David Wenham Books

Very good book. I led a Bible study on the parables and used this as one of my references and guides. Definitely made the planning and teaching easier.

The Parables of Jesus by David Wenham is a superb book on one of the most important topics in Gospels study. It is not new. It has been on the market since 1989. Even so, it is not "dated". Even after all these years it is quite simply the best book on parables for adults that aren't Bible college or Seminary grads I and most readers have ever seen. (Originally, it was part of a series called the Jesus Library. There were at least 10 volumes by very fine authors [including F. F. Bruce, R. T. France, and Michael Green]. This one is the only one still in print. It's that good.)

It particular is an ideal book for an adult Sunday School class or in-homes study class to use as a textbook, if they want to dig a little deeper than usual, but not get overwhelmed. I have used it that way myself, with the group reading and discussing about half of a chapter per week.

Wenham is a first rate British expert in parables studies, but he writes this book with lay people and college students in mind, not seminarians or grad students.

Even His arrangement is telling: What most technical books on parables start out with he puts at the end in three appendices--The authenticity of the parables, The Interpretation of the Parables, and The Purpose of the Parables and the Interpretation of Mark 4:10-12.

With that arrangement, you can start by studying the parables first, and you can go further to see what the experts are saying about the most controversial topics later--if, that is, you wish to. He does point the way. There is even a select bibliography and a note on further reading, all of which help the reader who gets hooked on the topic and wants to explore it more do so.

Wenham is no ivory tower theorist. Like Jesus engaged his listeners, he engages the reader with Jesus' call to a revolutionary Kingdom, the Kingdom of God, in some sense starting small and ending up dominant, and demanding obedient discipleship. He is very practical, engaging, and calls the reader to commitment.

If you want the best book available on parables, you probably want instead Klyne R. Snodgrass's Stories With Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus: (Eerdmans, 2008), say, as the teacher of the Adult Sunday School class or, in particular, as a pastor. But it is the sort of book layfolk might consult. From my experience, I think few of them would sit down and read it, even in small chunks. Still, there is so much vertical whitespace setting off the various topics along the way through the book, that they are intelligible most of the time. And the most difficult issues are dealt with in about 200 pages of end notes (which can be consulted or ignored, depending on the reader's needs).

...this is it!

I have read most of the commentaries currently available as I've written two books about the parables from a Biblically-faithful and creative perspective(Parablelife: Living the stories Jesus told in real time published by FaithWalk and available on amazon.com). Wenham's volume was far and away the most useful. He used the metaphor of revolution throughout this well-written, readable volume to help explain Jesus' use of the words "the Kingdom of Heaven". The book is organized in a creative way - the parables are grouped and discussed as they pertain to the metaphor of revolution.

Wenham's strength is in application, demonstrating both how and why these stories of Jesus can shape our lives. He is an able scholar, and his love of God's Word shows in his careful discussion of each parable. There is a short discussion about various historical and contemporary methods of interpretation at the back of the volume, along with several indexes that make the book even more user-friendly.

I am using this book as the text for a group bible study on the Parables of Jesus. This book is an excellent resource for teachers and students of the Bible. It provides a through basis for exegesis of each of the parables, grouping them logically and explaining them accurately. Wenham lets the historical and literary context drive his interpretations, avoiding the twin pitfalls of assuming the parables are either allegory or single point. Overall, a must-have for anyone who plans to seriously study the parables.

I prepared a series of Bible studies on the parables of Jesus and wanted supplemental material to add to my understanding and class lectures. Specifically, I was interested in Jewish traditions and cultural insights that would add color and clarity to the stories.

I purchased three books, including David Wenham's "The Parable of Jesus." I am not a Bible scholar and not particularly interested in theological debates over allegorical loose ends and old disputes over linguisitc fine points that other books were consumed with.

This book provided me exactly what I needed - clear, concise insights into the culture, traditions and context of the times. For example, in the Prodigal Son, Wenham pointed out that by asking his father for his inheritance while the father was still living, in the meaning of the legal traditions, the prodigal was actually implying that he wished his father dead.

In the parable of the Good Samritan, he observes that the road from "Jericho to Jerusalem" drops 2,500 feet along a treacherous and winding path; ideal for robbers and thieves to hang out. Further, he points out that "two denari" was enough money to pay for twenty-four nights at the inn.

These details helped me to put meat on the bones of the story and bring to life these precious parables. These are not earth-shattering biblical truths, but they were very helpful to me in making the topic interesting and relevant. Just like Wenham's book.

