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The interchange in Matt 18:21–22 looks back to Jesus’ immediately preceding comments on handling a community member (ἀδελφός) who sins ( Matt 18:15–20; Chrysostom, Hom. Matt., 61.1 [NPNF1 10:357]; cf. Matt 18:21; 19:1). Read within this context, Peter’s question ποσάκις ἁμαρτήσει εἰς ἐμὲ ὁ ἀδελφός μου καὶ ἀφήσω αὐτῷ; ( Matt 18:21a; How many times* shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?) addresses a very plausible ambiguity in Jesus’ preceding comments. Judging from this question, Peter presumably thinks it inappropriate for a community member endlessly to sin and repent, but as long as some repentance was involved, Jesus’ instructions could seem never to allow further action to be taken. As many times as the community member would sin and repent, this member would also be restored ( Matt 18:15b; Chrysostom, Hom. Matt., 61.1 [NPNF1 10:357]).

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On the Web:

• Alin Suciu provides a PDF of the now public-domain R. Draguet, Julien d’Halicarnasse et sa controverse avec Sévère d’Antioche sur l’incorruptibilité du corps du Christ(Louvain: Smeesters, 1924). The bibliographic entry is available here (BibTeX).
• Google Books has Adolf Deissman’s Bible Studies(trans. Alexander Grieve; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1903) available for download in PDF format. The bibliographic entry is available here (BibTeX).
• Logos 4.5 (SR1) is available with some minor bug fixes, and Evernote for Windows gets a major update for its PDF handling.
• Jim Davila notes a couple updates about recent stories of Jewish manuscript finds in Afghanistan ( 1, 2), as does John Byron.
• John Byron reflects on a selection from Thomas à Kempis and lectures on rewritten Bible.
• Marc Cortez discusses “How to Reject a Rejection Letter,” announces a series on the value of blogging, and begins this series by considering how blogging can improve writing.
• Richard Hays delivers lectures on “Torah Reconfigured: Reading Scripture with Matthew” and “The One Who Redeems Israel: Reading Scripture with Luke” (HT: Kerry Lee).
• Matthew Montonini notes some new Durham University dissertations that are available and collects links to audio resources by Rikk Watts.
• Charles Jones mentions the website of the Berliner Papyrusdatenbank, which includes some papyrus images.
• Robert Woods discusses C. S. Lewis’s “Reading of Old Books.” For links to the essay’s full text, please see here.
• Larry Hurtado considers “Bousset and ‘Early High Christology.’”
• Brian LePort notes an interview with Peter Williams on the Gospels’ reliability.
• Greg Goswell has the latest article in the Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism, “An Early Commentary on the Pauline Corpus: The Capitulation of Codex Vaticanus.” For the full text of the article, please see the JGRChJ’s current volume page.

Despite what was apparently some earlier confusion about the timing of the release, Logos 4.5 is now shipping. This significant update mainly introduces improvements in highlighting and note taking, but it contains several other improvements also. For the full release notes, see here.

