Biography:
In his more than six decades of service to the Church, Fr. Jerry Neyrey, SJ, has established himself as a theological scholar. He is also one of the most prolific Jesuit authors in the United States. He taught theology for more than 30 years, primarily at the University of Notre Dame, as well as Spring Hill College in Mobile, Ala., and the Weston Jesuit Community in Cambridge, Mass. His most recent assignments are as a retreat and spiritual director and pastoral minister. Father Neyrey has always understood his priestly ministry in terms of “Service of the Word,” and his long list of publications speaks to his commitment to what he feels has been God’s calling for him.
Publication list:
Books:
2 Peter and Jude. Anchor Bible, 37C. New York: Doubleday, 1993.
By What Authority? Luke Gives Jesus Public Voice
Calling Jesus Names: The Social Value of Labels in Matthew. (With Bruce J. Malina) Sonoma, CA: Polebridge, 1988.
Christ is Community: The Christologies of the New Testament. Good News Studies, 13. Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1985.
An Encomium for Jesus. Luke, Rhetoric, and the Story of Jesus. Sheffield University Press, 2020
First Timothy, Second Timothy, Titus, James, First Peter, Second Peter, Jude. Collegeville Bible Commentary, 9. Collegeville, MN: Collegeville, 1983.
Give God the Glory. Prayer and Worship in Cultural Perspective. Erdmans, 2007.
The Gospel of John in Cultural and Rhetorical Perspective. Eerdmans, 2009
Hearing Revelation 1-3. Listening with Greek Rhetoric and Culture
An Ideology of Revolt: John’s Christology in Social-Science Perspective. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1988.
Honor and Shame: Matthew and the Great Code. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1999. How Do You Read? Social-Science Interpretations of the New Testament, co-edited with Eric Stewart.
Imagining Jesus . . . In His Own Culture. Wipf & Stock, 2018
Indispensable Companions. Jesuit Brothers in the South from Colonial Times til Now (2017)
The Gospel of John (New Cambridge Bible Commentary)
The Passion Narrative in St. Luke. Mahwah, NJ: PaulistPress, 1985.
Paul in Other Words: A Cultural Reading of His Letters. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1990.
Portraits of Paul: An Archaeology of Ancient Personality. (With Bruce J. Malina) Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1996.
Render to God: New Testament Understandings of the Divine. Fortress Press, 2004.
The Resurrection Stories. Zacchaeus Studies: New Testament. Michael Glazier, 1988.
The Social World of Luke-Acts. Models for Interpretation. Editor. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991.
The Social World of the New Testament. Insights and Models, co-edited with Eric Stewart. Hendrickson Publishing Company, 2008.
A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on the Gospel of John. Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Southern Jesuit Biographies. Pastors and Preachers, Builders and Teachers of the New Orleans Province. Acadian Publishing House, 2015
Articles:
New Testament: General
“Who Is Poor in the New Testament?,” Scripture from Scratch. October 2002.
“Prayer, In Other Words: A Social Science Model for Interpreting Prayers.” Pp. 349-80 in John J. Pilch, ed.,
Social Scientific Models for Interpreting the Bible: Essays by the Context Group in Honor of Bruce J. Malina. Leiden: Brill, 2001
“Miracles, In Other Words: Social Science Perspectives on Healing.” Pp. 19-56 in John C. Cavadini, ed., Miracles in Jewish and Christian Antiquity. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999. “
Clean/Unclean, Pure/Polluted and Holy/Profane.” In The Social Sciences and New Testament Interpretation, 80-104. R. L. Rohrbaugh, ed. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1996.
“Meals, Food and Tablefellowship.” In The Social Sciences and New Testament Interpretation, 159-82. R. L. Rohrbaugh, ed. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1996.
“Other Urban Christians: The Cities of Revelation 1-3,” BTB 51 (2021) 132-148 “A City and the Cities of Revelation” [forthcoming in William S. Kurz festschrift]
The Gospel of Mark
“Questions, Chreai, and Challenges to Honor. The Interface of Rhetoric and Culture in Mark’s Gospel.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 60 (1998):657-81.
“It Was Out of Envy That They Handed Jesus Over’ (Mark 15:10): The Anatomy of Envy and the Gospel of Mark.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 69 (1998):15-56.
“A Symbolic Approach to Mark 7.” Forum 4,3 (1988):63-91.
“The Idea of Purity in Mark’s Gospel.” Semeia 35 (1986):91-128.
The Gospel of Matthew
“Deception, Ambiguity, and Revelation: Matthew’s Judgmental Scenes in Social-Science Perspective.” Pp. 199-230 in eds. Alan Avery-Peck, Daniel Harrington and Jacob Neusner, When Judaism and Christianity Began. Leiden: Brill, 2004.
“Jesus, Gender and the Gospel of Matthew.” Pp. 43-66 in New Testament Masculinities, Semeia 45 (2003).
“Loss of Wealth, Loss of Family and Loss of Honor: A Cultural Interpretation of the Original Four Makarisms.” In Modelling Early Christianity: Social-Scientific Studies of the New Testament in Its Context, 139-58. P. F. Esler, ed. London: Routledge, 1995.
Luke/Acts of the Apostles
“Lost in Translation: Did It Matter if Christians ‘Thanked’ God or ‘Gave God Glory'”? CBQ 71 (2009) 1-23.
“Teaching You in Public and from House to House’ (Acts 20:20): Unpacking a Cultural Stereotype,” JSNT 26.1 (2003) 69-102.
