The New Testament in Its World: Audio Lectures, Part 1 of 2

An Introduction to the History, Literature, and Theology of the First Christians

By: N. T. Wright, Michael F. Bird

Narrated by: N. T. Wright, Michael F. Bird

Length: 5 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's Summary

The Zondervan Biblical and Theological Lectures series provides a unique audio learning experience. Unlike a traditional audiobook's direct narration of a book's text, The New Testament in Its World: Audio Lectures includes high quality live-recordings of college-level lectures that cover the important points from each subject as well as relevant material from other sources. 

Enter the world of the New Testament. A companion to The New Testament in Its World by N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, these lectures serve as your passageway from the 21st century to the era of Jesus and the first Christians. In part 1, Professors Wright and Bird will guide you through how to listen to the New Testament, the world of Jesus, and the early church, approaches to studying the historical Jesus, the historical context of the death and resurrection of Jesus, and much more.

Part 1 includes lectures on:

• Beginning Study of the New Testament 
• The New Testament as History 
• The New Testament as Literature   
• The New Testament as Theology 
• The History of the Jews Between the Persian and Roman Empires  
• The Jewish Context of Jesus and the Early Church
• The Greco-Roman Context of the Early Church 
• The Study of the Historical Jesus 
• The Profile and Praxis of a Prophet 
• Who Did Jesus Think He Was? 
• The Death of the Messiah 
• The Afterlife in Greek, Roman, and Jewish Thought
• The Story of Easter According to the Apostle Paul    
• The Story of Easter According to the Evangelists 
• The Story of Paul’s Life and Ministry
• A Primer on Pauline Theology 

Short bonus lectures have also been included:

• The Bema Seat
• Critical Realism
• Faith in Jesus Christ or Faith of Jesus Christ
• Holy Spirit
• Major Philosophies
• Paul and Virtue
• Persecuted Church
• Principalities
• Why Do Historical Bible Studies?
• Resurrection

©2019 N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird (P)2019 Zondervan

The audio of a DVD lecture series

This is a series of video lectures that were released as audio. They are on sites in Israel for parts of them but you can’t see what they are talking about. And there are section that were recorded outside that are not very good audio.

There is some good content here. But also this does not seem well designed. There are short talks more than lectures. Many of them 5-10 minutes.

I have not read the big book that they are based on yet but this does not seem in any way equivalent. And splitting these into two makes sense if this was the whole of a 800-900 page book. But this is actually 12 hours of talking, stripped from the video, and split into two parts so you have to pay twice to get the whole thing.

Great Material, Puzzling Audio

The content is excellent, but several of the audio recordings have a disappointing quality.

Bad Audio Quality

The content is great. The arrangement is clear. The audio/production quality (at least in parts) is abysmal. I expected better audio mastering by an Audible production.

Rehash of NT Wright

This is very surface level if you’re at all familiar with NT Wright’s other work. I very much enjoy his scholarship but this was like a high-level overview without anything new to offer. I regret spending point on this.

Insightful and Focused Guide

I am always interested in N.T. Wright and this is typically excellent. Just as the title suggests, this audiobook frames the New Testament within the context of its contemporary culture and history, producing consistently useful insights. I particularly enjoyed the different ways in which the authors engaged with the accounts and implications of Jesus’ resurrection. The lecture format is engaging and the chapters are focused and listenable. I found ample opportunities for reflection and would highly recommend this audiobook to anyone who enjoys thinking about their faith.

Volume too low!

For some reason all titles by Zondervan have very low volume, except when Audible adds their 2 second spot, then it's too loud!
Frustrating. They should have equalized the audio properly before releasing.

N.T talks to friend

The first part is boring, the rest is mediocre N.T., The background noise and bad audio are not helping the retelling of the stories NT and friend talk over each other about. Save your time the N.T Wright books before are way better. I won't even try the second part unless someone guarantees new material and clear audio with no background of a city cafe,

I love it.

Any serious Bible student needs to get this. It's very informative, I thoroughly enjoy it, the content is rich and the narration is good.

Resurrection seen with new freshness

Loved the understanding of the Jewish, Greek, and Roman worlds, and how they impacted the early church. This book helped me to see afresh the resurrection of Jesus. It expanded what I knew of the magnitude of the resurrection in the lives of early Christians and changed my own view of its importance.

Fantastic Summary

Fantastic summary of the central tenets of the New Testament. Well researched and thought out. The message of Jesus as seen through the eyes of the first Christians.

I just wish it had been NT Wright only speaking...

Fantastic content, a remarkable book, but I wish Michael Bird hadn’t t narrated much of it. He’s a globally respected academic - but his awful Strine accent ruins his presentations.

Tom Wright

Tom Wright is an excellent speaker and writer. Superbly qualified, he presents his material in an excellent way - academically accurate but accessible. His exposition of the scriptures is illuminating of the 1st century and helpful for 21st century understanding.

Excellent Resource

As some one who is knew to studying the scriptures despite being brought up in the Christian church, I found this very useful. It was easy to understand and follow and provided both historical and practical insights into the Gospels. I will definitely reread this.
It has made my study of the New Testament a lot clearer. For beginners, I would highly recommend this resource.

Excellent study

Really helpful and enjoyable study, gained a lot of insight and looking forward to part two.
Only downside was that quite a bit of the input was a copy of the lectures in ‘The New Testament you never knew’ which I’d listened to last month.

Great to listen to

Loved this book. Its so good to listens to and hear the context to the new testament. I get one persons review about the market place but you can still hear and i think it adds to the context of where they are speaking about.

Content is sensational.

But Production is not very pretty. But honesty who cares when you get to learn from
Some Of the greatest minds on the planet.

short but interesting synopsis of New Testament.

will listen to again but worth a purchase for anyone interested in NT theology. easy to understand

Very solid course

Will structured survey of basic gospel truth and the history and events surrounding it. Highly recommendable!

Superb Introduction to Christianity

Great work. Would be petect for, say, a followup to Alpha or some such popular level intro.

Good content. Audio a bit rough in places.

This book is promoted as including “quality live recordings”. Fortunately most of the material is sound studio quality, with no more than a quarter being live recordings.
Unfortunately the live recordings frequently include a lot of background noise. For instance one is recorded in a bust market place.
For me this spoilt the delivery, requiring a quiet room and concentration to listen to these sections, but worth the struggle.