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Matthew 14:22–33 narrates Jesus’ walking on water. Yet, unlike the parallel accounts in Mark 6:45–52; John 6:15–21, Matt 14:33 reports that the disciples’ conclusion, at the end of this episode, was ἀληθῶς θεοῦ υἱὸς εἶ (truly, you are the son of God). Apparently thinking along the lines similar to Heb 3:5–6, Archelaus, Disputation with Manes, 44 ( ANF 6:220; affiliate disclosure), relates this text to Jesus’ superiority to Moses. Perhaps more to the point here, however, is a chaos-versus-creation motif (Boring, “Matthew,” NIB 8, 327; affiliate disclosure) in which Jesus subjects the surrounding disorder (Graves, “Followed by the Sun,” RevExp 99, no. 1 [2002]: 92; Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, rev.ed., 163 [ affiliate disclosure]; Verseput, “The Faith of the Reader,” JSNT 46 [1992]: 14–16; cf. Augustine, Serm., 25.6 [ NPNF1 6:338; affiliate disclosure]; Jerome, Epist., 30 [ NPNF2 6:45; affiliate disclosure]). He does so, first, by walking on the sea himself and then all the more by causing Peter to do the same (Chrysostom, Hom. Matt., 50.2 [ NPNF1 10:311–12; affiliate disclosure]). In this framework, then, if Israel’s God is master of the seas (e.g., Job 9:8; Ps 89:9, 19–37; Hab 3:8, 15; cf. Gen 1:2 [LXX; LSJ, s.v. ἐπιφέρω, §§2–3PIFERW#lexicon)])—a kind of mastery not otherwise within the realm of human experience—Jesus’ walking on the sea is an eminently good reason for identifying Jesus as θεοῦ υἱός (son of God) and worshiping him as such (see Matt 14:33; Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity, 6.51 [ NPNF2 9:117; affiliate disclosure]; cf. Mark 6:51–52; John 6:21; Aristotle, Poetics, 5.6, 6.2 [ affiliate disclosure]).

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On the web:

• Duane Smith repeats Jim Davila’s recent excerpt about the availability of the Babylonian Talmud online ( English, Hebrew-Aramaic). The basic bibliographic entry for the Soncino version is available here ( BibTeX).
• Jim Davila notes the completion of Sheffield’s Dictionary of Classical Hebrew.
• Daniel Roth highlights five articles about SOPA, including John Gaudiosi’s report of the White House’s disapproval of the bill as it stands.

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Kerry Lee digests Richard Hays’ lecture, “Unexpected Echoes: Reading Scripture with Mark,” from Tuesday, January 17. Kerry’s previous lecture summary and comment are here.

New within the past few days in Hobby Lobby’s collection of biblical antiquities is a small fragment from Rom 9– 10 (HT: Peter Williams). For the fragment’s brief spot on CNN, see here. The fragment’s proposed date is the mid-second century. The side displayed in the CNN footage contains five lines. The image quality isn’t fantastic, but the last letters on the fragment look like they could be ΕΚΤΟΥ, which could seem to put that part of the fragment at Rom 9:12 or 21. If line 3 begins ΚΡΙ and line 4 ends ΗΣ*ΣΟΥ, could we then be looking at Rom 9:20–21 here?

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The latest issue of the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society arrived in yesterday’s mail and includes the following:

• Al Wolters, “An Early Parallel of αὐθεντεῖν in 1 Tim 2:12”
• Michael Harbin, “Jubilee and Social Justice”
• Gary Smith, “Isaiah 40–55: Which Audience Was Addressed?”
• Don Garlington, " ‘Salt of the Earth’ in Covenantal Perspective"
• Gavin Ortlund, “Resurrected as Messiah: The Risen Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King”
• Eric Johnson, “Rewording the Justification/Sanctification Relation with Some Help from Speech Act Theory”
• Jason Sexton, “The State of the Evangelical Trinitarian Resurgence”
• Bruce Davidson, “Glorious Damnation: Hell as an Essential Element in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards”

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In Gen 17:13, God tells Abraham that his whole household was to be circumcised והיתה בריתי בבשׂרכם לברית עולם (and my covenant will be in your flesh as an everlasting covenant). Yet, Paul strongly opposes Gentiles’ submitting to circumcision in connection with their membership in the Christian community (Galatians) and asserts that ὁ ἐν τῷ κρυπτῷ Ἰουδαῖος, καὶ {ὅτι} περιτομὴ καρδίας ἐν πνεύματι οὐ γράμματι ( Rom 2:29; the Jew is one who is such inwardly, and [that] circumcision is of the heart by the Spirit, not by the letter). What then becomes of the בבשׂרכם []ברית עולם ( Gen 17:13; everlasting covenant in your [= Abraham’s household’s] flesh)? It is precisely there because of the circumcision of Abraham’s messianic seed ( Gal 3:16), ἐν ᾧ καὶ περιετμήθητε περιτομῇ ἀχειροποιήτῳ ἐν τῇ ἀπεκδύσει τοῦ σώματος τῆς σαρκός, ἐν τῇ περιτομῇ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ( Col 2:11; in whom you also were circumcised with an unhandmade circumcision in the removal of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of the Messiah; cf. Gal 3:23–29; Bede, Genesis, 284 [ affiliate disclosure]; Chrysostom, Hom. Col. 6 [ NPNF1 13:285; affiliate disclosure]; Cyril of Alexandria, Catena on Genesis[ ACCOT 2:56; affiliate disclosure]; Theodore of Mopsuestia, Colossians [ ACCNT 9:32; affiliate disclosure]).

