Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- (De-)Introduction -- Seeing Old Stones Anew -- Introducing the New Testament as Introducing Traditional New Testament Scholarship -- Introducing Criticisms of Traditional New Testament Scholarship -- Introducing De-Introducing the New Testament -- Notes -- Chapter 1 The Order of New Testament Things: Questioning Methods and Meanings -- The Bone-Box of James, "the Brother of Jesus" -- Ways of Knowing a Subject of Study -- Ordering Principles in the Study of the New Testament -- Origins and linear development -- Stability, definability, and simplicity -- Consistency and coherence -- Difference, distinctiveness, and identity -- Ways of Knowing New Testament "Things" -- Notes -- Chapter 2 Foregrounding New Testament Backgrounds: Contextualizing Interpretation -- "Jew" or "Judean"? The Present Confronts the Past -- Introducing the New Testament: Making Meaning with the Context -- Backgrounding the Backgrounds Approach -- Backgrounding the Character of Early Christianity: Liberty against Tyranny -- Early Christianity and Jewish law -- Early Christianity and Roman rule -- Contexts Matter, Ancient and Modern -- Notes -- Chapter 3 Objects, Objectives, and Objectivities: Material and Visual Culture and New Testament Studies -- Of Fragments and Forgeries -- Archaeology and the Making of Objects -- Excavating Discourses that Produce Ancient Objects -- What Do We Do with Ancient Objects? -- What Do We Want with Ancient Objects? -- Notes -- Chapter 4 Brand(ish)ing Biblical Scholars(hip): New Testament Studies and Neoliberal Subjectivity -- Who Can Be a "New Testament Scholar?" -- Neoliberalism and the Politics of Identity -- Branding as a Practice of Neoliberal Subjectivity -- Branding New Testament Scholars(hip) -- Identity and social location: ethnic exegesis and beyond.

Methodological Identitarianism -- "Public" scholarship -- The One-Dimensional New Testament Scholar? -- Notes -- Back to the Future: Concluding Observations on History, Method, and Theory in New Testament Studies -- "Think, McFly! Think!" -- The Role of the Critic and the Critical Impulse -- Revisiting the Role of the New Testament Historical Critic -- Concluding De-Introductory Thoughts -- Notes -- Index -- EULA.