A crucial responsibility for Christian interpreters of Scripture, says Richard Bauckham, is to understand our contemporary context and to explore the Bible’s relevance to it in ways that reflect serious critical engagement with that context. In this book Bauckham models how this task can be carried out.
Bauckham calls for our reading of Scripture to lead us to greater engagement with critical issues in today’s world, including globalization, environmental degradation, and widespread poverty. He works to bring biblical texts to bear on these contemporary realities through the Bible’s metanarrative of God and the world, according to which God’s purpose takes effect in the blessing and salvation and fulfillment of the world as his cherished creation.
Richard Bauckham is professor emeritus of New Testament studies at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, senior scholar at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, and a fellow of both the British Acad-emy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His many other books include Jesus and the God of Israel, Gospel Women, and Jesus: A Very Short Introduction.