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This year’s Faith and the Academy conference program is now available. The conference is hosted annually by Faulkner University. This year’s theme is “Money, Morals, and Missions,” and the plenary sessions will feature Shawn Ritenour of Grove City College and Monty Lynn of Abilene Christian University. In the last morning session, I am also privileged to be giving a paper on “Physical Humanities and Lettered Sciences: Thomas Kuhn’s Significance for Contextualizing Biblical Studies.” For more information about the conference and to register, please see here.

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Ever helpful, the folks at the Westminster Bookstore have made available a PDF sample from Craig Keener’s Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts(2 vols.; Baker, 2011) on the book’s product page. The sample contains the work’s table of contents, introduction, and first chapter.

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Google Books has available a full-text PDF of August Hahn’s Bibliothek der Symbole und Glaubensregeln der Apostolisch-katholischen Kirche(Breslau: Grass und Barth, 1842).

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Apparently, recent versions of LibreOffice have a slightly different defaults for what nonprinting characters will display in a document. Instructions for customizing these settings are available here.

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The folks at Logos Bible Software have started a monthly free book giveaway for 2012. This month’s title is volume 6 from their collection of the Works of John Owen.

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As Abram returns from rescuing Lot ( Gen 14:1–16), Melchizedek brings out bread and wine ( Gen 14:18), and so, fittingly does the priest do the same whom David says has been appointed in Melchizedek’s order ( Ps 110:4; Heb 7:1–26; Augustine, Civ., 16.22 [NPNF1, 2:323]; Augustine, Doctr. chr., 4.21 [NPNF1, 2:590]; Bede, Genesis, 269; Cyprian, Epistles, 62.4 [ANF, 5:359]). Melchizedek is without genealogy ( Heb 7:3), and his bread and wine are also without origin. Yet, he brings them to Abram and, in a way, to Abram’s seed ( Gal 3:15–29; Heb 7:9–10; cf. Bede, Genesis, 269; Cyprian, Epistles, 62.4 [ANF, 5:359]). The messianic seed, however, brings bread and wine as from himself, and he brings them to those also who are in himself as Abram’s other offspring ( Matt 26:26–29; Mark 14:22–25; Luke 22:14–20; Gal 3:15–29; Heb 2:10–18).

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On the web:

• Andrew McGowan interacts with N. T. Wright about the nature of the narratives of Jesus’ birth, especially in Matthew.
• Robert Woods reflects on Desiderius Erasmus and Eva Brann’s Logos of Heraclitus.
• Chris Brady and Bob Cargill startup “Sacred Techs.”
• Chris Brady uploads a discussion of footnotes and endnotes.
• Tim Gombis considers Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together.
• Mark Goodacre notes that The Star of Bethlehem (1912) is available online.
• Rich Brannan mentions the availability of the Cascadia series’ Syntactic Analysis of the Septuagint on Logos Bible Software’s prepublication program.
• Joel Willitts comments on “Jewish Identity Markers in the Pre-exilic Period.”
• Michael Bird ponders the timing of Gal 1:4.
• John Byron and Jim Davila ( 1, 2) comment on some recent manuscript and archaeological discoveries.
• Matthew Montonini notes the possibility of a free Ephesians ebook commentary offering on Monday.

