David Rhoads

With insights gleaned from thirty-two years of teaching college students, seminarians, and graduate students, David Rhoads shares how he sought to create the classroom as a community of learners ripe for transformation through dialogue. He charts his personal journey struggling to generate discussion, evoke questions, deepen conversations, and strengthen writing and oral skills. Reflections include such innovative topics as radical hospitality, the physical environment of the classroom, overcoming blocks to learning, and the power of silence, as well as issues of a liberative pedagogy, the importance of method, the role of social location, experiments in intercultural dialogue, the use of case studies and slogans, and performing Scripture. This approach to education fosters openness, respect for difference, tolerance for ambiguity, and creative collaboration. In addition to university, seminary, and graduate students and teachers, schoolteachers, pastors, and parish educators will also benefit from these reflections.

This book interprets Mark's gospel in light of the Roman-Jewish War of 66-70 CE. Locating the authorship of Mark's gospel in rural Galilee or southern Syria after the fall of Jerusalem and the temple, and after Vespasian's enthronement as the new emperor, Kimondo argues that Mark's first hearers--people who lived through and had knowledge of the important events of the war--may have evaluated Mark's story of Jesus as a contrast to Roman imperial values. He makes an intriguing case that Jesus' proclamation as the Messiah in the villages of Caesarea Philippi set up a deliberate contrast between Jesus's teaching and Vespasian's proclamation of himself as the world's divine ruler. He suggests that Mark's hearers may have interpreted Jesus' liberative campaign in Galilee as a deliberate contrast to Vespasian's destructive military campaigns in the area. Jesus's teachings about wealth, power, and status while on the way to Jerusalem may have been heard as contrasts to Roman imperial values; hence, the entire story of Jesus may have been interpreted an anti-imperial narrative. ""Carefully researched and clearly written, Kimondo's book stands at the nexus of historiography, postcolonial theory, and rigorous textual analysis. Sober in its conclusions even as it is wide-ranging in its implications for the field, this book will be of deep interest to New Testament scholars as well as those seeking to learn from anti-imperial discourses of the past for the purposes of faithful resistance in the present. Highly recommended."" --Robert Saler, Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis ""In my work with the Bible in local communities of the poor and marginalised there is an immediate resonance with almost any section of the Gospel of Mark. Kimondo offers us a compelling analysis of why this is the case, providing a detailed interpretation of Mark as 'good news' for the economically oppressed in the context of war and empire. Mark's Jesus offers an egalitarian alternative to the ruling elites of both Jerusalem and Rome."" --Gerald West, University of Kwazulu-Natal ""Stephen Kimondo makes the case that Mark's gospel should be read simultaneously with the Jewish historian Josephus. Aspects of Mark's gospel make the most sense when read in the context of the Roman-Jewish War of 66-70 CE, including comparisons between Rome's bloody empire and God's life-giving rule, Jesus' activity as a campaign compared to Vespasian's campaign in Galilee, and the values of God's empire taught and embodied by Jesus compared to values shown by Roman authorities. Kimondo's mastery of both Josephus and Mark is a gift to students and teachers alike."" --Peter Perry, Fuller Theological Seminary ""In a carefully organized way, Kimondo's book has successfully made a contrast between the violent and pompous Vespasian military campaigns and entrances in cities, that were celebrated to be 'good news', as depicted by Josephus, and the redemptive, non-violent good news without splendor associated with the onset of God's empire, based on the proclamation, teachings, and redemptive deeds of Jesus as depicted by Mark's gospel. This book is well-presented, insightful, and worth the read of any New Testament scholar interested in studies of the early church."" --Elia Shabani Mligo, Teofilo Kisanji University, Mbeya Tanzania Stephen Simon Kimondo is Lecturer in New Testament studies at the University of Iringa in Tanzania. He received his PhD from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.

In this third edition of Mark as Story, Rhoads, Dewey, and Michie take their treatment of the Gospel of Mark to new levels. While retaining their clear and thorough analysis of Mark as a narrative, they now place their study of Mark in the context of orality. The new preface explains the role of Mark in a predominantly oral culture. Throughout the study, they refer to the author as composer, the narrator as performer, the Gospel as oral composition, and the audience as gathered communities. The conclusion hypothesizes a performance scenario of Mark in Palestine shortly after the Roman-Judean War of 66 to 70 CE.The new edition also highlights the dimensions of Mark that stand in contrast to imperial worldviews and values. The authors argue that the performance of Mark itself was a means to draw audiences into a non-imperial world based on mutual service rather than hierarchical domination. In so doing, they shift the Gospels center of gravity from the end of the story to the beginning, configuring it not as "a passion narrative with an extended introduction" but as "the arrival of the rule of God with an extended denouement."Performing Mark: The appendices for students at the end of the book that offer exercises to interpret the narrative of Mark now also include "Exercises for Learning and Telling Episodes" from the Gospel of Mark by heart as part of the learning process.

As the global climate crisis worsens, many churches have sought to respond by instituting a movement to observe a liturgical season of creation. Scholars who have pioneered the connections between biblical scholarship, ecological theology, liturgy, and homiletics provide here a comprehensive resource for preaching and leading worship in this new season. Included are theological and practical introductions to observance of the season, biblical texts for its twelve Sundays in the three-year lectionary cycle, and astute commentary to help preachers and worship leaders guide their congregations into deeper connection with our imperiled planet

A diverse group of New Testament scholars and theologians offer myriad paths to a better understanding of the Book of Revelation. They discuss topics such as Hispanic / Cuban American and African American perspectives, ecological issues, postcolonial themes, and liberation theology. The book also provides a set of guidelines for intercultural Bible study. The volume's contributors include: Brian K. Blount Justo Gonzalez Harry O. Maier Clarice J. Martin James Okoye Tina Pippin Pablo Richard Barbara R. Rossing Vitor Westhelle Khiok-Khng Yeo

...

This volume examines characterization in the four Gospels and in the Sayings Gospel Q. Peter in Matthew, Lazarus in John, and Jesus as Son of Man in Q are examples of the characters studied. The general approach is narrative-critical. At the same time, each contribution takes special effort to widen the scope beyond the narrated world to include the text's ideological and real-life setting as well as its effective history. New ways of doing narrative criticism are thus proposed. The concluding essay by David Rhoads delineates the development and envisions the future of narrative criticism in Gospel studies.

One of the leading scholars on the Gospel of Mark utilizes a variety of methods to plumb the depths of this earliest story of Jesus. From new forms of literary criticism, social-scientific explorations, and reader-response criticism, Rhoads brings fresh insights to gospel studies.

This book is addressed primarily to Christians of various denominations in the United States-to parishes, both laity and clergy, and to students. The book is useful in teaching, preaching, spiritual formation, and mission. Its aim is simply to be a source of Christian renewal at both the personal and the parish levels as together we seek to minister to one another and to the world. It is an invitation to reach beyond our own perspective and to embrace a wider circle of diverse viewpoints as legitimate expressions of the Christian life-both in the New Testament and in the contemporary church-and to be open to learn and grow from them.