These essays are more than a simple celebration and synthesis of Horsley’s work. They invite readers to think further about methodological issues in NT studies, to extend boundaries beyond the historical-critical investigation of the biblical texts and to fully participate in unfolding the tension between text and history.

Journal for the Study of the New Testament

Biblical scholars, pastor-theologians, and laity will find this book on New Testament scholarship a breath of fresh air. Honestly, I have a number of books on the New Testament, and I have yet to find the interesting array of such topics as presented here. Did the contributors advance the research agenda and methodologies proposed by the Richard A. Horsley? It is safe to say each contributor affirmed Horsley’s agenda that was stated at the outset.

Reading Religion

This volume is altogether welcome. For many years now Richard Horsley has been engaged in the task of political criticism. This he has always done with one eye on the ancient world and the other on the modern and postmodern worlds. The volume not only sets such work wonderfully in context but also advances, in its own right, many of its various prongs. I cannot think of a better tribute to his life and his work. For political criticism, moreover, this work is simply indispensable.

Fernando F. Segovia, Oberlin Graduate Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, Vanderbilt University

The wide ranging intellect, focused passion, and keen imagination that characterize Richard A. Horsley’s scholarship generate and energize the authors of these essays. Conceptualized and introduced with Neil Elliott’s methodological insight and care, this volume advances the conversation about biblical studies that is self-aware and constructive. Activists and contemplatives, historians and theologians, scholars and preachers will find much to inspire and motivate them in this collection.

Cynthia Briggs Kittredge, Dean, Seminary of the Southwest

The essays in this volume engage and advance Richard Horsley’s interdisciplinary approach to a political exegesis of the New Testament on a wide range of topics, including people’s history, social memory, economics, media, conflict, and power, to name a few. It is a fitting tribute to an activist scholar who has changed the landscape of New Testament studies by provoking a conversation about the social and political history and significance of the Jesus and Pauline tradition in ways that has invited the contributions of others.

Raymond Pickett, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary