InterVarsity Press – New Title Announcement – Winter 2011

A few weeks back I received the InterVarsity Press New Title Announcement for Winter 2011.  There were five titles that caught my eye.  They are as follows:

Title: Closing the Window:  Steps to Living Porn Free
Author: Tim Chester
Release Date: November 2010
Purchase options: Amazon, Direct from publisher
Synopsis: Moving beyond pat answers or mere willpower, Tim Chester offers spiritual, practical and corporate resources for living porn free.  With assurance of God’s grace and cleansing power, we can change our desires and escape the traps and temptations of pornography.  Far too many Christian lives, marriages and ministries have been ruined by this addiction.  It’s time to close the window.

• Exposes the false promises of porn
• Offers practical resources for avoiding temptation and building accountability

Title: The Resurrection of Jesus:  A New Historiographical Approach
Author: Michael R. Licona
Release Date: November 2010
Purchase options: Amazon, Direct from publisher
Synopsis: After all the debate over the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection, could there be any new approach to the problem?  Michael Licona believes there is, and he points us to the major flaw in previous efforts:  our historiographical orientation and practice.  Here is a study with an extensive consideration of historiography and the particular problem of investigating claims of miracles.  Future approaches to dealing with this “prize puzzle” of New Testament study will need to be routed through The Resurrection of Jesus.

• Provides an up-to-date treatment of New Testament historiography
• Offers fair and critical analysis of the major hypotheses

Title: Science, Creation and the Bible
Authors: Richard F. Carlson, Tremper Longman III
Release Date: November 2010
Purchase options: Amazon, Direct from publisher
Synopsis: Richard Carlson and Tremper Longman address the long-standing problem of how to relate scientific descriptions of the beginnings of the universe with the biblical creation passages of Genesis.  Properly interpreting the biblical texts and clearly identifying the nature of scientific claims are key.  With those in hand we see how Christian revelation and scientific findings can collaborate in the investigation of origins.

• Written by a physicist and a biblical scholar

Title: Why Business Matters to God:  (And What Still Needs to Be Fixed)
Author: Jeff Van Duzer
Release Date: November 2010
Purchase Options: Amazon, Direct from publisher
Synopsis: This book explores the nature and meaning of doing business and finds it calls for much more than most think.  Jeff Van Duzer presents a profoundly Christian approach that integrates biblical studies with the disciplines of business and economics.  Looking beyond the place of ethical principles and the character of the individual, Van Duzer displays a vision of business that contributes to the very purposes of God.

• Uses an interdisciplinary approach drawing on biblical studies, theology and the disciplines of business and economics
• Provides an alternate paradigm to the existing emphasis on maximizing profits

Title: The Making of the New Testament:  Origin, Collection, Text & Canon
Author: Arthur G. Patzia
Release Date: February 2011
Purchase Options: Amazon, Direct from publisher
Synopsis: This revised and expanded edition of Arthur Patzia’s The Making of the New Testament is a textbook introduction to the origin, collection, copying and canonization of the New Testament documents.  Like shrewd detectives reading subtle whispers of evidence, biblical scholars have studied the trail of clues and pieced together the story of these books.

• Gives an overview of the evidence and theories on the New Testament Canon
• Explains how the documents were copied and transmitted over the centuries
• Surveys the basic elements and practices of textual criticism