The ‘evil book’ is out!

I’m delighted to say that the book arising from our excellent conference on evil in second temple Judaism and early Christianity in the Centre for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, held in May 2014, is now out and available from Mohr Siebeck. Edited by my excellent colleague Chris Keith and Loren Stuckenbruck, it’s a splendid collection of excellent material from a stellar collection of contributors which will fill a real gap in scholarship. Here’s a listing of the contents:

Christopher A. Rollston: An Ur-History of the New Testament Devil: The Celestial שׂטן (śāṭān) in Zechariah and Job

Jutta Leonhardt-Balzer: Evil at Qumran

Benjamin Wold: Demonizing Sin? The Evil Inclination in 4QInstruction

Louise J. Lawrence: Evil and the Body of Antiochus IV Epiphanes: Disability, Disgust and Tropes of Monstrosity in 2 Maccabees 9:1–12

Tommy Wasserman: Variants of Evil: The Disassociation of Jesus from Evil in the Text of the New Testament

James G. Crossley: Jesus, Healings and Mark 2:1–12: Forgiveness, a Release, or Bound Again to the Great Satan?

Christopher W. Skinner: Overcoming Satan, Overcoming the World: Exploring the Cosmologies of Mark and John

Jonathan A. Draper: Darkness as Non-Being and the Origin of Evil in John’s Gospel

Loren T. Stuckenbruck: How Much Evil Does the Christ Event Solve? Jesus and Paul in Relation to Jewish “Apocalyptic” Thought

James P. Davies: Evil’s Aetiology and False Dichotomies in Jewish Apocalyptic and Paul

Chris Tilling: Paul, Evil, and Justification Debates

Steve Walton: Evil in Ephesus: Acts 19:8–40

Lloyd K. Pietersen: Artemis, Demons, Mammon and Satan: The Construal of Evil in First Timothy

Susanne Luther: The Evil of the Tongue: Evil and the Ethics of Speech in the Letter of James

Nicholas J. Ellis: A Theology of Evil in the Epistle of James: Cosmic Trials and the Dramatis Personae of Evil

Robbie Griggs: Apocalyptic Experience in the Theodicy of 4 Ezra

Jonathan Knight: The Portrayal of Evil in the Ascension of Isaiah

Chris Keith: “The Scriptures are Divine Charms”: Evil, Books, and Textuality in Early Christianity

Dieter T. Roth: Evil in Marcion’s Conception of the Old Testament God

Paul Middleton: Overcoming the Devil in the Acts of the Martyrs

Details are here on the Mohr Siebeck website. Rush out and buy it—or, at least, ask your library to order it!