Book Reviews

Jacob and the Prodigal

by Kenneth E. Bailey

IVP Academic

2003

Solomon tells us in Ecclesiastes 1:9, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.” Is it conceivable then that Yeshua repurposes Israel’s story in a new, exciting and relevant way?

Jacob and the Prodigal sets out to prove this very concept. Kenneth Bailey identifies 51 points of congruency between the parable of the prodigal son of Luke 15 and the story of Jacob.

Initially, the book builds the case that the...

The Sabbath Breaker

by D. Thomas Lancaster

First Fruits of Zion

2013

I have been doing a lot of teaching on the four primary responsibilities of a disciple lately. One of the responsibilities of a disciple is to memorize and properly interpret the words of one’s rabbi. As I have shared, misinterpreting the words of one’s rabbi can have disastrous results. One of these disastrous results was when the Gentile leadership of the church misunderstood Jesus’ relationship to the Sabbath. As is stated in the preface of the book, this book does not address issues of Sabbath and Gentiles, nor does it address issues of Saturday verses...

A New New Testament

by Hal Taussig

New Paradigm Publishing

2013

I first heard of A New New Testament (ANNT) from a lady in our church who is a seminary graduate and was excited at the prospect of recovering lost teachings of our Master and his Apostles. She asked if I had heard of it and if I knew anything about it. My second exposure came just a few days later when I was visiting with my pastor and he handed me a newspaper clipping with an article on the release of the same work. He asked if I had an opinion on it. After these two nearly back-to-back encounters I decided that this was something that was drawing attention and there were probably...