At a time of deep disagreements about the nature and purpose of academic biblical studies, Markus Bockmuehl advocates the recovery of a plural but common conversation on the subject of what the New Testament is about.

Seeing the Word begins with an assessment of current New Testament studies, identifying both persistent challenges and some promising proposals. Subsequent chapters explore two such proposals. First, ground for common conversation lies in taking seriously the readers and readings the text implies. Second, Bockmuehl explores the text’s early effective history by a study of apostolic memory in the early church.

All serious students of the Bible and theology will find much of interest, and much to discuss, in this first volume in the Studies in Theological Interpretation series.

What does one do about an academic discipline, ‘New Testament studies,’ that has almost done away with its own object of study? Markus Bockmuehl’s diagnosis and prescription are at once judicious and mordantly witty, properly academic and fun to read.–Robert W. Jenson, formerly senior scholar for research at the Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton

Witty, sure-footed, and erudite, Markus Bockmuehl’s Seeing the Word is a gift to all who care about the future of New Testament studies. Though severe in his diagnosis of the field’s present crisis, Bockmuehl is heartening and enlightening in his account of how scholars today can reconstitute the study of the New Testament in an intellectually coherent and theologically fruitful way, without sacrificing the genuine gains of recent decades. By highlighting the integrative potential of New Testament study from the perspective of its implied readers and Wirkungsgeschichte, Bockmuehl models an approach whose historical interest is broad enough to encompass the New Testament’s historic identity as Christian Scripture and whose theological concern is confident enough to dare public conversation about truth.–R. Kendall Soulen, professor of systematic theology, Wesley Theological Seminary