“Luke’s Social Location of Paul: Cultural Anthropology and the Status of Paul in Acts.” History, Literature, and Society in the Book of Acts, 251-79. B. Witherington III. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996.
“Acts 17, Epicureans and Theodicy: A Study in Stereotypes.” In Greeks, Romans, and Christians: Essays Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe, 118-34. D. L. Balch and W. A. Meeks. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990.
The Gospel of John
“‘I Am the Door’ (John 10:7, 9): Jesus the Broker in the Fourth Gospel,” CBQ 69 (2007) 271-291.
“In Conclusion…John 12 as a Rhetorical Peroratio,” BTB 37 (2007) 101-13.
“Spaces and Places, Whence and Whither, Homes and Rooms: ‘Territoriality’ in the Fourth Gospel,” BTB 32 (2002) 60-75.
“Telling Time in the Fourth Gospel” (with Eric Rowe). Hervormde Teologiese Studies 64 (2008): 291-322.
“Role and Status in the Fourth Gospel: Cutting Through Confusion.” Pp. 36-56 in Calvin J. Roetzel and Robert L. Foster,
“The Impartiality of God. Essays in Biblical Studies in Honor of Jouette M. Bassler.” Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2007.
“Encomium versus Vituperation: Contrasting Portraits of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, JBL 126 (2007): 529-52.
“Worship in the Fourth Gospel: A Cultural Interpretation of John 14-17,” Biblical Theology Bulletin 36 (2006): 107-17.
“The ‘Ten’ Commandments in the Gospel of John,” Biblica 102 (2021) 248-269
“The ‘Noble’ Shepherd in John 10: Cultural And Rhetorical Background.” Journal of Biblical Literature 120 (2001): 267-91.
“‘He Must Increase, I Must Decrease’ (John 3:30): A Cultural and Social Interpretation.” Co-Authored with Richard L. Rohrbaugh. Catholic Biblical Quarterly 63 (2001) 464-83.
“The Sociology of Secrecy and the Fourth Gospel.” In What Is John? Vol. II: Literary and Social Readings of the Fourth Gospel, 79-109. F. Segovia, ed. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998.
“Despising the Shame of the Cross: Honor and Shame in the Johannine Passion Narrative.” Semeia 69 (1996):113-37.
“The Trials (Forensic) and Tribulations (Honor Challenges) of Jesus: John 7 in Social Science Perspective.” Biblical Theology Bulletin 26 (1996):107-24.
“The Footwashing in John 13:6-11: Transformation Ritual or Ceremony?”
In The Social World of the First Christians: Essays in Honor of Wayne A. Meeks, 198-213. L. M. White and O. L. Yarbrough. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995.
“What’s Wrong With This Picture? John 4, Cultural Stereotypes of Women, and Public and Private Space.” Biblical Theology Bulletin 24 (1994):77-91.
“‘I Said: You are Gods’: Psalm 82 and John 10.” Journal of Biblical Literature 108 (1989):647-63.
“Jesus the Judge: Forensic Process in John 8,21-59.” Biblica 68 (1987):509-41.
“‘My Lord and My God’: the Divinity of Jesus in John’s Gospel.” Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers 1986:152-71
“Jacob Traditions and the Interpretation of John 4:10-26.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 41 (1979):419-437.
“Rhetoric and the Prologue of John: An Invitation to a New Conversation” Biblica 101 (2020) 372-395
Paul’s Letters
“The Social Location of Paul: Education as the Key.” Pp. 126-64 in David B. Gowler, L. Gregory Bloomquist, and Duane F. Watson, eds., Fabrics of Discourse.
Essays in Honor of Vernon K. Robbins. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2003
“Bewitched in Galatia: Paul in Social Science Perspective.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 50 (1988):72-100.
“Body Language in 1 Corinthians: The Use of Anthropological Models for Understanding Paul and His Opponents.” Semeia 35 (1986):129-70.
“Witchcraft Accusations in 2 Cor 10–13: Paul in Social Science Perspective.” Listening 21 (1986):160-70.
Miscellanea
“Call and Commission in the New Testament.” Horizon. Journal of the National Religious Vocation Conference 31 (2006) 25-30.
“God, Benefactor and Patron: The Major Cultural Model for Interpreting the Deity in Greco-Roman Antiquity.” JSNT 27 (2005) 465-492.
“‘First’, ‘Only’, ‘One of a Few’, and ‘No One Else’: The Rhetoric of Uniqueness and the Doxologies in 1 Timothy.” Biblica 86 (2005) 59-87.
“Good and Bad Use (of Scripture) Depends on How One Reads,” Listening. Journal of Communication Ethics, Religion, and Culture 56 (2021) 203-214
“Josephus’ Vita and the Encomium: A Native Model of Personality.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 25 (1994): 177-206.
“Without Beginning of Days or End of Life’ (Hebrews 7:3): Topos for a True Deity.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 53 (1991):439-55.
“Mary, Maid and Mother in Art and Literature,” Biblical Theology Bulletin 20 (1990): 65-75
“Syncrisis and Encomium: Reading Hebrews through Greek Rhetoric” CBQ 82 (2020) 276-299
“Was Jesus a Monotheist? Conversation with Cultural Studies” BTB 49 (2019) 132-145
“‘How Does This Man Have Learning, Since He is without Education’” BTB 48 (2018) 85-96
“Good and Bad Use Depends on How One Reads” [forthcoming from Listening]