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Online, things change. In the current version of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia with Westminster 4.2 Morphology in Logos 4, the “Text” section of the Preface refers readers to http://www.wts.edu/hebrew/whm.html for Al Groves’ “Supplement to the Code Manual for the Michigan Old Testament” (last rev. June 7, 1989). As of this writing, this URL redirects to Westminster Seminary’s homepage, but Groves’ supplement is presently still available here.

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With a hat tips to Carolyn Sharp’s Wrestling with the Word, 32n20, and Phillip Camp’s review of the book in the most recent RBL newsletter, Julia Kristeva has a website on which she has made available a number of resources, mostly in French and English.

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The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include:

Jewish Scriptures and Cognate Fields

• Daniel Bodi, The Demise of the Warlord: A New Look at the David Story, reviewed by Jeremy Hutton
• Hemchand Gossai, Power and Marginality in the Abraham Narrative, reviewed by Thomas Hieke
• André Lemaire, ed., Congress Volume: Ljubljana 2007, reviewed by Siegfried Kreuzer
• Herbert Migsch, Studien zum Jeremiabuch und andere Beiträge zum Alten Testament, reviewed by Hannes Bezzel
• Carolyn J. Sharp, Wrestling the Word: The Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Believer, reviewed by Phillip G. Camp
• Matthew A. Thomas, These Are the Generations: Identity, Covenant, and the ’toledot’ Formula, reviewed by Mark McEntire
• Eugene Ulrich and Peter W. Flint, Qumran Cave 1.II: The Isaiah Scrolls, reviewed by Eibert Tigchelaar

New Testament and Cognate Fields

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On the web:

• Nijay Gupta excerpts Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Advent.
• Robert Woods reflects on Basil the Great, John Chrysostom, Bonaventure, and their relevance for liberal arts education.
• Jim Davila notes an announcement from the Israel Antiquities Authority about the recent discovery of a Second Temple era purity “voucher,” and John Byron picks up the same story from the Israel National News.
• Larry Hurtado discusses the dating of early Christian manuscripts.
• Tony Burke notes a couple recent 60 Minutes specials on Mount Athos and the Vatican Library.
• Jim Davila notes the availability of a new Talmud index. The index is currently available by subject in both Hebrew and English.
• Matthew Emadi discusses Augustine’s hermeneutic.

Apparently, the Gnome desktop environment for Linux systems has an issue with handling some user-specified default application choices. When using Zotero in Ubuntu, therefore, it may be necessary to edit /etc/gnome/defaults.list manually in order to have Zotero default to a PDF viewer besides Evince (e.g., Okular). Changing the “application/pdf=evince.desktop” line in this file to reflect the desired PDF viewer default (e.g., “application/pdf=kde4-okularApplication_pdf.desktop”) seems to do the trick, however. For more information, please see Zotero’s help forums and knowledge base.

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According to Hans-Georg Gadamer,

Prejudices [i.e., prejudgments] are not necessarily unjustified and erroneous, so that they inevitably distort the truth. In fact, the historicity of our existence entails that prejudices, in the literal sense of the word [i.e., prejudgments], constitute the directedness of our whole ability to experience. Prejudices are biases of our openness to the world. They are simply conditions whereby we experience something—whereby what we encounter says something to us.((Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics ( affiliate disclosure), 9.))

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The latest issue of the Bulletin for Biblical Research includes:

• H. Daniel Zacharias, “Old Greek Daniel 7:13–14 and Matthew’s Son of Man”
• Robert S. Snow, “Let the Reader Understand: Mark’s Use of Jeremiah 7 in Mark 13:14”
• Steven M. Bryan, “Consumed by Zeal: John’s Use of Psalm 69:9 and the Action in the Temple”
• Brian J. Tabb, “Johannine Fulfillment of Scripture: Continuity and Escalation”
• Timothy Wiarda, “The Portrayal of Peter and Atonement Theology in the Gospel of John”

Among the books reviewed in this issue also is Doug Green’s “I Undertook Great Works”: The Ideology of Domestic Achievements in West Semitic Royal Inscriptions (Mohr Siebeck, 2010). Doug is an excellent fellow, and I very much appreciate the opportunity, albeit limited, to have had him as an instructor a few years ago.

