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This week in the cyberspace: Robert Woods discusses “Christian humanism.” Jeremy Thompson passes his oral dissertation examination. Congratulations! Mark Stevens points out that a new book on Jesus and a new translation of the New Testament are forthcoming from N. T. Wright. Jim Davila reminds us about the upcoming Metz conference on Paul and Qumran. Joel Watts and Matthew note Amazon’s announcement of a library lending service for Kindle. David Perry provides a major update to the Cardo font (1.04). The Connecticut House of Representatives approves a certificate program in Talmudic Studies (HT: Jim Davila). Ron Kubsch notes Amazon’s creation of a German Kindle store.

This week in cyberspace: Tommy Wasserman mentions the discovery of a new, early papyrus fragment of Hebrews. James McGrath comments on Loren Stuckenbruck’s presentation at the recent Stone-Campbell Journal Conference. Amazon announces that an advertisement-sponsored Kindle WiFi is available for pre-ordering. Logos Bible Software releases a specifically academic training DVD set.

This year’s first issue of the Bulletin for Biblical Research arrived in the mail last week and includes the following: Michael Graves, “Scholar and Advocate: The Stories of Moses in Midrash Exodus Rabbah,” 1–22 John Lawlor, “The ‘At-Sinai Narrative’: Exodus 18–Numbers 10,” 23–42 David Lincicum, “Philo on Phinehas and the Levites: Observing an Exegetical Connection,” 43–50 Mark Matthews, “The Genre of 2 Peter: A Comparison with Jewish and Early Christian Testaments,” 51–64 Armin Baum, “Revelatory Experience and Pseudepigraphical Attribution in Early Jewish Apocalypses,” 65–92 In addition, among the other book reviews in this issue is my review of G. Walter Hansen, The Letter to the Philippians(Pillar New Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009) on pages 129–31. ...

Last evening, I was privileged to attend the second annual Prentice Meador Lecture at Lipscomb University. There, Weston Fields, the Executive Director of the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation, addressed what seemed very nearly to be a full house on the topic “The Dead Sea Scrolls Today.” ...

At least for the present, Amazon has available two Kindle versions of Penguin’s edition of Aristotle’s Poetics, page numbering included. The difference between the two seems mainly to be the difference between an older and a newer cover, with the version that has the newer cover retailing for $1.90. ...

The past week in the biblioblogosphere: Jim Davila notes the sad news of Ben Zion Wacholder’s passing. Larry Hurtado comments on lengths of book usage in the Greco-Roman world. A. D. Riddle and Ferrell Jenkins report the beginning of new excavations at Carchemish. Nijay Gupta notes one freely available chapter from each of two Companion to Religion Series volumes from Wiley-Blackwell ( Aune, “The World of Roman Hellenism”; Riesner, “Pauline Chronology”; 44 pgs. total). The other series volumes also appear normally to have similar samples. Recently at Trinity Western University, N. T. Wright discussed “Being Human” (HT: Brian LePort).

Having been away this past weekend, I have just gotten to pull March’s top student biblioblogs. March’s top 10 by Alexa rank are: StudentOverallAuthor(s)Blog12Joel WattsUnsettled Christianity26Brian LePort, JohnDave Medina, Joshua Smith, Mark StevensNear Emmaus: Christ and Text313Amanda Mac, Rodney Thomas, Chad PressleyPolitical Jesus417Matthew CroweA Fistful of Farthings527Jeremy ThompsonFree Old Testament Audio Website Blog628Phillip LongReading Acts729Scott BaileyScotteriology831Mitchell PowellFont Words936Gavin RumneyOtagosh1038Bob Hayton, Jason Skipper, Damien Garofalo, Will Dudding, Erik DiVietro, and Phil DearmoreKJV Only Debate ...

Recently, at the first, annual meeting of the Canadian Federation of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Louis Menand, Professor of American Studies at Harvard University, addressed attendees regarding “[w]hy the case for liberal education is so hard to make”: Nowadays, everyone believes that “it’s good for people to be introduced to the humanities,” said Dr. Menand, but he highlighted a paradox: one of the difficulties in trying to make the case for the humanities is that the work of academics isn’t literature, art and music—rather, it is research about these works. Hermeneutics is hard to study and, because every interpretation is provisional, it is hard to defend. ...

