• Jewish and Greco-Roman background • literary genres and forms • issues of authorship, date, and setting • the content and major themes of each book • various approaches to the study of the Gospels and Acts • the intersection of New Testament criticism with contemporary faith and culture • the impact of social memory theory on Gospel studies • the relationship of John's Gospel to the Synoptics • recent work on characterization in narrative studies of the Gospels • the way the Hebrew Scriptures are read by the New Testament authors • the contribution of archaeology to New Testament studies • updated bibliographies highlighting the most important and influential works published in the last decade.