Book Announcement: 40 Questions about Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha

Some regular readers of Reading Acts have noticed I have slowed down a bit this year. Here’s why: I have been writing a book on the Apocrypha and pseudepigrapha for Kregel’s 40 Questions series. The book is now finished, edited, (nearly) printed, and will be available mid-November. Kregel tells me they will have copies at ETS and SBL in November, so if you are at the conferences, pick up a copy at a good discount. For most of the summer I have been working on a second project for Kregel, the Acts volume in their Through Old Testament Eyes commentary series. I am about three-quarters of the way through the first draft.

40 Questions Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha I am extremely grateful to David deSilva, who wrote the foreword for 40 Questions about Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. I read the first edition of his Introducing the Apocrypha when it came out and reviewed it for Trinity Journal (TJ 27 [2006]: 172-4). The Amazon link below includes all the endorsements, and I am also thankful to the scholars who read an early draft of the book and thought enough of it to write some very kind words.

Here are the links to Amazon and Logos for preorders (so you can beat the Christmas rush).

     Amazon

     Logos Bible Software

I hope you will read this book and benefit from it. One nice thing about the 40 Questions series is that you don’t need to read the whole book cover to cover. Read the chapters that interest you (or answer the questions you want to ask). This first section covers questions about the Old Testament canon and why some Christians accept the Apocrypha while others do not. Then I cover the books of the Apocrypha and selected books of the pseudepigrapha.

What is this book about? As I explain in the introduction, the Apocrypha and pseudepigrapha have fascinated me ever since I found a copy of the Lost Books of the Bible in a bargain bin at a used bookstore. I grew up in a conservative evangelical environment, which barely recognized the Apocrypha, usually dismissing the books as “in the Catholic Bible.” They did not even know books like 1 Enoch or Jubilees existed. Reading these “lost” books felt rebellious! Biblical studies classes in my undergraduate studies introduced me to more of the literature. Professor Dale DeWitt assigned W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism (Fortress, 1970), which first exposed me to the breadth of literature that could help contextualize the New Testament. As an undergraduate, I recall holding the freshly published volumes of James Charlesworth’s Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (Doubleday, 1983). I knew I wanted to read as much as I could in these books, but that was not possible at the time. In my first PhD seminar, I was told to “read Charlesworth and write a paper on it.” That was the whole assignment. I ended up writing several hundred pages (badly edited) on the value of each of these books for studying early Judaism and the New Testament (and my professor was unimpressed; he told me to never do that again). As I wrote my dissertation (published as Jesus the Bridegroom), I often returned to Second Temple literature. I integrated these books into my research for undergraduate classes on apocalyptic literature and early Judaism. In 2022, I published The Book of Enoch for Beginners. Although the book is very basic (and short), it has sold well, and I continue to receive good feedback on it.

40 Questions about Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha has two goals. First, many Christians consider these books non-canonical and therefore unimportant for understanding the New Testament. Since they are not part of the “real Bible,” they can be safely ignored, or even shunned as dangerous. I want this book to demystify the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha so that this rich literature can be used to understand the context of the New Testament and the development of both early Christianity and early Judaism.

Second, the literature surveyed in this book is fertile ground for conspiracy theories. It is easy to find someone on YouTube talking about esoteric hidden knowledge they have “discovered” in the Enoch literature. I have been asked about “portals” after an uninformed reading of 1 Enoch, or about real-life giants from the Book of the Watchers.  An important goal of this book is to shed light on the Apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, clarifying misconceptions and false information in popular media.

Logos Free Book of the Month: Jeremy M. Kimble, How Can I Get More Out of My Bible Reading?

Logos Free Book

For the second half of September, get a free copy of Logos Free Book of the Month: Jeremy M. Kimble, How Can I Get More Out of My Bible Reading?  for your Logos Library.  Part of the 9Marks series, Kimble explains how the church acts as God’s school and offers biblical answers and practical applications that provide sound and accessible biblical teaching by answering common questions.

The other “almost free” books in this promotion are pastoral and practical books from Crossway.

