The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Covenant: A (Not-So) New Model of the Atonement, Michael J. Gorman, James Clarke, 2014 (ISBN 978-0-227-17491-3), xii + 277 pp., pb £20

New Testament scholar Michael Gorman’s The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Covenant, self-described as a ‘thematic treatment of a central New Testament theme’ (p. 7), aims at what is arguably at the heart of Christian theology: the atonement. Gorman rightly indicts customary discussion for preoccupation with the mechanics of atonement. In so doing, stock atonement theories tend to land on ‘penultimate’ rather than‘ultimate’ implications of Jesus’ death (p. 2).