Michael Bird
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Jesus And The Powers
$22.99Add to cartAn urgent call for Christians everywhere to explore the nature of the kingdom amid the political upheaval of our day.
Should Christians be politically withdrawn, avoiding participation in politics to maintain their prophetic voice and to keep from being used as political pawns? Or should Christians be actively involved, seeking to utilize political systems to control the levers of power?
In Jesus and the Powers, N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird call Christians everywhere to discern the nature of Christian witness in fractured political environments. In an age of ascending autocracies, in a time of fear and fragmentation, amid carnage and crises, Jesus is king, and Jesus’s kingdom remains the object of the church’s witness and work.
Part political theology, part biblical overview, and part church history, this book argues that building for Jesus’s kingdom requires confronting empire in all its forms. This approach should orient Christians toward a form of political engagement that contributes to free democratic societies and vigorously opposes political schemes based on autocracy and nationalism. Throughout, Wright and Bird reflect on the relevance of this kingdom-oriented approach to current events, including the Russian-Ukraine conflict, the China-Taiwan tension, political turmoil in the USA, UK, and Australia, and the problem of Christian nationalism.
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Birds Eye View Of Luke And Acts
$36.99Add to cartWhat do the books of Luke and Acts teach us about God, Jesus, and the early church? How do these two books relate to each other? And what do they mean for us today?
In this accessible and compelling introduction, Michael Bird draws us into the wide-ranging narrative of Luke-Acts to discover how Luke frames the life of Jesus and of the first disciples who set out from Jerusalem to “the ends of the earth” proclaiming the Good News. Bird shows us how these two books, when read together, tell a cohesive narrative about Jesus, the Church, and the mission of God-with implications for the whole of our lives today. Situating both books in their historical and literary context, Bird moves through an exploration of their central theological themes and culminates with consideration of the books’ relevance for contemporary social issues.
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When Did Jesus Become God
$25.00Add to cartHow did early Christians come to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the divine Son of God? This is the central question in this book. When Did Jesus Become God? is a transcribed conversation between Bart Ehrman and Michael Bird, with a helpful historiographic introduction by Robert Stewart that helps readers understand the conclusions reached by Ehrman and Bird.
Ehrman contends that neither Jesus himself nor the apostles believed that Jesus was divine during Jesus’ life; it was only after Jesus was crucified and the apostles began to have visions and revelations that they became convinced that Jesus was a godlike figure who was sent by God. Over an extended period of time, the early church solidified its belief that Jesus was “God”-first, with an inventive claim that Jesus was exalted to divinity, then later by seeing him as a preexistent angel become human. Bird disagrees. Based on different historiographic criteria and different readings of Scripture, he asserts that Jesus himself claimed to be the divine Son during his lifetime and that many of the apostles believed Jesus to be identified with God’s own prerogatives and identity. In Bird’s account of the early church, Jesus was the preexistent Son of God from the beginning, who then became human, exercised the role of Israel’s Messiah, and was exalted as God the Father’s vice-regent.
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7 Things I Wish Christians Knew About The Bible
$17.99Add to cartAnswers to the most common questions and misconceptions about the Bible
Seven Things I Wish Christians Knew about the Bible is a short and readable introduction to the Bible–its origins, interpretation, truthfulness, and authority.
Bible scholar, prolific author, and Anglican minister Michael Bird helps Christians understand seven important “things” about this unique book:
*how the Bible was put together;
*what “inspiration” means;
*how the Bible is true;
*why the Bible needs to be rooted in history;
*why literal interpretation is not always the best interpretation;
*how the Bible gives us knowledge, faith, love, and hope; and
*how Jesus Christ is the center of the Bible.Seven Things presents clear and understandable evangelical account of the Bible’s inspiration, canonization, significance, and relevance in a way that is irenic and compelling. It is a must read for any serious Bible reader who desires an informed and mature view of the Bible that will enrich their faith.
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New Testament In Its World
$59.99Add to cartFinally: an introduction that captures the excitement of the early Christians, helping today’s readers to think like a first-century believer while reading the text responsibly for today.
The New Testament in Its World is your passageway from the twenty-first century to the era of Jesus and the first Christians. A highly-readable, one-volume introduction placing the entire New Testament and early Christianity in its original context, it is the only such work by distinguished scholar and author N. T. (Tom) Wright.
An ideal guide for students, The New Testament in Its World addresses the many difficult questions faced by those studying early Christianity. Both large and small, these questions include:
*What is the purpose of the New Testament?