Never failing to amaze, Google introduces several du jour innovations: Gmail Motion Beta Google Docs Motion Beta Chromercise I particularly like the new protocol for creating a Google Docs Drawing (pictured here) and think it may make Google Docs much more useful for biblical studies. ;) ...

Recently in cyberspace: Southern Seminary provides a set of recent lectures by Richard Bauckham (HT: Tim Henderson). Jeremy quotes Henri De Lubac “on the dangers of learning our catechism against someone.” The Center for the Study of Christian Origins provides a lecture and question and answer session by Larry Hurtado. Reports begin circulating about several lead codices that are supposed to contain stories about Jesus’ later life. Early Christianity makes available a full issue for free download (HT: Nijay Gupta). Larry Hurtado advocates additional caution vis-à-vis the recent discovery of a number of ancient lead codices, James McGrath condenses several other recent discussions about them, and Jim Davila (HT: Stephen Carlson) adds his own presently-skeptical perspective on the codices’ genuineness. Amazon launches its own cloud drive service with 5 GB of free space. The Internet Archive makes available Mark Goodacre’s Synoptic Problem: A Way through the Maze for free download (HT: James McGrath). Dictionary.com discusses a few word-choice updates in the new editions of the NIV and NAB. Google Maps adds street views of “historic sites in Italy and France.” The Center for New Testament Textual Studies at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary is featured in a NOLA.com article (HT: James Leonard). The Elaborated makes available a set of composite RSS feeds based on the Biblioblog Top 50.

Logos Bible Software has recently released or will soon release several noteworthy resources: Brill Philo Studies Collection Comments on Waltke and O’Connor: An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax Camp Logos Live (DVD) Evangelical Exegetical Commentary Qumran Biblical Scrolls

[caption id=“attachment_7151” align=“alignright” width=“80” caption=“Carolyn Custis James”] [/caption] Now at number 3 on Amazon’s top free Kindle book list is Carolyn Curtis James’s The Gospel of Ruth: Loving God Enough to Break the Rules (Zondervan, 2008), and Zondervan presently has the EPUB edition for free also. The book boasts favorable blurbs from Robert Gundry, Timothy George, and Karen Jobes. According to the Amazon product page, what James describes ...

If you’re a Facebook friend of Logos Bible Software, like their fan page, and you can download their edition of B. B. Warfield’s Canon of the New Testament: How and When Formed for free. ...

[caption id=“attachment_7158” align=“alignright” width=“80” caption=“Martin Thielen”] [/caption] Now at number 9 on Amazon’s top free Kindle book list is Martin Thielen’s What’s the Least I Can Believe and Still Be a Christian?: A Guide to What Matters Most (Westminster/John Knox, 2011). According to the product page, Thielen is a United Methodist minister from Lebanon, Tennessee, and in the book, Thielen ...

For some reason, this clip, particularly Theoden’s last utterance under Saruman’s influence, seems oddly parallel to the process of concluding a dissertation. ;-) The oral defense is slated for later next month. For a brief abstract of my particular project, see here.

This week in the blogosphere: Kirk Lowery discusses “Strongs Numbers & the Problem of a Universal Index,” particularly for Biblical Hebrew morphology and lexicography. Robert Woods reviews Henry Petroski’s Book on the Bookshelf. Chris Allen and D. A. Carson discuss the Westminster Catechism via rap (HT: John Byron). The SBL Greek New Testament is now available in CROSS format. Mark Goodacre ponders the possible correlations between writing big books and having clean houses. James McGrath highlights a how-to article about reading scholarly journals.

In his Romans commentary, F. F. Bruce gives the following, sound advice for those who want to understand Paul better: We may agree or disagree with Paul, but we must do him the justice of letting him hold and teach his own beliefs, and not distort his beliefs into conformity with what we should prefer him to have said ( 136). ...

This week in the blogosphere: Rod Decker highlights The Illustrated Guide to a PhD. Archaeologists begin excavating an Abrahamic-era water tunnel (HT: Joel Watts). The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae has released a version of the Liddell-Scott-Jones lexicon tagged to their textual database (HT: Tommy Wasserman). The E-corpus Digital Library has added 344 Georgian, Arabic, and Syrian manuscripts from St. Catherine’s Monastery (HT: Charles Jones). The Cardo font receives an italic companion. Seth Rodriquez collects a list of free Kindle edition books relevant for biblical studies. Others are also available at Project Gutenberg. Charles Halton provides a slideshow about the “Theology of Genesis 32 through Contemporary Art.” Peter Head provides an essay on “Textual Criticism and the Synoptic Problem.”