  • Collin Hansen, Where Is God in a World with So Much Evil? (TGC Hard Questions; Crossway, 2025), $2.99
  • David Powlison, God’s Grace in Your Suffering (Crossway, 2018), $3.99
  • Wayne Grudem, C. John Collins, and Thomas Schreiner, Understanding Scripture: An Overview of the Bible’s Origin, Reliability, and Meaning (Crossway, 2011), $4.99
  • David R. Helm, Expositional Preaching: How We Speak God’s Word Today (9Marks Building Healthy Churches Series; Crossway, 2014), $5.99
  • Andreas J. Köstenberger and Michael J. Kruger, The Heresy of Orthodoxy: How Contemporary Culture’s Fascination with Diversity Has Reshaped Our Understanding of Early Christianity (Crossway, 2010), $6.99
  • David L. Allen, 1–3 John—Fellowship in God’s Family (Preaching the Word; Crossway, 2013), $8.99
  • Andrew David Naselli, Romans: A Concise Guide to the Greatest Letter Ever Written (Crossway, 2010), $9.99
  • Richard B. Gaffin Jr., In the Fullness of Time: An Introduction to the Biblical Theology of Acts and Paul (Crossway, 2010), $11.99
  • Bruce K. Waltke and Fred G. Zaspel, How to Read and Understand the Psalms (Crossway, 2010), $12.99
  • Douglas Sean O’Donnell, Mark (Expository Reflections on the Gospels, vol. 3; Crossway, 2010), $11.99

Waltke and Fred G. Zaspel, How to Read and Understand the Psalms looks like my first pick, although I will probably get Naselli’s Romans Concise Guide to Romans as well. As always, subscribers save another 5%, so go ahead and buy them all. This Free Book goes away October 15…check back for a new deal then.

In October, Logos celebrates Pastor Appreciation Month. Save up to 50% off hundreds of resources for preaching, sermon prep, pastoral care, and leadership—then stack an extra 15% off orders of $50+ with code PASTORTHANKS through October 25. The 2026 Leader and Preacher Libraries are 25% off all month, and eight HCCP Preacher’s Commentary titles are 50% off October 5–18. You can also save 50% on the highly rated Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (BECNT) series, but only until October 15. Pick individual volumes or grab all 18 volumes. To celebrate their recent merger, you can also save big on Baker and Lexham books in October.

What is new in Logos 53? If you don’t already know, Logos recently moved to a subscription model. Rather than a major upgrade every couple of years, they roll out upgrades about every six weeks. Logos has been integrating more AI into the software for years (smart searches, fuzzy searches, etc.), but over the last year this has evolved into Study Assistant. This is a basic chat-style AI that uses only the books in your library. In Logos 53, when you highlight a few verses, you now have “Explain” and “Ask” in the context menu. The Study Assistant will then explain the text using commentaries from your library. Users can then ask further questions in a typical AI dialogue. The “Ask” option does just that; you ask a question about whatever you highlighted. For example, I highlighted “adverbial acc” in the Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. The Study Assistant gave me the definition from Dictionary of English Grammar for Students of Biblical Languages, plus additional information from Pocket Dictionary for the Study of Biblical Hebrew. It also gave an example from Joshua 7:25 and some examples from the New Testament (citing A.T. Robertson). All of these references include page numbers and links to the book, so I can open directly to the page and read the context of the citation.

I know many people who are concerned about AI in sermon preparation, and rightly so. Study Assistant will not write your sermon for you. I asked it, “Please write a sermon outline for Acts 20:1–6.” The response was, “I appreciate the request, but I’m not able to write sermons, outlines, or other long-form creative content. This falls outside my role as a study assistant.” Study Assistant is an amped up search engine that can do some amazing things, but it will not replace the Holy Spirit for pastors trying to write a sermon.

Should you subscribe to Logos? Some people just hate subscriptions. That’s OK. But if you’re the type to upgrade Logos every two years, you’d pay the same amount as you would for the subscription. I personally like the idea of getting smaller upgrades every six weeks rather than a massive dump of features every few years. I think I can use the newer features better when I get one or two at a time. I also think this system lets Logos be more flexible about what they choose to upgrade.

This Logos Free Book of the Month promotion runs through October 15. A new free book will be available on October 15 at 9:00 a.m. PST. As always, you can use the (free) basic edition or the inexpensive Fundamentals collection to access these free and discounted books. All the links are Logos Affiliate links. If you plan to buy Logos books, use this link to support Reading Acts.

Andreas J. Köstenberger, Introducing Jesus: The Fourfold Gospel

Köstenberger, Andreas J. Introducing Jesus: The Fourfold Gospel. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Academic, 2026. 248 pp. Pb. $19.99   Link to Kregel Academic  

Andreas Köstenberger is well known for his work on the Gospel of John, including A Theology of John’s Gospel and Letters (Zondervan, 2009) and his new two-volume commentary in the Evangelical Exegetical Commentary series (Logos, 2026). He served as the editor of the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society for twenty-two years. This new book is an introductory textbook on Jesus and the Gospels, condensing his Jesus of the Gospels: An Introduction (Kregel, 2020).