*What was the first-century understanding of the kingdom?
*What is the real meaning of the resurrection in its original context?
*What really were the Gospels?
*Who was Paul and why are his letters so controversial?
*As twenty-first-century people, how do we recover the excitement of what it was like to live as Christians in the first or second centuries?In short, The New Testament in Its World brings together decades of ground-breaking research, writing, and teaching into one volume that will open readers’ eyes to the larger world of the New Testament. It presents the New Testament books as historical, literary, and social phenomena located in the world of Second Temple Judaism, amidst Greco-Roman politics and culture, and within early Christianity.
Written for both classroom and personal use, the benefits of The New Testament in Its World include:
*A distillation of the life work of N. T. Wright on the New Testament with input from Michael Bird
*Historical context that situates Jesus and the early church within the history, culture, and religion of Second Temple Judaism and the Greco-Roman world
*Major sections on the historical Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, and Paul’s chronology and theology
*Surveys of each New Testament book that discuss their significance, critical topics like authorship and date, and that provide commentary on contents along with implications for the Christian life
*Up-to-date discussions of textual criticism and the canonization of the New Testament
*A concluding chapter dedicated to living the story of the New Testament
*Available Video and Workbook companion resources to enhance learning and experience the world of the New Testament
*Illustrated with visually r -
New Testament You Never Knew Study Guide (Student/Study Guide)
$12.99Add to cartThe New Testament You Never Knew Study Guide by N.T. Wright and Michael F. Bird is the definitive introduction to the New Testament.
In this 8-session video-based study (DVD/digital downloads sold separately), leading New Testament scholars, N.T. Wright and Michael Bird, hope to take you on a tour of the New Testament Story, from Galilee to Golgotha, from Jerusalem to Rome. They will look at who Jesus is, the real meaning of his death and resurrection, the expansion of the church in the Greco-Roman world, examine the debates and setbacks that they had along the way, and show how Christians can live out the story of New Testament in their own lives today.
Sessions include:
*The Story of the New Testament
*The World of Jesus
*Life and Death of Jesus
*The Resurrection of Jesus
*The Apostle Paul
*The Early Christians
*The Mission of the Church
*How the NT Came to BeDesigned for use with The New Testament You Never Knew Video Study (sold separately).
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Jesus The Eternal Son
$22.99Add to cartAdoptionism-the idea that Jesus is portrayed in the Bible as a human figure who was adopted as God’s son at his baptism or resurrection-has been commonly accepted in much recent scholarship as the earliest explanation of Jesus’s divine status. In this book Michael Bird draws that view into question with a thorough examination of pre-Pauline materials, the Gospel of Mark, and patristic sources.
Engaging critically with Bart Ehrman, James Dunn, and other scholars, Bird demonstrates that a full-fledged adoptionist Christology did not emerge until the late second century. As he delves into passages often used to support the idea of an early adoptionist Christology, including Romans 1:3-4 and portions of the speeches in Acts, Bird persuasively argues that early Christology was in fact incarnational, not adoptionist. He concludes by surveying and critiquing notable examples of adoptionism in modern theology.
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Anomalous Jew : Paul Among Jews Greeks And Romans
$31.99Add to cartLively, well-informed portrait of the complex figure who was the apostle Paul
Though Paul is often lauded as the first great Christian theologian and a champion for Gentile inclusion in the church, in his own time he was universally regarded as a strange and controversial person. In this book Pauline scholar Michael Bird explains why.
An Anomalous Jew presents the figure of Paul in all his complexity with his blend of common and controversial Jewish beliefs and a faith in Christ that brought him into conflict with the socio-religious scene around him. Bird elucidates how the apostle Paul was variously perceived – as a religious deviant by Jews, as a divisive figure by Jewish Christians, as a purveyor of dubious philosophy by Greeks, and as a dangerous troublemaker by the Romans. Readers of this book will better understand the truly anomalous shape of Paul’s thinking and worldview.
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Gospel Of The Lord
$39.99Add to cartIn this book Michael Bird describes how the canonical Gospels originated from a process of oral tradition, literary composition, textual development, and reception in the early church with a view to showing what makes them among the most important writings in the New Testament.Bird explores how the Christian movement shaped the Gospels and, conversely, how these writings shaped the early church. He develops a distinctive evangelical-and-critical approach to the Gospels, deals with the Synoptic problem head-on, and explains the significance of the fourfold Gospel canon. The book includes a number of helpful excursuses on related topics.
