Journal for the Study of the New Testament
Biblical Studies
The Journal for the Study of the New Testament is one of the leading academic journals in New Testament Studies. It is published five times a year and aims to present cutting-edge work for a readership of scholars, teachers in the field of New Testament, postgraduate students and advanced undergraduates. All the many and diverse aspects of New Testament study are represented and promoted by the journal, including innovative work from historical perspectives, studies using social-scientific and literary theory or developing theological, cultural and contextual approaches.
All issues of The Journal for the Study of the New Testament are available to browse online.
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
The Journal for the Study of the New Testament is one of the leading academic peer-reviewed journals in New Testament Studies. It is published five times a year and aims to present cutting-edge work for a readership of scholars, teachers in the field of New Testament, postgraduate students and advanced undergraduates. All the many and diverse aspects of New Testament study are represented and promoted by the journal, including innovative work from historical perspectives, studies using social-scientific and literary theory or developing theological, cultural and contextual approaches.
| Jane Heath | Durham University, UK |
| Jennifer Strawbridge | University of Oxford, UK |
| Peter Oakes | University of Manchester, UK |
| Sean Adams | University of Glasgow, UK |
| Olegs Andrejevs | Loyola University Chicago |
| Samuel Byrskog | Lund University, Sweden |
| Jeremiah Coogan | Jesuit School of Theology, USA |
| Daniel K. Falk | Penn State Unviersity, USA |
| Paul Foster | University of Edinburgh, UK |
| Matthew Goldstone | Academy for Jewish Religion, USA |
| Mark Goodacre | Duke University, USA |
| Nijay Gupta | Portland Seminary, George Fox University, USA |
| Angela Kim Harkins | Boston College, USA |
| Lynn Huber | Elon University, USA |
| Craig Koester | Luther Seminary, USA |
| Dominika Kurek-Chomycz | Liverpool Hope University, UK |
| T.J. Lang | University of St Andrews, UK |
| Louise Lawrence | Exeter University, UK |
| Grant Macaskill | University of Aberdeen, UK |
| R. Barry Matlock | University of Tennessee, USA |
| Matthew Novenson | University of Edinburgh, UK |
| Jorunn Okland | University of Oslo, Norway |
| Stanley E. Porter | McMaster University, Canada |
| Julia Snyder | University of Cambridge, UK |
| Heidi Wendt | McGill University, Canada |
| Ruben Zimmermann | University of Mainz, Germany |
Manuscript Submission Guidelines: Journal for the Study of the New Testament
This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics
Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jsnt to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Journal for the Study of the New Testament will be reviewed.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.
As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that Journal for the Study of the New Testament may accept submissions of papers that have been posted on pre-print servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the journal's author archiving policy. If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.
- What do we publish?
1.1 Aims & Scope
1.2 Article types
1.3 Writing your paper - Editorial policies
2.1 Peer review policy
2.2 Authorship
2.3 Acknowledgements
2.4 Declaration of conflicting interests - Publishing policies
3.1 Publication ethics
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
3.3 Open access and author archiving - Preparing your manuscript
4.1 Formatting
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
4.3 Supplemental material
4.4 Journal Style
4.5 Reference style
4.6 English language editing services
4.7 Articles
4.8 Book reviews - Submitting your manuscript
5.1 ORCID
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
5.3 Permissions - On acceptance and publication
6.1 Sage Production
6.2 Online First publication
6.3 Access to your published article
6.4 Promoting your article - Further information
Before submitting your manuscript to Journal for the Study of the New Testament, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
Journal for the Study of the New Testament publishes original research and book reviews on all aspects of New Testament Study.
The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources.
1.3.1 Make your article discoverable
When writing up your paper, think about how you can make it discoverable. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article through search engines such as Google. For information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords, have a look at this page on the Gateway: How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.
Journal for the Study of the New Testament operates a strictly anonymized peer review process in which the reviewer’s name is withheld from the author, and the author’s name from the reviewer. We reserve the right not to put manuscripts out to peer review. However, if we do not intend to send submissions for peer review, we aim to let authors know within two weeks of submission.
All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.
Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
2.3.1 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:
- Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
- Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
- Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.
Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.
2.3.2 Writing assistance
Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance”).
It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.
Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.
2.4 Declaration of conflicting interests
Journal for the Study of the New Testament encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.
2.5 Research data
The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.
Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:
- share your research data in a relevant public data repository
- include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
- cite this data in your research
Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.
3.1.1 Plagiarism
Journal for the Study of the New Testament and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
3.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway.
3.3 Open access and author archiving
Journal for the Study of the New Testament offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.
4. Preparing your manuscript for submission
The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.
Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.
This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files.
Abbreviations
True abbreviations should end with a full-stop (period), but contractions should not: e.g. repr.; but edn, Mr, Jr, etc. Common abbreviations such as MS, NRSV, BCE/CE, etc., should not be punctuated.
Biblical Abbreviations
When quoting biblical references, please give full chapter and verse numbers separated by a full stop, e.g. 1 Cor. 3.2 (not 3:2). When citing a range, give numerically precise start and end points, e.g. 2 Cor. 3.6–4.7 (do not use f. or ff.).
Gen., Exod., Lev., Num., Deut., Josh., Judg., Ruth, 1 Sam., 2 Sam., 1 Kgs, 2 Kgs, 1 Chron., 2 Chron., Ezra, Neh., Ps. (pl. Pss.), Prov., Eccl. (or Qoh.), Song (or Cant.), Isa., Jer., Lam., Ezek., Dan., Hos., Joel, Amos, Obad., Jon., Mic., Nah., Hab., Zeph., Hag., Zech., Mal.
