Acknowledgments
I am grateful to my ever-persistent and fast-acting acquisitions editor at Eerdmans, my friend Michael Thomson. When, because of unforeseen logistical circumstances (not matters of content), this book (finished originally for a different publisher’s deadline of December 1, 2017) needed a new publisher, Michael embraced it immediately. (The same weekend, I had suggested it to an editor at yet another publisher in correspondence; although that editor replied graciously and punctually, by then Michael had already fully convinced me to do it with Eerdmans.) I am grateful also to development editor Trevor Thompson, copyeditor Craig Noll (who was stuck with the tedious task of anglicizing and spelling out my ancient references), and others at Eerdmans who have worked on this book.
I am also grateful to my various conversation partners (in person) at various stages in this book’s development. Michael Licona and I were discussing these matters together before either of us embarked on our respective books on this subject. Other valuable conversation partners have included Richard Burridge, Helen Bond, Vernon Robbins, Neil Elliott, and my esteemed colleagues and PhD students at Asbury Theological Seminary; as well as members of the Memory, Narrative, and Christology in the Synoptic Gospels Seminar of the Society for New Testament Studies (with additional conversations there, including with Roland Deines, Michal Beth Dinkler, Sandra Hubenthal, David Moessner, Armand Puig i Tàrrech, Jens Schröter, and Arie Zwiep). Of course my conversation partners hold a range of views, and I remain responsible for views or arguments in this book with which any readers may wish to take issue.