All in all, Bird’s Gospel of the Lord clarifies the often-confusing debates over the origins of the Gospels and offers informed and soundly argued explanations that account for the content of the Gospels in the context of the wider Graeco-Roman world.
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Bourgeois Babes Bossy Wives And Bobby Haircuts
$16.99Add to cartAuthor and New Testament scholar Michael Bird was formerly in favor of distinct gender roles in ministry, a viewpoint commonly called ‘complementarianism.’ But inconsistencies in practice and careful biblical study convinced him to rethink his position. Now in favor of full equality for men and women in ministry roles, Bird nevertheless strikes a respectful tone toward those in his previous camp, while seeking to craft a perspective that both values women and upholds biblical differences between the sexes. Humorous and hard-hitting, Bird’s writing on this topic will challenge readers on both sides of the gender-issue divide.
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How God Became Jesus
$18.99Add to cartIn his recent book How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher From Galilee historian Bart Ehrman explores a claim that resides at the heart of the Christian faith— that Jesus of Nazareth was, and is, God. According to Ehrman, though, this is not what the earliest disciples believed, nor what Jesus claimed about himself.
The first response book to this latest challenge to Christianity from Ehrman, How God Became Jesus features the work of five internationally recognized biblical scholars. While subjecting his claims to critical scrutiny, they offer a better, historically informed account of why the Galilean preacher from Nazareth came to be hailed as ‘the Lord Jesus Christ.’ Namely, they contend, the exalted place of Jesus in belief and worship is clearly evident in the earliest Christian sources, shortly following his death, and was not simply the invention of the church centuries later.
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4 Views On The Apostle Paul
$19.99Add to cartThe apostle Paul was a vital force in the development of Christianity. Paul’s historical and religious context affects the theological interpretation of Paul’s writings, no small issue in the whole of Christian theology. Recent years have seen much controversy about the apostle Paul, his religious and social context, and its effects on his theology. In the helpful Counterpoints format, four leading scholars present their views on the best framework for describing Paul’s theological perspective, including his view of salvation, the significance of Christ, and his vision for the churches.
Contributors and views include:
* Evangelical View: Thomas R. Schreiner
* Post-New Perspective View: Douglas Campbell
* Catholic View: Luke Timothy Johnson
* Jewish View: Mark D. NanosLike other titles in the Counterpoints: Bible and Theology collection, Four Views on the Apostle Paul gives theology students the tools they need to draw informed conclusions on debated issues.
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Are You The One Who Is To Come
$28.00Add to cart“Jesus understood himself as designated by God as the Messiah of Israel.” This thesis may strike many historical-Jesus scholars as dangerously bold. But through careful study of the Gospels, Second Temple literature, and other period texts, scholar Michael Bird makes a persuasive argument that Jesus saw himself as performing the role attributed to the messiah in the Scriptures of Israel and believed that Israel’s restoration hinged on the outcome of his ministry.
Bird begins by exploring messianic expectations in the Old Testament and in Second Temple Judaism, finding in them an evolving messianism that provides historical context for Jesus’ life and teaching. Next, he examines the prevailing contention that the messianic claim originated not with Jesus himself but in the preaching of the early church. Bird argues that such contentions lack cogency and often skew the evidence. Examining the Gospels and related literature, he then shows that what Jesus said and did demonstrates that he believed he was Israel’s messiah. His career was “performatively messianic” in a way that shows continuity in eschatological terms between Israel and the church.
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Introducing Paul : The Man His Mission And His Message
$25.99Add to cartTable Of Contents
Preface
Abbreviations
1. What Is Paul?
2. A Funny Thing Happened On The Road To Damascus
3. The Stories Behind The Story
4. Reading Someone Else’s Mail
5. The Royal Announcement
6. The Crux Of The Gospel
7. The Return Of The King
8. One God, One Lord: Monotheism And The Messiah
9. Living A Life Worthy Of The Gospel: The Ethics Of Paul
10. Gospelizing: Paul’s Spirituality
Epilogue
Bibliography
Scripture Index
Author IndexAdditional Info
Michael F. Bird suggests that if the Paul we claim to know looks and sounds a lot like us, it’s probably a sign that we don’t know him as well as we think. In this book Bird offers an animated and penetrating survey of Paul’s life and teaching, including the principal issues and themes in Paul’s theology.