This book is wonderfully detailed, and reader friendly. I enjoyed it so much that I am purchasing its companions for both the Old & the rest of the New Testament.

After having read most of better than a dozen books on NT survey, background, introduction, etc. Over the past few years this is perhaps the very best.

If I were building a church library and could afford only one book of this kind, I would without a doubt choose this book. It has a great balance of background material and commentary, but leaves the reader with essay and research questions that are challenging, yet "doable".

If you wish to LEARN about your faith and really grapple with the issues involved in understanding the Gospels, this is a book that will quench your thirst.

This book is an excellent introduction to the world of New Testament scholarship. Having gone to Christian schools my entire life, including college, I have seen "New Testament Survey" type books. I thought there couldn't possibly be any benefit from going through yet another New Testament survey as I'd heard it all before. But this rises above the rest. It opened my eyes to a whole new world of biblical studies that I had no idea existed.

Set up like any survey of the gospels and Acts, it delves deeper as it interacts with current scholarly debates and introduces you to the major players and important terminology used by scholars. After reading this book, you feel as if something has been hidden from you your whole life. As if they thought you were too dumb to be able to handle serious research into the historical Jesus and the early church.

This book isn't like that as it brings you into the conversation. I now have a voracious appetite for biblical scholarship and have read some of the greatest books of my life since reading this one. This book book started me on an incredibly influential path theologically and I'd recommend it to anyone who needs a bridge from the basics you learn through church, your own reading, and Sunday school to the gigantic and helpful world of NT scholarship.

When faced with teaching myself Greek, I sought out many different books on the subject and found this to be the most concise, well laid out, and easiest to understand. Duff did a fantastic job re-organizing this book from its first edition by another author (which was dismal) into the fine study course it is today. I am still somewhat disappointed that all editions of this book still refuse to cover accents, which I think are important (and deserve a little more time). Other than this one wart, the book is superb, and can have any intelligent individual up and reading Greek within the first few lessons. It has opened many doors for me to read scans of various manuscripts and codices, and opened my eyes to understanding the Word of God better. I strongly advise complementing this book, however, with any other book that covers accents.

One of the claims of this book is that it simplifies learning NT Greek by removing some of the unnecessary guff that can get in the way of the task of learning to read scripture in original text and on this count I think it's relatively good book. I would be interested in a book that attempts an inductive leaning approach. I don't know of any and so I guess this approach is the next best thing.

I'm using it as part of a class environment that is going too fast AFAIC (mostly due to relatively large vocab), but if you can go at your own pace or a little slower than a chapter a day (which is how I've used it), then I think this is generally well set out. I'm half way through and feel I've already learnt enough to get the basics of what's going on.

One improvement I would like to see is a few more 'in-chapter' exercises. So much at times is included in every chapter that it would be nice to have a good list of exercises pertaining to 'sub-lessons' to get the handle of particular elements before moving on to other aspects.

Overall though, I'm happy with it as a text book and elementary reference.

I've been on a self study course for about a year now to teach myself N.T. Greek. I have two grammar books and a handful of reference books, it's no doubt a very difficult language to learn, but I am determined even at age 71. A few months ago I bought "The elements of New Testament Greek" written by Jeremy Duff that was originally conceived by H.P. Nunn back in 1914. I studied Nunn's book also. Duff did not write a GRAMMAR BOOK, instead it is truly a TEXT BOOK that only focuses on the grammar and vocabulary needed to read the N.T. Greek. Grammar books present you with everything the author knows about the subject. Duff's textbook gave me those shortcuts and helpful tips to become fairly proficient in understanding how to translate the Greek text. However I realize this is only a beginning step but it certainly has been a helpful boost in the leap toward my goal. Tony

This book has clearly been written by someone who understands what it is like to learn New Testament Greek. It is brilliantly put together to help the student guide himself through the material: lots of short exercises (with answers) to help you work out whether you've still got the plot, and longer exercises at the end of each chapter to put together the accumulation of what has been learned so far. Excerpts from the NT at the end of every chapter too.

You will find Jeremy Duff's (the author's) web page very helpful, including links to free software to help you learn the vocab in the book. http://www.nt-greek.net/

Jeremy Duff's book a good review for for people with some experience in reading Koiné Greek. It is somewhat terse for the beginner. His method of presenting concepts in complete categories is quite useful. For example, In his chapter on the subjunctive mood, he gives this overview with examples of the instances when Koiné writers used the subjunctive mood:

* Indefinite clauses: whoever, wherever, whenever...
* Purpose clauses: in order that...
* Exhortations: Let's...
* Deliberations: What shall I...?
* Prohibitions: Don't...!
* Emphatic negative future: I will never...

