Finally: 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. In short, The New Testament in Its World brings together decades of ground-breaking research, writing, and teaching that will open your 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.

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?

Enjoy this combined text and audio collection, containing the following resources:

• A highly-readable, one-volume introduction placing the entire New Testament and early Christianity in its original context, the only such work by distinguished scholar and author N. T. (Tom) Wright.
• A unique audio learning experience in two volumes (Volume 1 and Volume 2) which, unlike a traditional audiobook's direct narration of the text, includes high quality live-recordings of college-level lectures that cover the important points from each subject as well as relevant material from other sources. These lectures serve as your passageway from the twenty-first century to the era of Jesus and the first Christians.
• A workbook by N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird that follows the textbook's structure and offers assessment questions, exercises, and activities designed to support your learning experience. Reinforcing the teaching in the textbook, this workbook will not only help to enhance your understanding of the New Testament books as historical, literary, and social phenomena located in the world of early Christianity, but also guide you to think like a first-century believer while reading the text responsibly for today.

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
• Illustrated with visually rich pictures, maps, charts, diagrams, and artwork; plentiful sidebars provide additional explanations and insights

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N. T. Wright is the Chair of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He is the award-winning author of many books, including After You Believe, Surprised by Hope, Simply Christian, The Challenge of Jesus, and The Meaning of Jesus (coauthored with Marcus Borg), as well as the series Christian Origins and the Question of God.

Michael F. Bird is Academic Dean and lecturer in theology at Ridley College in Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of Jesus and the Origins of the Gentile Mission, The Saving Righteousness of God, Evangelical Theology, Romans (Story of God Bible Commentary Series), The Gospel of the Lord: How the Early Church Wrote the Story of Jesus, and editor of The Apostle Paul: Four Views.