Recent and forthcoming publications

It’s been a bit of a busy time for publications for me, small and larger, so here’s a little update.

The BRF Book of 365 Bible Reflections (Abingdon: BRF, 2021)
The Bible Reading Fellowship have just published a lovely book of 365 daily Bible readings with notes for their centenary, with lots of different people writing the notes, including many famous people. I had the fun of writing one of the notes, on Luke 18:10-14 on How (not) to pray (it’s on page 105 if you’re curious). This will make a great Christmas gift for someone who wants to read the Bible with greater understanding.

Eschatology in Antiquity: Forms and Functions, edited by Hilary Marlow, Karla Pollman, and Helen van Noorden (London/New York: Routledge, 2021)
This is an academic book which collects essays on aspects of ‘the end’ from a wide range of ancient cultures, ranging across the ancient Near East, ancient Israel, the Greek world, hellenistic Judaism in the second temple period, the Etruscan and Roman worlds, the New Testament, and late antiquity and the Byzantine world. You can access the contents pages by using the preview at the amazon link above. This was fun to contribute to: I have an essay on ‘The End: What and When? Eschatology in Luke-Acts’, which allowed me to range widely across Luke’s double-work in considering how he portrays Jesus’ and the early Christians’ understanding of ‘the end times’ and the End of all things. The print book is not cheap—I’m hoping libraries will buy it—but the Kindle version is affordable if this is an area which interests you.

Reading Acts Theologically (Library of NT Studies; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2022)
This is a collection of my essays on Acts, many published over the last 20 years in journals, edited collections and the like, plus two new pieces. I’ve been encouraged by various people to do something like this for a while, and am very pleased that Chris Keith, the Library of NT Studies series editor, kindly agreed to accept it in their series. There’s a contents list at the link to the book above. It’s forthcoming in May 2022, initially in hardback and as an e-book, at a price which means libraries will buy it (I hope). One reason I was pleased to publish this with Library of NT Studies is that their policy is to publish in paperback, much more cheaply, about 18–24 months after the hardback appears—so please encourage your library to get a copy, and wait for the paperback if you want a copy to own.