Book excerpt: Comments on the First Edition... Those concerned with Christian beginnings will find Malherbe stimulating and incisive on the New Testament. Robert M. Gratn, Journal of Religion The author is a scholar of great learning. I found the footnotes to be extremely useful, and the challenge of the book that a new consesus has emerged is a genuine contribution to continuing debate. Robin Scroggs, Journal of the American Academy of Religion An interesting and informed introduction to an important new development in the study of earliest Christianity. - Victor P. Furnish, Perkins Journal The book constitutes a major challenge to the depictions of early Christianity - especially of the Pauline Wing in earlier scholarly work. - Howard Clark Kee, Reflection