Professor Countryman here reassesses some familiar and significant texts of the New Testament, texts which are the keys to understanding its ethics of sex; all these texts involve the principles of purity and property. He proceeds to reevaluate these texts themselves, in the tradition of biblical theology, and thereby to clarify the foundations of theological-ethical discourse in the New Testament itself. This procedure requires Countryman to concentrate on the ways in which the New Testament authors, in their ancient Jewish context, responded to and developed the themes of sexual ethics that we find witnessed in the Scriptures of Israel.
Part One of the book deals with the purity ethic, Part Two with the property ethic. Each part begins by discussing the nature of the ethic in question and its use in the Scriptures of Israel. The remaining chapters of each part then trace the New Testament writers' treatment of the ethical principle in relation to sexual issues. Part Three offers some insights from this theological study for conversations about sexual ethics by Christians today. The book includes footnotes, bibliography, and an index of cited ancient writings.