Matthew Crowe has February’s Biblical Studies Carnival. In February’s biblioblog rankings, Jim West and Joel Watts again top the Biblioblog Top 50 Alexa chart, and James McGrath and Daniel Kirk top the vote-based rankings. By Alexa rank, then, February’s Student Biblioblog Top 10 lines up as follows: StudentOverallAuthor(s)Blog12Joel L. WattsUnsettled Christianity23Brian LePort, JohnDave Medina, Joshua Smith, and Mark StevensNear Emmaus: Christ and Text314Thomas VerennaThe Musings of Thomas Verenna418Daniel O. McClellanDaniel O. McClellan523Matthew CroweA Fistful of Farthings625Jeremy ThompsonFree Old Testament Audio Website Blog726Bob Hayton, Jason Skipper, Damien Garofalo, Will Dudding, Erik DiVietro, and Phil DearmoreKJV Only Debate836Phillip LongReading Acts939Gavin RumneyOtagosh1044Mitchell PowellFont Words ...

This week in the biblioblogosphere: Dirk Jongkind discusses the colophons of the miniscule manuscripts 223 and 1305. The Center for the Study of Christian Origins now has recordings of the recent James Dunn and N. T. Wright lecture day at the University of Edinburgh (HT: Larry Hurtado). Brian LePort highlights a snippet from Eugene Peterson on the storied nature of human experience and Christian ministry, begins pondering Brevard Childs’ thoughts about New Testament canon, and collects Richard Hays’ recent lecture series “Reading Scripture Alongside the Gospel Writers.” Cynthia Nielsen discusses “Fanon and Foucault on Humanism and Rejecting the ‘Blackmail’ of the Enlightenment” ( pt. 1; pt. 2). James McGrath collects several YouTube clips about the Mandaeans and highlights a video series about oral tradition. Seth Rodriquez discusses ancient slinging techniques. John Cook and Robert Holmstedt advocate the relevance of diachronic linguistics for dating biblical texts, and Ian Young responds to the contrary (HT: Charles Halton).

This week in the blogosphere: The Oriental Institute continues making additional titles available online as free PDF downloads (HT: Todd Bolen). Rod Decker makes available a conversion chart for the old and new reference systems for the Shepherd of Hermas. Tim highlights some forthcoming books in Pauline Studies. Karen Radner has several essays online about the Neo-Assyrian period (HT: Charles Halton). Logos releases the NIV 2011 for free “to everyone who has a Logos 4 base package that includes the old NIV.” Ancient Faith Radio is podcasting C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia (HT: Brian LePort).

In the preview release of the latest Kindle software update (3.1), Amazon is beginning to allow Kindle edition readers to access the same page numbers that their print edition-reading counterparts can see: Our customers have told us they want real page numbers that match the page numbers in print books so they can easily reference and cite passages, and read alongside others in a book club or class. We’ve already added real page numbers to tens of thousands of Kindle books, including the top 100 bestselling books in the Kindle Store that have matching print editions and thousands more of the most popular books. Page numbers will also be available on our free “Buy Once, Read Everywhere” Kindle apps in the coming months. If a Kindle book includes page numbers, press the Menu key in an open Kindle book to display page numbers ( [Amazon](//www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_navbox_top_kindlelg?nodeId=200529700" target="_blank">)). ...

In their continuing effort to integrate Eastern and Western New Testament scholarship, the New Testament Scholarship Worldwide group on Facebook has added links to seven resources from and about Indian New Testament scholarship.

In a 2003 article, Morna Hooker makes the following, insightful argument about the referent(s) of the λίθος ( stone) language in Rom 9:32–33: Is Paul affirming here that Israel’s problem is simply that she has failed to believe in Christ? The majority of commentators accept this interpretation, but the possibility supported by some scholars that the stumbling-block is the law should not be too easily dismissed. It should be noted after all that Christ has not been mentioned since 9:1–5 and that the two subjects under discussion in Rom 9:30–31 are the law and righteousness. Moreover, what Paul has just stated is that Israel has misunderstood the function of the law. Perhaps then the stumbling-block over which Israel has fallen is the law. ...

