Michael J. Kruger

Writing in the form of a letter to his college-age daughter, Michael Kruger's Surviving Religion 101 takes a topical approach to examining some of the toughest questions Christian students encounter at secular universities.

Letters to a Christian Student on Keeping the Faith in College

Surviving Religion 101

Andreas J. Köstenberger

This polemic against the "Bauer-Ehrman Thesis" examines modern New Testament criticism against orthodoxy in early Christianity. Throughout, vigilance is shown toward the modern adherence to postmodern ideals of diversity.

How Contemporary Culture's Fascination with Diversity Has Reshaped Our Understanding of Early Christianity

The Heresy of Orthodoxy

Given the popular-level conversations on phenomena like the Gospel of Thomas and Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus, as well as the current gap in evangelical scholarship on the origins of the New Testament, Michael Kruger’s Canon Revisited meets a significant need for an up-to-date work on canon by addressing recent developments in the field. He presents an academically rigorous yet accessible study of the New Testament canon that looks deeper than the traditional surveys of councils and creeds, mining the text itself for direction in understanding what the original authors and audiences believed the canon to be. Canon Revisited provides an evangelical introduction to the New Testament canon that can be used in seminary and college classrooms, and read by pastors and educated lay leaders alike. In contrast to the prior volumes on canon, this volume distinguishes itself by placing a substantial focus on the theology of canon as the context within which the historical evidence is evaluated and assessed. Rather than simply discussing the history of canon—rehashing the Patristic data yet again—Kruger develops a strong theological framework for affirming and authenticating the canon as authoritative. In effect, this work successfully unites both the theology and the historical development of the canon, ultimately serving as a practical defense for the authority of the New Testament books.

Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books

Canon Revisited

Each of these new "commandments" is partly true and may sound good until you look closely. For liberal Christianity never goes away, it just gets repackaged. If the church is going to hold fast to "the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3), we must, in every era, be able to distinguish the true faith from the false.

The Ten Commandments of Progressive Christianity

The New Testament has been the focus of Kruger's research and writing for many years. It is an exciting field of study that probes into questions that have long fascinated both scholars and laymen alike, namely when and how these 27 books came to be regarded as a new scriptural deposit. But, the story of the New Testament canon is bigger than just the 'when' and the 'how'. It is also, and perhaps most fundamentally, about the 'why'. Why did Christians have a cannon at all? Does the canon exist because of some later decision or action of the second- or third-century church? Or did it arise more naturally from within the Christian faith itself? These are the questions this book is designed to address.

Challenging the Status Quo in the New Testament Debate

The Question of Canon

Christianity in the twenty-first century is a global phenomenon. But in the second century, its future was not at all certain. Michael Kruger's introductory survey examines how Christianity took root in the second century, how it battled to stay true to the vision of the apostles, and how it developed in ways that would shape both the church and Western culture over the next two thousand years.

How the Second Century Shaped the Future of the Church

Christianity at the Crossroads

This introduction to the New Testament orients readers to each book's theology, key themes, and overall message from a Reformed, covenantal, and redemptive-historical perspective--equipping readers to study and teach the New Testament with clarity.

The Gospel Realized

A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the New Testament

Read the New Testament from a biblical-theological perspective. Featuring contributions from nine respected evangelical scholars, this volume introduces each New Testament book in the context of the whole canon of Scripture, helping anyone who teaches or studies the Bible to apply it to the church today.

This volume is the first complete analysis of the apocryphal gospel fragment P.Oxy. 840 since its initial discovery nearly a century ago. The various palaeographical and historical questions raised by this apocryphal story are examined, particularly its descriptions of first-century ritual purity practices and its relationship to early Jewish-Christian communities.

An Analysis of P. Oxy. 840 and Its Place in the Gospel Traditions of Early Christianity

The Gospel of the Savior

Charles Evan Hill

Charles E. Hill

This book is about the transmission of the New Testament text in the second and third centuries of early Christianity. It explores the world of manuscripts, scribes, and early Christian textual culture.

The Early Text of the New Testament

“I can’t imagine a college student—skeptic, doubter, Christian, struggler—who wouldn’t benefit from this book.” —Kevin DeYoung For many young adults, the college years are an exciting period of selfdiscovery full of new relationships, new independence, and new experiences. Yet college can also be a time of personal testing and intense questioning— especially for Christian students confronted with various challenges to Christianity and the Bible for the first time. Drawing on years of experience as a biblical scholar, Michael Kruger addresses common objections to the Christian faith—the exclusivity of Christianity, Christian intolerance, homosexuality, hell, the problem of evil, science, miracles, and the reliability of the Bible. If you’re a student dealing with doubt or wrestling with objections to Christianity from fellow students and professors alike, this book will equip you to engage secular challenges with intellectual honesty, compassion, and confidence—and ultimately graduate college with your faith intact.

Beginning with Walter Bauer in 1934, the denial of clear orthodoxy in early Christianity has shaped and largely defined modern New Testament criticism, recently given new life through the work of spokesmen like Bart Ehrman. Spreading from academia into mainstream media, the suggestion that diversity of doctrine in the early church led to many competing orthodoxies is indicative of today's postmodern relativism. Authors Köstenberger and Kruger engage Ehrman and others in this polemic against a dogged adherence to popular ideals of diversity. Köstenberger and Kruger's accessible and careful scholarship not only counters the "Bauer Thesis" using its own terms, but also engages overlooked evidence from the New Testament. Their conclusions are drawn from analysis of the evidence of unity in the New Testament, the formation and closing of the canon, and the methodology and integrity of the recording and distribution of religious texts within the early church.

The Heresy of Orthodoxy (Foreword by I. Howard Marshall)

Applied expository guide to Hebrews—a book that shows us how and why Jesus is better than anything else. We are all tempted to drift away from Jesus, but in the book of Hebrews God gives us an anchor: a detailed understanding of how and why Jesus is better than anything else. Seminary professor Michael J. Kruger unpacks this rich book verse by verse. He explains the Old Testament background, gives plenty of application for our lives today, and shows us how Jesus is the fulfilment of all God's work on earth. He encourages us to live by faith in Jesus—the only anchor for our souls. This expository guide can be read as a book; used as a devotional; and utilized in teaching and preaching.

Michael J. Kruger

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