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The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include:

Jewish Scripture and Cognate Fields

• Jacob Howland, Plato and the Talmud, reviewed by Alan Avery-Peck
• Jeremy M. Hutton, The Transjordanian Palimpsest: The Overwritten Texts of Personal Exile and Transformation in the Deuteronomistic History, reviewed by Walter Dietrich
• Thomas Kazen, Issues of Impurity in Early Judaism, reviewed by John W. Fadden
• Eric D. Reymond, New Idioms within Old: Poetry and Parallelism in the Non-Masoretic Poems of 11Q5 (=11QPsa), reviewed by John Engle and James A. Sanders

New Testament and Cognate Fields

On the web:

• Charles Jones notes two good resources for Greco-Roman numismatics: Roman Imperial Coin Hoards and the NUMIDAT.
• Christian Book Distributors Academic blog features Miles Van Pelt’s new Basics of Biblical Aramaic grammar (Zondervan, 2011).

After recently transitioning to Ubuntu, I found that my previous online backup solution had some issues running in Linux, even via a Windows XP virtual machine in VirtualBox. With some additional research, however, I came across Digital Lifeboat:

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Digital Lifeboat is still in beta. So, the software has had some hiccups, but overall, it has worked fairly well. Digital Lifeboat won’t presently backup directly from a shared system folder in VirtualBox, but syncing the shared folder to a local folder within the virtual machine itself does let Digital Lifeboat read the folder and run the backup. Perhaps the service’s greatest advantage, however, is that users who sign up during the beta period receive free, unlimited storage for the life of their accounts.

Logos 4.3 (SR4) is now available and mainly includes a bug fix for right-to-left languages in personal books.

Over at the Chronicle of Higher Education, Jeffrey Selingo discusses what might change in higher education if engineers were assigned to reinvent it from the ground up. Some points that emerged at a recent kick-off event for Georgia Tech’s Center for 21st Century Universities were:

Public research on the common questions. One way for public universities to reassert their relevance is to focus on public research on big common questions facing society. . . .

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BBC and MSNBC have both reported that European scientists may have clocked neutrinos moving faster than the speed of light. The scientists involved are, however, being cautious while their test results are verified, and Bob Cargill considers this kind of caution in relation to the lack of it in certain instances in archaeological finds.

Jim Davila has picked up a discussion about ancient testimony to the earth’s spherical shape. Cicero also, by way of his Stoic character Balbus, comments to this effect, saying,

[T]he sea, which is above the earth, tends still toward the earth’s centre, and so is itself shaped in conformity to the globe of the earth and nowhere spills or overflows. ( 171; affiliate disclosure; italics added)

...

On the web:

• Peter Williams picks up Alin Suciu’s story about the British Library’s Coptic leaf that corresponds to the text of Jer. 21:14–22:20 (LXX).
• Charles Jones notes the Latin texts and database that the Packard Humanities Institute has newly made available.
• Michael Bird includes about a 47-minute lecture of N. T. Wright “giv[ing] a C. S. Lewis-style apologetic of a Christian society filled with good Christians as being one of the best apologetics there are.”
• Daniel Streett compares Greek curriculum requirements for MDiv students with modern language requirements for area majors at two other sample institutions.
• Today sees the release of Seth Ehorn’s Philemon commentary in the Evangelical Exegetical Commentary series.

The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include:

Jewish Scripture and Cognate Fields

• David A. Bernat, Sign of the Covenant: Circumcision in the Priestly Tradition, reviewed by Ulrich Zimmermann
• Job Y. Jindo, Biblical Metaphor Reconsidered: A Cognitive Approach to Poetic Prophecy in Jeremiah 1–24, reviewed by Colin Toffelmire
• Yelena Kolyada, A Compendium of Musical Instruments and Instrumental Terminology in the Bible, reviewed by Helen Leneman
• T. M. Lemos, Marriage Gifts and Social Change in Ancient Palestine: 1200 BCE to 200 CE, reviewed by Marianne Blickenstaff
• Anwar Tjen, On Conditionals in the Greek Pentateuch: A Study of Translation Syntax, reviewed by Randall Gauthier

New Testament and Cognate Fields

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Tyndale House has done some wonderful work making very helpful resources available online, but today, I stumbled upon the following that I had forgotten or not noticed before:

• The Tyndale Bulletin is available in full-text from volume 1 forward, excepting the last three years’ issues.
• The Tyndale House library catalog will return search results that include works available online in full-text.
• The library’s periodicals section also contains a number of links to journals with full-text articles available online.

Logos 4.3 (SR3) is available. For the release notes, see here.

As noted earlier, Logos Bible Software is working on releasing over 3000 texts from the Perseus Project for free to Logos 4 users. Included here is Perseus’s substantive collection of Greek and Latin classics and their translations. This collection also offers access to Perseus’s dictionaries and lexica and integrated searching with the rest of a user’s Logos library. For further details, see here.

On the web:

• Mel Gibson is apparently planning a movie about Judas Maccabee (HT: John Byron).
• Google Docs adds a comment-only permission option for document sharing.
• Alan Bandy discusses the phrase ἐκ πίστεως εἰς πίστιν in Rom 1:17 and Augustine’s eschatology.

On the web:

• Daniel Streett comments on Gen 5:21–24.
• Logos Bible Software will continue Logos 4 upgrade discounts only through the end of this month.
• Jason Jewell comments on the open-source mindset and the virtue of charity.
• Larry Hurtado discusses PhD studies in North America and the United Kingdom.
• Holly pays tribute to Michael Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg, who passed away this week.
• Cynthia Nielsen continues discussing Dialectic of Enlightenment and its proposal about the relationship between demythologization and remythologization.

