoritative summary of the finest research of past centuries, while also being given a clear guide for the 21st century.
(…) The IVP Bible Critical Commentary is a book that meets such needs.
--- From the preface

The logical consequence of this insight is important.
First of all, this means that the ideal that scholars sometimes entertain, that it would be possible to hear about and meet the historical Jesus as a casual observer living around 30 AD, is completely unrealistic.
Jesus' sermons were not handed down because he wrote them down himself or because tape recorders or videotape recorders preserved them.
The reason Jesus' preaching reached us is because it had an impact on the witnesses, and was experienced and remembered only by them.
In other words, this hearing (and testimony) was, as Paul says, hearing that produced faith (Rom 10:14, 17) and hearing accompanied by faith (Gal 3:2, 5).
Those who have “no ears to hear” (New International Version, Matt. 11:15; 13:9, 43) have not heard or seen the primary and lasting meaning at all.
So they remembered nothing of significance (for themselves), formed no continuing tradition, and so through them we have no access to the 'historical Jesus'.
The tradition we possess is the tradition of faith or the tradition of disciples, and the reason we possess the tradition is because what they saw and heard created that faith, and those who heard it thus became disciples, and the tradition was remembered and passed on through the disciples.
Of course, this does not mean that Jesus' actions and words had a uniform effect on the first disciples, or that there was a uniform attempt to recall and transmit these memories of Jesus.
The various traditions contained in the Gospels clearly reflect, at least to some extent, the diverse influences Jesus had on those who could be called "disciples."
However, the basic argument remains the same.
In other words, the Gospel is a disciple-based tradition.
--- From "The History of Tradition: The New Testament"

The reading of the Bible that many people practice today could be characterized as 'precritical.'
This is so insofar as our reading of the Bible proceeds on the unverified assumption that some New Testament text written, say, in the late first century AD, continues to have direct and certain relevance in new times and circumstances.
The text is assumed to be transhistorical and transcultural.
For those who operate in a pre-critical mode, the very concept of 'interpretation' poses a problem.
As we often say, you only have to read the New Testament to understand its message.
(…)

There is something that a pre-critical reading of the Bible overlooks.
All languages ​​are deeply embedded in culture, and as a direct consequence, this is a socio-linguistic reality in which a message intended for one context can have quite a different meaning in a new context.
(…) When a 21st-century person from Los Angeles or Edinburgh grapples with a New Testament text written in Koine Greek in the Roman Mediterranean two thousand years ago, the translation problems increase exponentially.
Sometimes using different words is the only way to say the same thing, and this process affects interpretation and translation.
Moreover, some New Testament texts are so culturally embedded in their first-century context that they appear to have little or no direct connection.
For example, most of us do not routinely practice the holy kiss, even though the Bible clearly commands it (Romans 16:16), and we do not often practice the rite of foot-washing, even though Jesus clearly instructed his disciples to do so (John 13:14).
--- From "A Hermeneutic Approach to the New Testament Tradition"

Because the Gospel of Matthew contains Jewish thought and culture, we are led to compare Jews and Christians.
Many interpret the Matthew narrative as a gradual rejection of Jesus by the Jews and a rejection of the Jews by the Gospel writer.
According to this view, God's purpose to save all humanity throughout history began with Israel, but with the coming of Jesus, Israel was excluded from the "history of redemption," and that history continued to develop within the Christian community.
Unfortunately, these theological frameworks often silence and denigrate Jews.
For many Christians, the "Jews" were God's people only in the Old Testament, that is, in the Hebrew Bible, up until the time of Jesus.
Since Jesus, God has turned His eyes to Christians, giving them love, care, and guidance.
Israel is no longer God's people.
Jews, Judaism, and Israel are all irrelevant now.
This dangerous supersessionism still lies at the heart of much Christian theology.
In this framework, Christianity is the completion or fulfillment, development, improvement, and expansion of Judaism.
But this inaccurate perception of Jews and Judaism comes at a tremendous cost and creates a false Christian identity.
That is, it makes Judaism appear abstract and distorted, and as an inadequate religion left behind by Christians.
But the truth is the opposite.
In the Gospel of Matthew, God remains faithful to Israel.
As Jesus ministered in Israel, he sought to teach and reform the Israelites according to God's new revelation.
The author of the Gospel of Matthew does the same thing in his own generation.
The claims that the Gospel of Matthew or Jesus rejects 'Judaism' are only possible when artificially dividing the era of salvation.
The world in which the author of the Gospel of Matthew lives is somewhat chaotic and unfinished.
In this world, God still works for both Israelites and Gentiles.
--- From the Introduction to the Gospel of Matthew

Now, as explained in 9:11-15, 'God's provision for the abundance of the offering' is actually part of a larger cycle of grace.
When donors share generously, the recipients respond with “thanks” to God (vv. 11-12).
It is no coincidence that the word 'eucharistia' [i.e., giving thanks (charis) to God, 9:15] is derived from the same word 'charis', which Paul used earlier to refer to both God's grace that gives people the heart to give (8:1, 9) and to the giving itself (8:4, 6, 7; 9:8).
In this way, Paul depicts the cycle of 'charis' in which God's abundant grace enables people to give generously, which in turn leads to overflowing gratitude to God.
Here we encounter one of the most profound elements of Paul's theology, expressed in his characteristically Pauline way, in the midst of a discussion of everyday, practical actions.
Charis, which flows from God and ultimately returns to God, thus gives glory to God (9:13; cf.
8:19, 23).
Therefore, as the Corinthians continue to communicate this grace and do their part to express it practically, they will demonstrate that they believe in and are “obedient” to the core of this gospel (9:13; cf.
'the obedience of faith', Rom 1:5).
What Paul is implying here is that by contributing to the fund for Jerusalem, Gentile converts will demonstrate to their skeptical Jewish colleagues the validity of their faith and their engagement with the gospel.
So he imagines the church in Jerusalem offering a prayer of thanksgiving (9:14; but note Paul's concern about this matter in Rom. 15:31).
But in a broader perspective, his explanation that their giving was an expression of faith and “obedience” to the gospel reveals his conviction that generosity is an essential mark of the Christian faith.
When believers give generously, they demonstrate their surrender to the power of grace that captures and reshapes their lives.
So Paul concludes chapter 9 by praising God's gift of filling and empowering all humanity for their sharing.
God's gift, and the salvation that begins therein, is ultimately so profound that it cannot be expressed in words (9:15; cf.
Romans 11:33-36).

--- From the Commentary on 2 Corinthians (9:6-15)