He discusses in a similar way participles, complex sentences, conjunctions, prepositions, the perfect tenses, and so forth. This is an effective way of reviewing these topics. This book also offers copious sentence exercises for practicing these constructions.

The only part of his book that I do not approve of is the lack of written accents. In spite of the engaging way that this book presents Greek, A learner will have difficulty in pronouncing words because they carry no accent marks. Mr. Duff states that "the accents are not taught in this book for three important reasons:

* Accents were not present in written Greek in the New Testament period.
* The rules of accentuation are complicated, and you have enough to learn.
* Accents don't help you translate or understand Greek."

The accents are helpful to me personally for memorizing vocabulary because they indicate which syllable to stress. Knowing where to put the stress on a word is an aid to memorization because it helps me to give a rythm and a pronunciation to the word. Knowing the stress is also important for conjugating verbs and for declining nouns because all verbs and many nouns change their stress as they are inflected. Moreover, I have never seen a Greek bible text without accents. New Testament and Septuagint texts always indicate accents. So also do the writings of the Christian fathers. I imagine that a neophyte to Koiné Greek may well experience some frustration while trying to learn Greek words without the accents.

Otherwise, Elements of New Testament Greek is an engaging read.

First let me say that is a commentary that should be consulted for its unique perpective that it brings, and it rightly emphasizes the close connection to Gen 3 in regards to the curse.

But there is a fundamental word study debacle which is key to Kiochi's book. I am speaking of the Hebrew verb chata and the noun chattat as prounounced roughly in English. Anyone can do their own word study on this verb and noun and clearly see that "to hide" and "hiding" cannot be the definition of these words. As a test try to fit Kiochi's definitions in these verses where these Hebrew words appear, which I have in quotes, and see if it makes any sense.


Gen 31:39 That which (Jacob's flocks) was torn by wild beasts I (Jacob) did not bring to you (Laban); I "bore the loss" of it myself. rsv Kiuchi says that this form of chata (called by grammars the piel form) means uncover

Gen. 42:22 - And Reuben answered them (his brothers who threw Joseph into a pit and sold him to traders), "Did I not tell you not "to sin" against the lad (Joseph)? rsv This form is called by grammars the Qal whicn KIuchi translates as "to hide"

Gen 43:9 - I (Judah) myself will guarantee his (Benjamin's)safety; you can hold me personally responsible for him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him here before you, I will "bear the blame" before you all my life. niv qal


Ex 10:16 - Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste; and he said, I have "sinned" against the LORD your God, and against you. kjv qal Pharoah was doing anything but hiding he was challenging God!

Ex 29:36 - Sacrifice a bull each day as a "sin offering" (the noun form) to make atonement. "Purify" (Piel) the altar by making atonement for it, and anoint it to consecrate it. niv noun and verb piel

Num 19:9 - "A man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and put them in a ceremonially clean place outside the camp. They shall be kept by the Israelite community for use in the water of cleansing; it is for "purification from sin". niv the noun

Something to cleanse is used to hide??!!


THe other major problem is that the unclean sea animals are unclean because, according to Kiuchi, they look like the cursed serpent of the GArden of Eden??!! A lobster looks like a snake??!!, maybe a cockroach, but not a snake> Is not it simply that the majority of these animals crawl along the sea bottom (the ground of Gen 3) which is cursed by God. which is also where dead carcasses end up in the sea.

I feel a better translation for chata and chattat would be "to stray" metaphorically speaking in relationships "to stray away from the trust built up" And the noun would mean "straying". It seems to fine that the piel form means to "compensate or "purify" and anohter meaning fo rthe noun would be "cleansing" Also Kiuchi rarely refences the LXX and the other forms of the word chata. The hifil form seems to mean "to make go astray" "to miss", and the hitpael form "to free oneself from sin" "withdraw" see Holladays lexicon

Since I am writing my dissertation on Leviticus I am often asked what is the best commentary on Leviticus. Until now I have said that it is a combination of Wenham, Hartley, and Tidball. I have to say that Kiuchi actually brings together the best elements of all three. He draws on the best scholarship and his comments on the nature and unified whole of Leviticus although developed thematically through the book are excelleent.

