On the occasion of his 65th birthday, 28 September 2008, Henk Jan de Jonge, emeritus Professor of New Testament exegesis and Early Christian literature, has received a Festschrift in honour of his important contributions to the field of New Testament studies.
The volume, edited by three of De Jonge’s former colleagues in Leiden, is entitled Jesus, Paul, and Early Christianity. It is a collection of essays written by twenty-two leading experts in New Testament scholarship. Their contributions address core themes in the study of early Christianity. The topics include text-critical issues relating to the New Testament, the historical situation in which the earliest Christian documents were composed, early Christian rituals, historical questions concerning Jesus and Paul, and the origin and development of important theological ideas in the early Church.
Among the authors is De Jonge’s predecessor as well as his successor on the Leiden Chair of New Testament, Marinus de Jonge and Jürgen Zangenberg. Henk Jan de Jonge held this Chair from 1991 to 2006. The volume, which runs to 480 pages, was edited by dr Rieuwerd Buitenwerf, dr Harm Hollander and dr Johannes Tromp. The editors presented it to De Jonge on 28 September during a dinner offered and organized by the publisher Koninklijke Brill NV (Leiden) and attended by the authors, the editors and representatives of the publisher.