Book excerpt: The Abingdon New Testament Commentaries series offers compact, critical commentaries on the writings of the New Testament. These commentaries are written with special attention to the needs and interests of theology students, but they will also be useful for students in upper-level college or university settings, as well as for pastors and other church leaders. In addition to providing basic information about the New Testament texts and insights into their meanings, these commentaries exemplify the tasks and procedures of careful, critical exegesis. In this volume, Robert C. Tannehill focuses on the significance of the Gospel of Luke in its final form for its original audience. Drawing on his own extensive previous work on Luke as a literary narrative as well as on recent studies of the ancient Mediterranean social world, Tannehill suggests that modern readers will find that certain features of Luke’s Gospel only take on significance—or deeper significance—when matched with an appropriate historical and cultural context in the first century. “This commentary is designed to meet the needs of sophisticated nonspecialist students of the Bible. The evangelist’s literary genius, frequently displayed in multivalent diction and imagery, finds in Robert Tannehill a faithful and sensitive interpreter. Social-scientific criticism, use of cultural anthropology, and frequent correction of renderings in the New Revised Standard Version appear without undue intrusiveness. This is a work well done.” –Frederick W. Danker, Christ Seminary-Seminex/ Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago