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Rating: 
Summary: The Early Church in the Bible
Review: Arthur G. Patzia's 'Emergence of the Church' combines New Testament background (what was Judaism like in first-century Palestine? What was life like in the Roman empire? and so on) with exposition of what the Bible says about the growth of Christianity. The book's sources are pretty strictly biblical: the Didache is dated at or beyond 100 (p.99), and discussed only at the fringe, and the clearly first-century ROTAS square (buried under the products of the volcanic eruption of 79) does not figure, even when Patzia comes to discuss (p.138) whether there were first-century churches in Italy outside Rome.If description and discussion of what the Bible says about the early Church is what you're looking for, this is a good book to choose. The ambience is distinctly Fuller, and here and there this brings up questions which would otherwise seem curious: Patzia notes (and he is right, as far as it goes) that 'there is no indisputable evidence in the Gospels that [Jesus] personally offered sacrifices in the temple during his public ministry' (p.186). All right, but what is implied here? That Jesus might have thought sacrifical cult wrong, or avoided it? Surely not likely, when Luke (2.24) records his parents making the prescribed offering in the temple for him. Arthur G. Patzia is an intelligent reader of the Bible and a throughgoing expositor. His book deserves a wide audience.
Rating:
Summary: The Early Church in the Bible
Review: Arthur G. Patzia's 'Emergence of the Church' combines New Testament background (what was Judaism like in first-century Palestine? What was life like in the Roman empire? and so on) with exposition of what the Bible says about the growth of Christianity. The book's sources are pretty strictly biblical: the Didache is dated at or beyond 100 (p.99), and discussed only at the fringe, and the clearly first-century ROTAS square (buried under the products of the volcanic eruption of 79) does not figure, even when Patzia comes to discuss (p.138) whether there were first-century churches in Italy outside Rome. If description and discussion of what the Bible says about the early Church is what you're looking for, this is a good book to choose. The ambience is distinctly Fuller, and here and there this brings up questions which would otherwise seem curious: Patzia notes (and he is right, as far as it goes) that 'there is no indisputable evidence in the Gospels that [Jesus] personally offered sacrifices in the temple during his public ministry' (p.186). All right, but what is implied here? That Jesus might have thought sacrifical cult wrong, or avoided it? Surely not likely, when Luke (2.24) records his parents making the prescribed offering in the temple for him. Arthur G. Patzia is an intelligent reader of the Bible and a throughgoing expositor. His book deserves a wide audience.
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