I first became aware years ago that St. Paul is one of the more problematic Christian figures when I came across an unpublished manuscript in the British Library written by the late eighteenth century utilitarian philosopher and gadfly Jeremy Bentham. Entitled "Jesus Not Paul," the long essay argued for a Christianity untainted by the arrogant and tortured Paul who, Bentham claimed, had substituted his own bad ideas (for instance, regarding sex) for the good ideas of Jesus. Thus was I introduced to the controversies that have followed Paul throughout the centuries. Was he a true follower of Jesus, his detractors ask, or was he an iconoclast who traded on Jesus' name to form a strain of religion distinct from the original message of Jesus? Were his omissions regarding Jesus' earthly life and teaching deliberate and malicious or explainable and honest? What was more important to Paul, explaining Jesus Christ or pursuing his own theological imagination?

Into this complex fray comes the Rev. Dr. David Wenham, Anglican priest and dean at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. Approaching Paul from an evangelical point of view, Wenham carefully delineates Paul's indebtedness to Jesus in the development of his theology and, more importantly, as the basis of his faith. In answering questions of Paul's connection to Jesus, Wenham also offers a good overview of Paul himself, from his early life to his conversion and onto his missionary journeys. Following the pattern of his earlier work, Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity?, Wenham translates scholarly research and textual criticism for general readers into a readable defense of Paul. While he doesn't answer all concerns about Paul's thought in relation to Jesus' message, Dr. Wenham does make a convincing case for Paul, first Christian theologian, rather than Paul, founder of a religion subtly antithetical to the Christ.

Paul and Jesus: The True Story by the Reverend David Wenham (an Anglican parish priest and a researcher/teacher at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, England) is an informed and commendable attempt to address common negative views of the apostle Paul, who is often credited with changing or modifying Jesus' original ideas, messages and teachings, especially with regard to the role and status of women and sex. Presenting the true story of Paul and Jesus, and what the scriptures themselves tell a modern readership, Paul and Jesus is a straightforward, highly recommended, scholarly interpretation offering a wealth of documented and supported insights into the "Apostle to the Gentiles" and the true story of the two most influential figures in the establishment of Christianity into what would become one of the major religious movements the world would ever know.

New Testament specialist Professor David Wenham demonstrates conclusively that Jesus, not Paul, was the founder of "Christianity", as it is now called. Paul was, in fact, a faithful disciple of Jesus in every respect.

Paul's contributions to the development of Christian thinking and church life were undoubtedly massive. With God's direct inspiration, working through his own personality, Paul worked out an interpretation that was accepted by Jesus' other disciples as faithful both to Jesus Himself and to the social context in which he was working.

Therefore, despite the significance of his conclusions, Paul himself would have been horrified at the suggestion that he was the founder of "Christianity". For him the fountain of all theology was none other than Jesus Himself. Therefore, although Paul's theological thought and teaching was of the highest importance, it was not original to himself, but in essence actually a transmission of Jesus' own thought and teaching. Wenham shows this by means of detailed comparisons between Jesus' teaching and that of Paul.

Paul was always aware that the Jesus whom he encountered on the Damascus road and the Jesus of Christian tradition were one and the same Person. Indeed, Paul saw himself as the "slave of Jesus Christ", not as the founder of "Christianity". And Wenham's book demonstrates in the clearest terms that Paul was accurate in seeing himself in that way.

This has the further implication for theologians that, instead of trying to read Paul's Letters in isolation from the Four Gospels, his Letters should actually be read in the light of these Gospels.

I found this book to be disappointing. The author is obviously a scholar well-versed in the literature and controversies over Paul's relationship to Jesus and to Christianity in general. He knows the issues very well, and he generally seems to resist unfairly characterizing those who disagree with his viewpoint.

That said, many of his arguments just seem tenuous and unpersuasive. He finds supposed allusions to Jesus in Paul's letters that are too creative for my taste.

Of course Paul knew some of the Jesus stories and traditions - it would be almost inconceivable to me that he wouldn't know anything of Jesus considering his wide travels and discussions with fellow Christians. The question is how much meaningful knowlege and congruence was there?

Here is where I find the principal weakness. In order for Wenham to find the maximum number of congruences, he fequently abstracts concrete statements and terminology to a higher interpretive level. For example, the Kingdom of God concept was very important to Jesus but relatively minor to Paul - unless you start theorizing what the Kingdom of God MIGHT mean and then show that some of Paul's teachings MIGHT mean the same thing.

Wenham also tries to explain some discrepancies between Paul and Jesus based on historical context. Supposedly, some of Paul's ideas were just specific to churches he is addressing, for example, and that causes him to sound different than Jesus. On occasion, Wenham suggests, Paul (or gospel writer) avoids certain language that might be used by their enemies.

