Generations of students have used Stephen Neill's classic book as their first introduction to New Testament criticism, and with its lively, often personal touch it has brought to life a subject sometimes regarded as dull.

For this second edition, the Revd Dr Tom Wright (whom the late Bishop Neill entrusted with this task) has brought the text up to date and added a new section showing how the subject has advanced in the last twenty-five years.

The result is a new lease of life for this well-loved and masterly book.

Tom Wright is Fellow and Chaplain of Worcester College, Oxford, and University Lecturer in New Testament Studies. He is the author of a recent commentary on Colossians and Philemon, and co-editor, with L. D. Hurst, of The Glory of Christ: Studies in New Testament Christology in Memory of George Bradford Caird, also published by Oxford University Press.