In the fairly short time since the initial notice, the alpha version of a browser-independent Zotero has now become available. A fully stable release is likely some time away yet, but the noticeable and rapid progress on the initiative is encouraging.

The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include: Jewish Scriptures and Cognate Fields Elie Assis, Flashes of Fire: A Literary Analysis of the Song of Songs, reviewed by Francis Landy Chris Franke and Julia M. O’Brien, eds., Aesthetics of Violence in the Prophets, reviewed by Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer A. R. George, Babylonian Literary Texts in the Schoyen Collection, reviewed by Alan Lenzi Harry A. Hoffner Jr., Letters from the Hittite Kingdom, reviewed by Ludek Vacín Reinhard G. Kratz and Hermann Spieckermann, eds., Divine Wrath and Divine Mercy in the World of Antiquity, reviewed by Michael S. Moore J. Gordon McConville and Stephen Williams, Joshua, reviewed by Ernst Axel Knauf Eckart Otto, Die Tora: Studien zum Pentateuch: Gesammelte Schriften, reviewed by Reinhard Achenbach Thomas Römer, Jean-Daniel Macchi, and Christophe Nihan, eds., Introduction à l’Ancien Testament, reviewed by John Engle Eugene Ulrich, ed., The Biblical Qumran Scrolls: Transcriptions and Textual Variants, reviewed by Aaron D. Rubin Hermeneutics ...

This week in the blogosphere: Bob Cargill notes, courtesy of Jim West, the discovery of a new manuscript of Ben Sira. Kirk Lowery highlights a list of resources for linguistic research. Phil Gons compiles a good deal of recent “Bonhoeffer Buzz.” Joe McGarry reviews Eric Metaxas’s Bonhoeffer for Christianbook.com Academics. Charles Ellwood notes open access to select theses and dissertations through ProQuest’s UMI Dissertation Publishing.

What wonderful news just came through from Logos: We are about to begin processing Pre-Pub orders for Qumran Biblical Dead Sea Scrolls Database. For a description of the resource, see here. Oh, happy day. :)

[caption id=“attachment_6870” align=“alignright” width=“80” caption=“Michael Licona”] [/caption]In his new monograph, The Resurrection of Jesus, Michael Licona summarizes as follows how he sees Paul conceiving of believers’ possible ends: Paul sees two options before believers. Some believers will die prior to the parousia and will become disembodied until the general resurrection, while believers alive at the parousia will have their earthly bodies clothed with their new resurrection body made by God. Paul certainly prefers to avoid the former. But his faith gives him confidence that, if he dies prior to the parousia, he will be with the Lord, although in a disembodied state, which he prefers over present life in the earthly body. And being with Christ is what matters most to Paul ( 435–36). ...

This week in the blogosphere: To Do: Dissertation highlights a series of time management tips. Matt Evans returns from his blogging hiatus. Deane Galbraith and Joseph Kelly discuss new policies for students’ involvement at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. Matthew Montonini notes a video interview with Douglas Campbell. Matthew Miller excerpts Miroslav Volf’s new book Captive to the Word of God. Brian Tucker discusses You Belong to Christ on the Paul Edwards Program. Matthew reports that Borders has filed intent-to-purchase paperwork for Barnes and Noble. Carlos Alonso reflects on the commodification of graduate education. Timothy Beal discusses American Evangelicalism. Mike Aubrey begins digesting the deponency panel session at the annual SBL meeting. James McGrath quotes Daniel Kirk on “rule-proving exceptions,” notes a new “top 50” list of blogs by “theology professors,” recommends Brad Matthies’ post “Academic Blogging?” and highlights a free PDF version of Kató Lomb’s Polyglot. Milo Medin discusses the progress of Google’s developing fiber network. Brian LePort gets congratulations as he counts down. Scott Bailey reports on the winter weather’s “archaeological expedition” on Israel’s coast. Pat McCullough urges participation in the SBL Student Advisory Board’s survey for student members. Charles Jones adds a number of publication preprints to the Ancient World Online feed.