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On the web:

• John Byron passes along some advice for seminary from a graduating seminarian.
• N. T. Wright reviews Benedict, Casey, and Fisk’s recent works on Jesus (HT: Michael Bird).
• Dove Booksellers has available, as of this writing, 133 volumes from Richard Longenecker’s library (HT: Michael Bird).
• Dirk Jongkind comments on Vaticanus’s regular preference for reading “Christ Jesus” rather than “Jesus Christ” in the Pauline letters.
• Google Books now supports offline reading in Google Chrome.
• Logos Bible Software adds online resource previews.
• Robert Woods reflects on Hugh of St. Victor’s Didascalicon.
• ARTStor makes images of Dura-Europos documents available online (HT: Jim Davila).
• Marc Cortez reflects on Augustine’s comments on “monsters.”
• Joseph Kelly digests the Hebrew Bible’s references to “extra-biblical literary sources.”
• Mark Goodacre discusses the Protevangelium of James.

The latest issue of the Journal of Biblical Literature includes:

• Esther J. Hamori, “Echoes of Gilgamesh in the Jacob Story”
• Joel S. Baden and Candida R. Moss, “The Origin and Interpretation of ṣāra’at in Leviticus 13–14”
• Scott C. Jones, “Lions, Serpents, and Lion-Serpents in Job 28:8 and Beyond”
• Noam Mizrahi, “The History and Linguistic Background of Two Hebrew Titles for the High Priest”
• Jeramy Townsley, “Paul, the Goddess Religions, and Queer Sects: Romans 1:23–28”
• Jeffrey R. Asher, “An Unworthy Foe: Heroic “Eθη, Trickery, and an Insult in Ephesians 6:11”
• Joseph A. Marchal, “The Usefulness of an Onesimus: The Sexual Use of Slaves and Paul’s Letter to Philemon”
• Eyal Regev, “Were the Early Christians Sectarians?”
• Stephen J. Patterson, “Apocalypticism or Prophecy and the Problem of Polyvalence: Lessons from the Gospel of Thomas”

I’m pleased to say that the new website for the Great Books Honors College at Faulkner University is out of beta. The site has been a work in progress for a while but has, at this point, come together fairly nicely and completely. Of particular interest here is the College’s Christian Institute for the Study of Liberal Arts. At present, the Institute offers an innovative Master of Letters program that heavily utilizes Google Apps for Education and other distance education media to help form students and faculty into a virtual learning community. In coming years, the Institute looks forward to adding Bachelor and Doctor of Letters programs also.

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To complement the earlier pre-publication release of its Hebrew Bible counterpart, Logos Bible Software now has the first six volumes of the Baylor Handbook on the Greek New Testament Series available for order through its pre-publication program. Also noteworthy are the 12 Days of Logos promotions on Calvin’s Commentaries and the Pillar New Testament Commentary.

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Today, the second edition of Grant Osborne’s Hermeneutical Spiral for Logos Bible Software has come on sale. According to Osborne,

hermeneutics is a spiral from text to context–a movement between the horizon of the text and the horizon of the reader that spirals nearer and nearer toward the intended meaning of the text and its significance for today.

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The first four volumes of the Baylor Handbook on the Hebrew Bible Series are now available for order from Logos Bible Software via their pre-publication program. In general,

Rather than devote space to the type of theological and exegetical comments found in most commentaries, this series instead focuses on the Hebrew text and its related issues, syntactic and otherwise. The volumes in the series serve as prequels to commentary proper, providing guides to understanding the linguistic characteristics of the texts from which the messages of the texts may then be derived.

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Logos 4.3 (SR7) is available and includes a couple bug fixes. For the release’s details, please see here.