The author joins several other modern scholars who point out quite rightly I think, that one must avoid the Biblical fundamentalism of proof texting the Bible. You can prove anything you want from the Bible if you simply pick your passages. Rather the person who is really seeking the Lord's will in modern life, should note the broad themes of scripture. We should see how God has dealt with His people in the past, and apply that learning to our present situation. The Word revealed in the words of scripture will guide us into all truth.

Dr. Johnson has updated this book, making it a fantastic resource for anyone interested in the ways the church should use scripture to discern the will of God. Johnson hits important issues, including the place of homosexual Christians in the church, but rather than using the book as a soapbox to take stands on issues, he uses the issues to demonstrate the way scripture is used and understood. The book is helpful to religion/seminary students and clergy, but is accessible to lay persons who care about making scripture the basis for their decisions and those of their church.

I bought this book because I was particularly taken with authorLuke Johnson's "Reading Romans" and because I was equally delighted with the first book I purchased in the Sacra Pagina series, "John" by F. Maloney.

The commentary seems a bit thin in this volume to me, and I found it distracting that each section of the book presents first the scriptural passage to be discussed, then notes on the translation second, and finally the commentary. For me, this broke the cadence of the text -- inserting the "end notes" between the passage and the analysis -- and made the book feel more like a companion guide to a text on learning historical Greek.

Sad to say, as much as I enjoyed this book's thorough discussion, I took away more understanding and a more cohesive sense of Luke's Gospel from reading the one chapter about Luke in Raymond Brown's last work on the New Testament. I looked to Sacra Pagina to provide a more in-depth exegetical and hermeneutic commentary.... and it did.

It provides a clear and concise summary of the Gospel. I am a deacon in the Catholic Church and I use it for both homily preparation and teaching. It uses plain english to present what many complicate.

Luke Timothy Johnson is a heavyweight in Christian scholarship and in this clear and concise book, he exposes the "misguided quest" of the Jesus Seminar. This book strengths lie in that Johnson, a first rate scholar, explains why the quest for a historical Jesus often fails.

The book introduces the Jesus Seminar and some of their most popular teachers and scholars. One reviewer clamims that Johnson is Polemic, but I am curious what he considers polemic. Johnson is not polemic, but honest in his assesments of this group. He informs the reader which Seminar folk are actual scholars and which ones are not.

Johnson then reminds the reader the "limitations of history" in trying to develop a historical Jesus. This area examines the limtations of this social science. He then develops what is "historical about Jesus" and the "Real Jesus." This book is an easy read, yet has enough depth that it adequately deals with such an important topic. While I cannot completely agree with Johnson on every detail, he has produced a great work which is neeeded as a counter-balance to the media circus that surrounds the Jesus Seminar and the often lack of serious scholastic response by "litarlist Bible Christians."

In his introduction Luke Timothy Johnson writes that he meant to "blow the whistle on a form of scholarship" which he considered "misguided and misleading." Instead he found himself caught up in a continuing debate over the Jesus Seminar, a debate propelled by the media which Johnson thought the wrong place for "such discussions to occur." It is contra the Jesus Seminar that Johnson writes. The JS is a small self-selected group of scholars unaffiliated with groups such as the Society of Biblical Literature. Though it does contain scholars of note, it does not contain scholars from many major institutions such as Yale, Emory, Duke, or Chicago.

Johnson next engages a number of scholars and other writers such as Thiering, Wilson (just a writer), Spong (also not an NT scholar), Borg and Crossan. To put it succinctly, Johnson finds that Jesus has been turned into a "cultural critique" that many think the world needs. For Johnson this is "platitudinous." Instead Johnson argues that the Gospels can tell us something about the historical Jesus even though they reveal a theological agenda. Further he argues that historical knowledge is normative for Christain faith.

(Fast forward toward the end of the book.) From non-canonical sources, Johnson finds covergences of evidence. From Jospehus, Tacitus, the Babylonian Talmud, Lucian of Samasota, Pliny, etc., Johnson finds that Christos was a virtual name of a man who lived in Palestine who was known as a wonder worker and a teacher and who was executed by Pontius Pilate. The followers of this man were known by religious designations and _never_ as a political movement.

Other convergences are drawn from the Pauline writings, Hebrews, and the Gospels. Johnson thus concludes that the earliest Christian literature shows a deep consistancy as "Jesus as Messiah." Though page 166 is not the end of the book, there Johnson raises the pivotal question of whether some of the claims for the pursuit of the hsitorical Jesus are not flights from the NT texts. It is there that Johnson says one can find the real Jesus.

Luke Timothy Johnson is no fundamentalist. Johnson works in the milieu of critical scholarship while still maintaining a vibrant faith, much like the late Raymond Brown. Therefore, his observations in this book should not be dismissed as the rantings of rabid anti-scholar. There is much more to this book than criticism of the Jesus Seminar. The issues involved in contemporary biblical scholarship in general are articulated well. The main point of the book is that there are such severe limitations in historical research that any historical reconstruction of Jesus, i.e. "the historical Jesus" cannot be "the real Jesus" that is worshipped and followed by the church. The real Jesus is the one presented by the Gospels, and indeed by other sections of the New Testament (the letters of Paul, James, I Peter, etc.) Although the Jesus Seminar takes the brunt of the criticism here, Johnson also points out some of the methodological missteps of less radical scholars such as John P. Meier. This book makes some valid points and is essential reading to get another view in the lively area of contemporary Jesus scholarship.

Johnson in this commentary offers a sustained and well articulated "reading" of Romans; though at times he can be a little idiosyncratic in his views and labour some points endlessly. He is very good in focusing on the literary conventions of this letter, but not so good when it comes to exegetical detail. One glaring weakness that this work has is that it does not interact with alternative readings or views in a sustained or consistant way. Another shortcoming is that it contains no indexes or bibliographies! Thus, I would say that this should not be top of your list when it comes to purchasing commentaries on Romans. For roughly the same price you can get Douglas Moo's larger and more exhaustive commentary in the New International Commentary on the New Testament series, or if you are looking for a Roman Catholic perspective, Brendon Bryne's volume in the Sacra Pagina series.

Nevertheless, this volume does contain some exegetical distinctives.

Reading Romans is one of the 'small book' of Luke Tomothy Johnson. It is clear and not difficult for Christian. You can use this book to prepare you Sunday School, Cell Group Discussion and self-study. If you are the teacher of Sunday School, Cell group Leader or Lay Pastor, you need to put this book in your library. Read 'Reading Romans', you can easliy understand the picture of Romans. Of course, if you want to learn more and deep, or you are studying Theology, Douglas Moo or Berndon Bryne's books will be better.