"The New Testament writings reflect a sense of wrestling to understand what the world-shattering events of Jesus's life, death, resurrection, and ascension mean in the rough-and-tumble of daily life in a conflicted world. In this book, a senior New Testament scholar investigates seven critical areas of tension--historical, moral, political, material, social, perceptual, and temporal--that shape the ""big ideas"" discussed and debated in the New Testament. This lively investigation explores the challenges that influenced the New Testament writings and how the writers responded to those tensions. The author shows that out of this upheaval came a remarkable set of creative