Andreas Köstenberger, Introducing Jesus

Köstenberger aims to provide an accessible textbook for high school and college students, as well as interested laypeople. His five main goals have not changed (p. 19-20), nor have his theological assumptions. But since this book is a primer on the Gospels, Introducing Jesus omits many technical details from his larger book. For example, although this book mentions a few key names for historical Jesus studies, the larger textbook has much more detail on the history of interpretation. The original text has many richly detailed footnotes; this primer has none. But this is not a problem since the target audience of the two books is quite different. Do college students ever look at footnotes? Köstenberger rarely addresses Synoptic parallels, and he does not cover source, form, or redaction criticism. But given the goals of Introducing Jesus, these critical methods are not important.

After an introductory chapter, Köstenberger covers each of the four gospels in four chapters (except for Mark, which receives only two chapters). There is no discussion of authorship or origins of the gospels, although there is a brief one- or two-page introduction before each new unit of the book that introduces the author, the distinctive contributions of each gospel, and some major emphases. Köstenberger then provides a running commentary for each gospel. In terms of depth, his comments are more than one might encounter in a good study Bible. He is brief and to the point (again, something that will appeal to students, even if that frustrates professors). Chapters begin with a chart outlining the section of the gospel under consideration, and occasional charts appear throughout the book. For example, one chart summarizes Jesus’s resurrection appearances (p. 196-97). Each chapter ends with a  few discussion questions and a short devotional reading based on the chapter’s content.

Köstenberger provides some teaching resources on his website, Biblical Foundations, including discussion questions, quizzes, exams (with a key for teachers), devotional reflections, and visual charts. The discussion questions match those at the end of each chapter in the book. The same applies to the devotional reflections. Under visual charts, there is a single-page PDF outlining each gospel. Each chapter includes a short, objective five-question quiz, but the four unit exams contain three essay questions each (and the final has two open-ended questions). I noticed that anyone could download the answer key. Perhaps changing this file to a password-protected PDF is a good idea.

Conclusion. Köstenberger’s Introducing Jesus certainly achieves its goal of condensing his larger, more academic textbook for use in lower-level classrooms. In this, the book is similar to Mark Strauss’s Introducing Jesus (Zondervan 2018), which condenses his Four Portraits, One Jesus (Second edition, Zondervan, 2020). By providing a brief running commentary for each gospel, Köstenberger’s book will be a valuable resource for laypeople working their way through the first four books of the New Testament.

 

NB: Thanks to Kregel for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.

Logos Free Book of the Month: Jeffery Smith, The Rich Man and Lazarus

Logos Free Book of the Month

For the second half of September, get a free copy of Jeffery Smith, The Rich Man and Lazarus: The Plain Truth about Life after Death (Evangelical Press, 2019) for your Logos Library. Jeff Smith is a pastor at Emmanuel Baptist Church, Coconut Creek, Florida, and an instructor at Reformed Baptist Seminary. Using the story of Lazarus in Luke 16, Smith explores issues of life, death, and the afterlife.

There are quite “almost free” books in the Logos FBOTM Promotion:

  • Terry L. Johnson, Reformed Worship: Worship That Is According to Scripture, $2.99
  • Earl M. Blackburn, John Chrysostom (Bitesize Biographies), $3.99
  • Derek W. H. Thomas, God Strengthens: Ezekiel Simply Explained (Welwyn Commentary Series), $7.77
  • David Jeremiah, Colossians and Philemon: The Lordship of Jesus (Jeremiah Bible Study Series), $5.99
  • Jonty Rhodes, Man of Sorrows, King of Glory: What the Humiliation and Exaltation of Jesus Mean for Us, $6.99
  • Michael Bentley, Luke : Saving a Fallen World (Welwyn Commentary Series). $7.99
  • John Blanchard, Major Points from the Minor Prophets, $8.99
  • Arnold Dallimore, A Heart Set Free: The Life of Charles Wesley (A Welwyn Biography), $10.99
  • Grant R. Osborne, George Guthrie, Hebrews Verse by Verse, $11.99 (Reviewed Here)
  • Gareth Crossley, The Old Testament: Explained and Applied, $22.99

As always, subscribers save another 5%.

What is new in Logos 53? For those who do not already know, Logos recently moved to a subscription model. Rather than a major upgrade every couple of years, upgrades are rolled out about every six weeks. Logos has been integrating more AI into the software for years (smart searches, fuzzy searches, etc.), but over the last year this has evolved into Study Assistant. This is a basic chat-style AI that uses only the books in your library. In Logos 53, when you highlight a few verses, you now have “explain” and “ask” on the context menu. The Study Assistant will then explain the text using commentaries from your library. Users can then ask further questions in a typical AI dialogue. The “Ask” option does just that; you ask a question about whatever you highlighted. For example, I highlighted “adverbial acc” in the Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. The Study Assistant gave me the definition from Dictionary of English Grammar for Students of Biblical Languages, plus additional information from Pocket Dictionary for the Study of Biblical Hebrew. It also gave an example from Joshua 7:25 and some examples from the New Testament (citing A.T. Robertson). All of these references include page numbers and links to the book, so I can open directly to the page and read the context of the citation.

