New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, 9: A Review of Greek Inscriptions and Papyri Published in 1986-87: in Honour of Paul Barnett‪.‬

New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, 9: A Review of Greek Inscriptions and Papyri Published in 1986-87: In Honour of Paul Barnett, edited by S. R. Llewelyn (Sydney: Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, Macquarie University; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002). Pp. xvi + 136. $35.00 (paper). The ninth collaboration in this series of NT background resources is dedicated to Dr. Paul Barnett, a historian/theologian in the Reformed tradition. Dr. Barnett shepherded the New Docs project from its inception in 1980. In the preface to New Docs 9 (p. vii), A. M. Nobbs reflects that Dr. Barnett is truly representative of the interests of those served by New Docs, namely, all those involved in study of and research on the NT documents themselves. E. A. Judge's tribute to the honoree, "Paul Barnett and New Testament History" (pp. ix-xii), draws the distinction between investigating the phenomena of the NT itself (a la G. R. Elton and C. F. D. Moule) and the study of the socio-cultural consequences of those phenomena in later times. Dr. Barnett's approach to the NT as a phenomenon of history helped to ensure that "[t]he writings of the NT are manifestly conceived and shaped under the impulse of the message they convey. Yet they are built up not out of mythological thinking but from the narrative of remembered experience" (p. xii). Complementing this interesting sketch is a bibliography of the honoree's publications compiled by C. B. Forbes.