Mt, Mk, Lk, Jn, Acts, Rom., 1 Cor., 2 Cor., Gal., Eph., Phil., Col., 1 Thess., 2 Thess., 1 Tim., 2 Tim., Tit., Phlm, Heb., Jas, 1 Pet., 1 Jn, 2 Jn, 3 Jn, Jude, Rev.
Fonts and Foreign Languages
For Greek and Hebrew text, please use Unicode fonts (other than SBL). These fonts are free, publicly available and suitable for either Macs or PCs.
Quotations from other languages (e.g. German, French) should be translated if in the main text; the original may be reproduced in a footnote if it is important.
If your article is accepted, please provide a PDF of the Hebrew or Greek in your article to help ensure accuracy of these languages at typesetting.
Transliteration
In general, Greek and Hebrew should be given in the appropriate script using the fonts listed above. If occasional words are to be transliterated, the conventions given in the SBL Handbook of Style (5.1 and 5.3) should be followed.
The author-date (or ‘social-science’ style) is to be employed throughout the article and a final list of references supplied. Bibliographical information must include the place and name of publishers, complete page numbers of articles, chapters within edited books, subtitles of books, and any series to which a book belongs.
References in the body of the essay should appear in the main text, unless the length of the references intrudes upon the reading of the text, when they may be placed in a foot/endnote using the same referencing style. When referring to an author in the main text for the first time, give first name(s) as well as surname; thereafter surname only:
e.g.
Elizabeth Smith (1997) has argued that…
Several scholars have shown this to be false (Jones 1994; Brown 2003).
Important criticisms have been brought against this hypothesis (see Smith 1986: 24-25; Jones 2003: 232 n. 3).
Also: (BDAG, 263) [no colon is used if no date is given]
Several works by the same author are cited by date only, the dates being separated by commas; when the page numbers are given, the year dates are separated by semicolons. Works by the same author published in the same year are distinguished by letters:
(Jones 1963, 1972a, 1986)
(Jones 1963a: 10-13; 1972a: 156; Smith 1982)
Bibliographical layout is as follows. Abbreviations should follow those given in the SBL Handbook of Style (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1999) §8.4, available for SBL members at www.sbl-site.org/Publications.
Barrett, C.K.
1982 Essays on Paul (London: SPCK).
Charlesworth, J.H. (ed.)
1983, 1985 The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (2 vols; London: Darton, Longman & Todd).
Lichtenberg, H., and P. Smith
1980 ‘Atonement and Sacrifice in the Qumran Community’, in W.S. Green (ed.), Approaches to Ancient Judaism (BJS, 9; Chico, CA: Scholars Press): 159-71.
Roose, H.
2004 ‘Sharing in Christ’s Rule: Tracing a Debate in Earliest Christianity’, JSNT 27: 123-48.
The order of entries is by year; if there is more than one item from the same year, the dates are labelled a, b, c, etc. (e.g. 1963a, 1963b). The original date of publication of a volume may be included in square brackets after the new date, e.g.:
Weiss, M.
1984 [1962] The Bible from Within: The Method of Total Interpretation (Jerusalem: Magnes).
4.6 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.
Should begin with an abstract of 100-150 words and between four to six keywords arranged in alphabetical order. Keywords are important in order to maximise the impact of your article, to assist readers searching for material electronically, and to raise the profile of your article in such searches. It is important, therefore, to choose keywords carefully to represent the most important and central topics of your article. There is no strict word-limit, but articles should normally be between 5,000 and 10,000 words in length (including notes), though shorter studies are equally welcome. Longer articles are only likely to be accepted if their importance justifies their length.
Files should be complete, including all necessary bibliographical details, illustrations, maps, charts and tables and the text and foot/endnotes. The author's name must not appear on the manuscript.
Articles, once submitted, will be understood to be in their final form, and if the article is accepted, a first proof will be produced from the author's submission (with minor editorial emendations). No further revisions or additions should then be made by authors.
Submission of an article is taken to imply that it has not been previously published, and is not being considered for publication in another journal or as part of a book.
First proofs of articles (but not reviews) will be sent to authors for correction, and must be returned to the Executive Editor within one week of receipt. Corrections should be confined to typographical errors. Other corrections may be made only with the agreement of the Editor.
Should be around 400 words in length and extended book reviews between 2000 and 5000 words.
All manuscripts submitted for publication in JSNT should be in grammatical, idiomatic English, consistently employing gender-inclusive language where appropriate. They should be delivered as a Microsoft Word file (or, alternatively, in RTF format), and must use Unicode fonts for any text in Greek or Hebrew. Small amounts of Greek and Hebrew may alternatively be transliterated (see below for details).
Neither the editors nor Sage Publishers necessarily endorse every proposition expressed in the journal. Authors retain responsibility for any defamatory statements or untruthful claims which they may make.
If you have a book you wish to be considered for review, please send a copy to Peter Oakes directly. Please see section 5 below.
Journal for the Study of the New Testament is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jsnt to login and submit your article online.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.
Books for Review should be submitted to the book reviews editor:
Dr Peter Oakes
Religions and Theology
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PL
UK
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.
The collection of ORCID IDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID ID you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID ID is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.
If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway.
6. On acceptance and publication
Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit or by email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.
Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.
6.3 Access to your published article
Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Journal for the Study of the New Testament editorial office as follows:
Jane Heath j.m.f.heath@durham.ac.uk / Jennifer Strawbridge jennifer.strawbridge@theology.ox.ac.uk