While theorizing on Paul's knowledge (or ignorance) about Jesus and his teachings has some interest, the broader question of whether Christianity is Jesus-based or Pauline in character is more critical. I came in thinking that Christianity is more Pauline oriented and I wanted to give Wenham a fair chance to unconvince me. He did not. And that's the bottom line to me. I found his opinion that Paul basically continued & expanded the ideas of Jesus - rather than radically re-directed some important areas of dogma - to be less based on evidence than his personal conviction.

This is the most thorough discussion of Paul's relationship with the teachings and life of Jesus available for the layperson. Wenham has struck a masterful balance between scholarly discussion and accessibility. No one should be intimidated by this book, but they also need not fear that they are missing out on relevant issues.

A real strength of this book is the seriousness with which Wenham approaches the issues. Discovering what, if anything, Paul knew and carried on from Jesus is not a simple matter. One cannot just throw scriptures at a wall and hope that as much sticks as possible (he even includes a section on avoiding what he calls "parrallelomania").

To his credit, Wenham spends the first 30 pages + framing the issue. He candidly admits that Paul rarely refers explicitly to Jesus's teachings or ministry. He notes that the two usual explanations for this, that Paul either did not know much about Jesus or assumed that his audience knew much about Jesus, fail -- standing on their own -- to explain the situation satisfactorily. But as Wenham points out, there is an even larger issue. To what extent is Paul's message consistent with or the same as Jesus'? Given Paul's influence on Christianity and these questions, Wenham takes no offense about the question that entitled the book: Was Paul a Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity?

To make his comparison, Wenham does not simply take Gospel verses and compare them to Pauline verses. Instead, he probes underneath to determine what Jesus' message, for example, regarding the Kingdom really was. Then he does the same with the Pauline letters. Only then does he make his comparison. Wenham finds many points of contacts, such as Jesus' use of Abba, the Last Supper narrative (notably determining that the Lukan version was most likely used in the Pauline churches), Jesus' teachings on divorce and paying ministers, and others. He concludes the book with a very helpful summary. Because he covers so much ground, the summary neatly provides the answer to the question raised by the title of the book: "Paul saw himself as the slave of Jesus Christ, not the founder of Christianity. He was right to see himself in that way."

This book is an excellent resource for anyone interested in the relationship between Paul and Jesus. If you want answers instead of polemics or simplistic reassurances, then you will benefit from this book.

I am still not convinced that Paul is not the great villian and founder of the new religion called Christianity. Just read the book called "Mythmaker: Paul and the Inventions of Christianity". I thought this book would be more convincing. I wasted almost $10 on this book. That money could have gone towards better use such a charity donation. I am going to be more careful before I purchase religious books (especially ones that claim the Christian way to be the only way backed up by evidence). I am stupid for making this mistake twice.

All I can say was the author needs more citations to back up his findings that Jesus (not Paul) was the actual founder of Christianity. I wasn't amused by all his citations in the back.

this book does a good job showing the theological/thematic connections between Jesus and the apostle Paul. Paul echoed many of the teachings and concerns of Jesus. this work aims to exposit these connections and it will go a long way towards discrediting the notion that Paul "invented" christianity. Also see the very helpful discussion of this subject in Craig Blomberg's little book, Making Sense of The New Testament.

McConville does a good job of bringing out all the hidden secrets of Deuteronomy. He breaks down everything so it can simply be made known on a young scholar level. If you need a well written commentary on Detueronomy this is it!

I have been preaching through Deuteronomy - and have been struggling to make it relevant and engaging. Picked this up because I pastor a conservative evangelical church and IVP is a publisher I trust, and because NIV Application series has not yet finished the volume on Deuteronomy. I have gone through 6 commentaries and this one is solid - helps fill in some background and some good insights. Treats from an UK perspective which is interesting, and treats higher critical and historical consideration well enough. I still use the others and still wish I had the NIV Application volume.

I hate to give this commentary only three stars. Its specialty is its biblical-theological nature. McConville interprets each passage in the light of the broader theology of Scripture. Rather than appraoching each passage as though it stood alone, he excels at synthesizing it with the broader theological context. So for an interpretation of Deuteronomy that is scripturally broad and thought-provoking, this is the one. However, McConville has been strongly influenced by James D.G. Dunn. McConville's interpretation of one of the most important passages in Deuteronomy (30:1-14) is strongly influenced by Dunn's maverick interpretations of Romans 10 (which quotes Deut. 30:11-14). I was very disappointed that McConville, who often shows real insight in disproving liberal opinion, swallowed Dunn hook, line, and sinker.