I know many people who are concerned about AI in sermon preparation, and rightly so. Study Assistant will not write your sermon for you. I asked it, “Please write a sermon outline for Acts 20:1–6.” The response was, “I appreciate the request, but I’m not able to write sermons, outlines, or other long-form creative content. This falls outside my role as a study assistant.” Study Assistant is an amped up search engine that can do some amazing things, but it will not replace the Holy Spirit for pastors trying to write a sermon.

Should you subscribe to Logos? Some people just hate subscriptions. That’s OK. But if you’re the type to upgrade Logos every two years, you’d pay the same amount as you would for the subscription. I personally like the idea of getting smaller upgrades every six weeks rather than a massive dump of features every few years. I think I can use the newer features better when I get one or two at a time. I also think this system lets Logos be more flexible about what they choose to upgrade.

If you do subscribe in September, you get a free Bronze library. Click through to get the details. Even if you do not want to subscribe, you can get a Topical Library for 25% off.

This Logos Free Book of the Month promotion runs through September 30. A new free book will be available on September 15 at 9:00 a.m. PST. As always, you can use the (free) basic edition or the inexpensive Fundamentals collection to access these free and discounted books. All the links are Logos Affiliate links. If you plan to buy Logos books, use this link to support Reading Acts.

Lynneth Miller Renberg and Adam R. Renberg, Candles in the Darkness: Experiencing Advent with the Early and Medieval Church

Renberg, Lynneth Miller, and Adam R. Renberg. Candles in the Darkness: Experiencing Advent with the Early and Medieval Church. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2026. 182 pp., Hb. $29.99   Link to IVP Academic  

Lynneth Miller Renberg (PhD, Baylor University) is associate professor of history and associate director of the Honors College at Anderson University. She is the author of several publications, including Women, Dance, and Parish Religion in England, 1300–1600: Negotiating the Steps of Faith (Boyd and Brewer, 2022). She co-edited The Cursed Carolers in Context (Routledge, 2021). Her husband, Adam R. Renberg (PhD, University of St Andrews), is an assistant professor of theology at Anderson University and a theologian-in-residence and teaching pastor at Capstone Church. His publications include The Son Is Truly Son: The Trinitarian and Christological Theology of Eusebius of Caesarea (Brepols, 2021). Both contribute to The Anxious Bench.

Candles in the Darkness is not simply a Christmas devotional book. The book combines the insights of a historian (Lynneth) and a theologian (Adam). In their introduction, the Renbergs introduce the reader to Egeria, a woman who made a pilgrimage from Spain to Jerusalem in AD 382. In a letter, she described a Christmas procession from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, “walking from cradle to cross” and celebrating the coming of the Light of the World. The authors of this set of Christmas devotionals invite their readers to make the same kind of pilgrimage over the four weeks of Advent and the twelve days of Christmas.

Christmas Devotion

Each daily reading for Advent and the twelve days of Christmas includes Scripture to read, explore, and meditate on. Following Scripture is a meditation from a historical figure and a modern meditation written by the authors. Finally, each devotion ends with a prayer intended to spark the reader’s own prayers, drawn from Scripture or another historical figure. Each day’s readings are brief, rarely more than three pages.

Most readers will be familiar with Augustine, Anselm, or Francis of Assisi (or at least have heard of these names). But the Renbergs include readings from many unheard voices, including women who wrote spiritual reflections and had a significant impact on the church’s spiritual life. Hildegard of Bingen (ca. 1089-1179) is perhaps the most well-known female mystical writer included in the book. But readers will sample Macrina the Younger (ca. 327-379), the ninth-century Frankish noblewoman Dhouda, and Paula the Elder (ca. 347-404). The book also includes several obscure medieval liturgies, such as the Gregorian Sacramentary and Ethiopian liturgies, and books of poetry such as the Book of Exeter (ca. 970). At the very least, reading Candles in the Darkness may spark an interest in church history beyond “the usual suspects.”

Some readers might wonder how helpful an ancient writer can be. After all, many writers use typological or allegorical interpretations that miss the meaning of Scripture (from a modern reader’s perspective). As the Renbergs explain in their introduction to the book, ancient writers invite readers to “enter the text as active participants” (9). Any allegorical readings are faithful attempts to read behind the text. This sort of reading requires both the discipline of the mind and the heart (10).

Conclusion. Candles in the Darkness is a well-written Christmas devotional that invites readers into the unfamiliar world of medieval Christianity to think more deeply about Christ’s coming into the world. Although intended for reading during the Advent season, the book will reward readers at any time of the year.