DAVID T. LANDRY WITH JOHN W. MARTENS, Inquiry into the New Testament: Ancient Context to Contemporary Significance (Winona, MN: Anselm Academic, 2019, paper $44.95) 467 pp.

Illustrated. Bibliographies. Indexed. ISBN: 978-1-59982-174-0. This introductory NT textbook, designed for academic use at the undergraduate level, lays out in its six-page introduction some principles for studying the NT critically (context is crucial, evidence-based conclusions, no “special rules” for interpreting the Bible) and places itself in considers the formation of the NT, some prominent noncanonical Gospels, Greco-Roman religions, ancient Judaism, and the Roman empire, respectively. Then, after an introduction to the Gospels and to methods of biblical criticism, respectively, it surveys the NT in roughly canonical order: the Gospel of Mark, source criticism and the Synoptic problem, the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Luke, Acts of the Apostles, the Gospel of John and the Johannine letters, Paul and the undisputed letters (four chapters), the Deuteropauline and Pastoral epistles, the catholic epistles and Hebrews, the book of Revelation, the quest for the historical Jesus, and the NT in the modern world. A fourteen-page glossary is included. Landry and Martens are both professors of NT at the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota.