The product of a collaboration between Hermann Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Midrash is truly one of a kind. Strack and Billerbeck painstakingly gathered materials from the Talmud and Midrash that help explain the faith, perspectives, and practices of the Jews during the life of Christ and the period of the early church. Going through each New Testament book verse by verse, Strack and Billerbeck reference passages from the Midrash and the Talmud to show not only how they informed the opinions of the experts in the audience, but how centuries of teaching from those sources would have informed the popular understanding of what was being said or done in a particular verse or section.
Though much work has been done on Second-Temple Judaism since Strack and Billerbeck published this work, nothing has come close to replacing it. It is the seminal and standard reference work in this area of research. If you want to learn about the Jewish worldview at the time of Christ, you must have Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrash in your library.
The Logos edition of Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Midrash is completely indexed, giving near-instant access to any word or reference. The Scripture references are linked to your preferred Bible translation and appear on mouseover. Greek, Latin, and Hebrew words link to the language tools in your library, allowing you to access basic lexical information with a simple right-click.
Interested in having these volumes in the original German? Check out the original Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch.
This reference work is unique in the entire world. It is the only work that has ever compiled, verse by verse, such extensive background quotations from Jewish literature around the time of Christ for every passage in the New Testament. But until now, it was only available in German.
With this resource in English, we no longer have to depend on commentators who confidently claim (sometimes incorrectly), “The rabbis at the time of Christ taught this or that,” because now all the relevant quotations from this vast and diverse rabbinic literature can be quickly found here in one place – and in English rather than the original Hebrew. Every pastor, every New Testament scholar, everyone interested in first century history, and every library, should have this work. It will greatly enrich our understanding of the historical setting in which Jesus and the apostles lived and taught, and deepen our understanding of how Jesus is the true Jewish Messiah, and enrich our understanding of the New Testament itself.
Volume one contains an English translation of the commentary on the Gospel of Matthew.
Volume two contains an English translation of the commentary on the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel of John, and the Acts of the Apostles.
Volume three contains an English translation of the commentary on Romans through Revelation.
Hermann Strack (1848–1922) was born in Berlin. He studied Talmudic and Rabbinic literature under the Jewish scholar Moritz Steinschneider. Most of Strack’s contemporaries considered him the foremost Christian authority on Talmudic and Rabbinic literature. In 1883, Strack founded the Institutum Judaicm, an organization focused specifically on the conversion of Jews to Christianity. Two years later, he became editor of Nathanael. Zeitschrift für die Arbeit der Evangelischen Kirche an Israel. In 1877, Strack became the assistant professor of Old Testament exegesis and semitic languages at the University of Berlin.
Paul Billerbeck (1853–1932) was born in Bad Schönfliess on April 4, 1853. Before his retirement in 1914, Billerbeck served as a pastor in Zielenzig and Heinerdorf. Billerbeck was also heavily involved in missionary work in Berlin, where he was engaged in the evangelism of Jews living in Germany. Billerbeck was educated at Greifswald and Leipzig.