Jeffrey J. Niehaus – författare

The basis of all biblical study is that God has revealed himself, not only through the Word, but in various ways in various times and places. These self-disclosures are called theophanies. The pivotal theophany in Old Testament times was God's revelation to Moses on Mount Sinai. So significant is this theophany in terms of God's covenant with his people and his progressive revelation that author Jeffrey J. Niehaus justifiably employs the term "Sinai theology" to convey his theme. This book explores the meaning of this theophany throughout the Old Testament -- pre-Sinai, post-Sinai (especially the prophets), and the Psalms -- and its significance for the New Testament. It also examines parallels in ancient Near Eastern traditions.

Ancient Near Eastern Themes in Biblical Theology traces the many parallels between the Old Testament (and Bible as a whole) and the ancient Near East, including creation and flood narratives, common literary and legal forms, supposed acts of deities and the God of the Bible, and more. Instead of merely studying a random selection of parallels, however, Jeffrey Niehaus proposes that they represent “a shared theological structure of ideas in the ancient Near East, a structure that finds its most complete and true form in the Old and New Testaments.” This comprehensive and enlightening resource promises to help students and discerning Bible readers to intellectually grasp and appreciate the overarching story of the Bible within its cultural development.

All of the glory that had broken on meSurrounded me and saw me through and throughAlthough I had no idea how to nameA power that engulfed me totallyAnd turned my soul onto another road.--Book XVI, lines 700-704Preludes is a soul''s journey from infancy to adulthood--from the Ohio Valley to south Florida, from grade school to college in New England and travel abroad, and ultimately to a knowledge of its maker. The author is unabashedly and sometimes almost naively Romantic, and the poem shows both adoration of nature and the ultimate failure of such an obsession. The poem''s many passages are windows onto past landscapes, and through them comes an affirmation of life and the goodness of life. Ultimately, the author encounters and is transformed by a power beyond himself.

The first volume of this three-volume work reviews the history of efforts to define biblical righteousness. Modern views are engaged and critiqued, from the seminal article (1860) by Ludwig Diestel (God''s righteousness as the agreement of his will and purpose) to others in the theological stream known as the "New Perspective." Scholars discussed include Walther Eichrodt, Gerhard von Rad, Elizabeth Achtemeier, James D. G. Dunn and N. T. Wright. Other perspectives are also engaged, including H. H. Schmid''s definition of righteousness as conformity to the created order (Weltordnung), John Piper''s view that God''s righteousness is God''s concern for his own glory, and the traditional view, championed by C. L. Irons, that God''s righteousness is his iustitia distributiva. The author examines these views, all of which have been supported by inductive studies, in light of a proposed alternative: that righteousness is conformity to God''s Being and doing. That definition will be explored further in Volumes II (OT) and III (NT). Unlike previous studies, the present work proceeds deductively and experimentally, and thereby seeks to avoid the pitfalls of a dogmatic approach. Extra-biblical, patristic, medieval, and reformation views of righteousness are also considered as background to the modern study of righteousness.

The second volume of this three-volume work exegetes and comments on every occurrence of the Hebrew terms for righteousness in the Old Testament. It begins with a discussion of apperception and deductive method and concludes with an afterword on righteousness and ontology. The ontological argument affirms that God''s aseity is the foundation of righteousness in the Bible, and thus of all true righteousness. Righteousness is being true to God, and God is always true to himself, including in his self-existence. Other terms in the righteous word group, such as "righteous" and "justify," are considered, along with the important word pair, "righteousness and justice," in semantic domain studies in the first three chapters. Semantic domain studies show that terms like "upright," "blameless," and "good" are qualifiers of righteousness. Whatever the flavor or nuance of the terms for righteousness may be in different OT contexts, however, study shows that the underlying sense of righteousness is conformity to God''s Being and doing, and the same is true of the righteousness of God.

The third volume of this three-volume work exegetes and comments on every occurrence of the Greek terms for righteousness, righteous, righteously, and righteous judgment in the New Testament. It begins with a general discussion of the righteous word group in the New Testament and concludes with a discussion of the righteousness of God and the righteousness of faith. The same proposal that was explored in Volumes 1 and 2, that righteousness means conformity to God''s Being and doing, is now explored in the NT. Whatever flavor or nuance righteousness terminology may have in different NT contexts, study shows that the underlying sense of righteousness as conformity to God''s Being and doing, both for God and for people, has the explanatory power required to commend the definition. Such a result has further implications for justification studies.

The second of three volumes, this study explores the Old Testament special grace covenants: the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic. The third volume examines the final and culminating special grace covenant: the new covenant. The three volumes taken together present the covenant as an expression of God's nature, and show a paradigm of activity by which God works in covenantal relations, first to create the world and then, through a redemptive program after the fall, to redeem what was lost. The proposed paradigm, by which all the divine-human covenants are expressed and understood, is a new and, it is hoped, helpful way of portraying God's covenant making dynamic, and it also thereby illustrates the divine consistency.