Not a book for cuddling into a comfy chair with tea and cookies, Contagious Holiness is a scholarly treatise which explores deeply into its subject. And if you think this subject is settled and unchanging, think again. Higher criticism which isnt so high after all has taken aim at Jesus and His eating habits. Blomburg sets out, most successfully, to show that Jesus quite deliberately ate with sinnerslike you and me, and even better and worse folklovingly inundating them with His contagious holiness.
Number 19 in IVPs New Studies in Biblical Theology series, Contagious Holiness first looks at meals in the Old Testament, then during the intertestamental period, and how these meals impacted the New Testament era. The meat of this book is next considered, a deep discussion of the whys and wherefores of Jesus eating with sinners, and what His pervasive purity accomplishes. The conclusion discusses how the church, in a world where eating is degenerating into lonely fast food pig outs, can apply all these lessons to reach people for Christ. All of the footnotes appear conveniently within the text. An exhaustive bibliography and a couple of relevant indices helpfully close this volume.
Distinguished professor of New Testament and prolific author, Craig Blomburg capably keeps strictly to his subject and, while sometimes sending the lay reader to a dictionary, manages to keep his audience very interested. Donna Eggett, Christian Book Previews.com
