1 Peter

Williams and Horrell now provide the most substantial critical treatment of 1 Peter and, despite the enormous scale of the two-volume work, bring enough genuinely fresh interpretation to justify its place at the top. Particularly valuable are their use of the latest textual-critical resources, their reconsideration of the imperatival participles, persecution, “doing good,” Christian identity, and their nuanced account of the letter’s stance toward society as neither simple accommodation nor resistance but something closer to “polite resistance.” They also offer an illuminating interpretation of diaspora language as providing Christians with an alternative mapping of existence grounded in Israel’s exile rather than Rome’s imperial ordering. Far too detailed for casual use, but currently the strongest combination of comprehensiveness, independence, and exegetical payoff.