Kenneth E. Bailey, prolific author and renowned professor of Middle Eastern New Testament Studies, sets to paper in Jacob & the Prodigal the mature fruit of decades of research and reflection on the much expounded but little understood parable of Luke 15. Stimulated by N. T. Wright, who links the Jacob and Esau saga with Jesus' parable of the prodigal son, Bailey composes a pioneering monograph that knowingly renders his earlier, extensive writings on Luke 15 outmoded (yet without dispensing with his patented cultural and linguistic insights). The result is the first full comparison of Jacob and the prodigal ...
