Journal for the Study of

the New Testament

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FEE, Gordon, D. The First Epistle to the Corinthians (The

New International Commentary on the New Testament),
Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987. Pp. xxiv + 880.
22.90/$27.95. ISBN 0-8028-2288-6
Journal for the Study of the New Testament 1988; 10; 118
DOI: 10.1177/0142064X8801003210
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1988 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or
unauthorized distribution.

BOOKLIST
Commentaries

DANKER, F.W., Luke (Proclamation Commentaries) (2nd edn, revised and

enlarged), Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987. Pp. viii + 135. N.p. ISBN 0-80060598-5.
This is not strictly speaking a commentary but a structural and thematic
analysis of the Gospel, functioning as a revised introduction to the authors
Jesus and the New Age (St Louis, 1972; revised 2nd edn, Fortress, 1987). The
book reflects both a long-term fascination with the social structures of the
Greco-Roman world and a concern for understanding the text as a literary
whole. Its impact on Greco-Roman audiences is interestingly considered:
Jesus would be understood as possessing the kinds of powers that magicians
aspired to control, with a view to conferring benefits on their clients; Lukes
public would readily grasp that Jesus belonged to a class of supra-exceptional
benefactors (pp. 45-46). The needs of the twentieth-century preacher are
also kept in mind.
LCAA

KRODEL, Gerhard A., Acts (Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament)

Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1986. Pp. 527. N.p. ISBN 0-8066-8884-X.
This is one of a series written for laypeople, students and pastors. It is a
sound, sensible digest of contemporary scholarship on Acts. The standpoint
is reverential, but the author is not afraid to face historical di8iculties in the
text: radical skepticism and militant fundamentalism are equally uncalledfor (p. 43). For students, the problem is that the text is simply too smooth:
inscriptional sources (as so often in NT commentaries) are summarized but
not named (e.g. on Gallio, pp. 345ff.), and there is no way of identifying
where (or how) the views of the authors listed in the bibliography have
affected the exegesis offered in the commentary. One presentational
infelicity: there are nearly 200 pages headed 10.1-19.41, and many of them
have no intermediate chapter-number appearing on the page. Since the Bible
text is not quoted, this makes it extremely difficult to find the discussion of a

particular

passage.

LCAA
D. The First Epistle to the Corinthians (The New International
New Testament), Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987.
Pp. xxiv + 880. £22.90/$27.95. ISBN 0-8028-2288-6.
This massive new commentary has three distinctive features. First, it
stresses contextual exegesis: every major section, every paragraph and most
verses are introduced with an attempt to reconstruct the historical
background and to trace the flow of Pauls argument. Secondly, it is
concerned to exegete the letter from a consistent perspective as to the
historical situation, which is one of conflict between the church and its
founder: they wonder if he is truly a pneumatikos and he responds to their

FEE, Gordon,

Commentary on the

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1988 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or
unauthorized distribution.

119
over-realized eschatological view of their present existence. Thirdly, as
would be expected from Professor Fee, considerable attention is paid to textcritical matters. As a commentary, it is very thorough, readable and well
documented: it engages seriously and constructively with the many issues
posed by the text and will rank high among the modern critical commentaries
on 1 Corinthians.
DH
La deuxième Épitre de St Paul aux Corinthiens
du
Nouveau
Testament, 8), Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1986.
(Commentaire
Pp. 260. N.p. ISBN 2-8309-0070-7.
As would be expected of the series in which it appears (CNT) this
commentary on 2 Corinthians is a thorough and substantial piece of work.
Twenty pages of Introduction cover matters concerned with the text of 2
Corinthians, whether it is a unity or an amalgam of letters (Carrez thinks
there may be five separable items of correspondence incorporated in it), the
letters structure, literary relations (to the Old Testament and to the Qumran
texts), the Christian community at Corinth and Pauls dealings with it (the
section on the opponents is particularly good) and finally considers briefly
the major theological themes in the letter. The commentary throughout is
crisp and clear. A special feature of the work is the presence of splendid
bibliographies on each section before the commentary begins. Highly
recommended to all scholars interested in the intriguing relations between
Paul and the Corinthian church, I hope that this commentary may soon be
available in English.
DH

CARREZ, Maurice,

Gospels and Acts

KLOPPENBORG, J.S., The Formation of Q. Trajectories in Ancient
Collections, Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987. Pp.377. $39.95. ISBN
Studies in the

Wisdom
0-8006-

3101-3.

J1

V1-J.

In recent years there has been a growing interest in Q from the point of
view of redaction criticism. This book represents the first major monograph
on Q to be published in English taking such work seriously. Kloppenborg
gives a very full survey of Q-research over the last century and presents his
own theories about the growth of the Q tradition: a collection of wisdomtype speeches addressed to the community has been expanded by a later
stratum containing the motifs of judgment on this generation and governed
by a deuteronomistic view of history. In an important final chapter,
Kloppenborg discusses a wide variety of sayings collections in antiquity and
shows that the genre of Q as a collection of sayings would have been by no
means strange in the ancient world. The book makes an extremely
significant contribution to Gospel studies. The analysis of similar sayings

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1988 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or
unauthorized distribution.