The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include:

Jewish Scriptures and Cognate Studies

• A. Graeme Auld and Erik Eynikel, eds., For and against David: Story and History in the Books of Samuel, reviewed by Frank H. Polak
• Christa Schäfer-Lichtenberger, ed., Die Samuelbücher und die Deuteronomisten, reviewed by Graeme Auld

New Testament and Cognate Studies

• Nina E. Livesey, Circumcision as a Malleable Symbol, reviewed by Matthew Thiessen
• Aliou Cissé Niang, Faith and Freedom in Galatia and Senegal: The Apostle Paul, Colonists and Sending Gods, reviewed by Davina C. Lopez

Scripture and the Western Tradition

On the web:

• Mike Aubrey notes Daniel Streett’s new blog and his comments on reading Greek, and Daniel comments on this question also.
• Charles Jones notes that Scripture Bulletin is openly accessible online.
• Rod Decker ponders Mark 14:37.

Apparently, the article that Brian Tucker recently mentioned is part of a series of articles appearing in Bibliotheca Sacra this year, which look like they are providing the written corollaries to Klyne Snodgrass’s earlier lecture series at Dallas Theological Seminary.

On the web:

• Bob Cargill highlights Eric Kansa, Sarah Kansa, and Ethan Watrall, eds., Archaeology 2.0: New Approaches to Communication & Collaboration, which is now freely available online through the University of California.
• Steve Runge discusses discourse continuity and cohesion.
• Evernote maintains its existing maximum attachment sizes but lifts file type restrictions from their free accounts.

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A while back, the kind folks at Zondervan forwarded a survey about their Textbook Plus website, and in return for some feedback there, D. A. Carson and Douglas Moo, Introducing the New Testament, edited by Andrew Naselli (2010), arrived in yesterday’s mail. The text is “a condensation of [the] longer and more detailed . . . An Introduction to the New Testament(D. A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo [2d ed.; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005]) ( 7).

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The latest issue of New Testament Studies includes:

• John Moles, “Luke’s Preface: The Greek Decree, Classical Historiography and Christian Redefinitions”
• David Mealand, “Is there Stylometric Evidence for Q?”
• John Ashton, “The Johannine Son of Man: A New Proposal”
• Alan Bale, “The Ambiguous Oracle: Narrative Configuration in Acts”
• L. L. Welborn, “Paul and Pain: Paul’s Emotional Therapy in 2 Corinthians 1.1–2.13; 7.5–16 in the Context of Ancient Psychagogic Literature”
• Don Barker, “The Dating of New Testament Papyri”
• John Goodrich, “Erastus of Corinth (Romans 16.23): Responding to Recent Proposals on his Rank, Status, and Faith”
• Wally Cirafesi and Gerald Peterman, “Πίστις and Christ in Hippolytus’s De Christo et Antichristo: A Response to Michael F. Bird and Michael R. Whitenton”

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Bryan College announces an upcoming conference on Genesis 1–2 that will feature the following speakers and perspectives:

• John Walton, Wheaton College and Graduate School, “cosmic temple” approach
• Tremper Longman III, Westmont College, theistic evolution
• Richard Averbeck, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, “literary/intertextual” approach
• John Collins, Covenant Theological Seminary, “analogical days” approach
• Todd Beall, Capital Bible Seminary, literal/”recent creationist” approach

For further information, see here.

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Today, Amazon has the Kindle edition of Eric Metaxas’s Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy on sale for $1.99.

On the web:

• Charles Jones notes that Exemplaria Classica, a journal for classical textual criticism and codicology, is open access online for all but the most recent volume.
• Cynthia Nielsen discussess Dialectic of Enlightenment and its proposal about the relationship between demythologization and remythologization.
• Robert Woods reflects on some selections from Heraclitus.
• Steve Caruso highlights Tom Verenna’s video about the Jordanian lead codices.
• The Center for the Study of Christian Origins has some links to new Roman-era finds near Edinburgh, some of which are relevant to the study of Mithraism in Britain ( part 1, part 2).
• Brice Jones has the newest article in the Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism: “The Bodmer ‘Miscellaneous’ Codex and the Crosby-Schøyen Codex MS 193: A New Proposal.”

The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include:

New Testament and Cognate Fields

• David Brakke, The Gnostics: Myth, Ritual, and Diversity in Early Christianity, reviewed by James F. McGrath
• Mark Andrew Brighton, The Sicarii in Josephus’s Judean War: Rhetorical Analysis and Historical Observations, reviewed by Catherine Jones
• Jean Delorme and Isabelle Donegani, L’Apocalypse de Jean: Révélation pour le temps de la violence et du désir, reviewed by Nils Neumann and Stephan Witetschek
• Ian J. Elmer, Paul, Jerusalem and the Judaisers: The Galatian Crisis in Its Broadest Historical Context, reviewed by Davina C. Lopez
• André Myre, Pour l’avenir du monde: La résurrection revisitée, reviewed by Jeffrey F. Cayzer
• Randall W. Reed, A Clash of Ideologies: Marxism, Liberation Theology, and Apocalypticism in New Testament Studies, reviewed by Leif E. Vaage
• Hal Taussig, In the Beginning Was the Meal: Social Experimentation and Early Christian Identity, reviewed by Pieter J. J. Botha

General Biblical Studies

NT Blog turns eight today, and Mark Goodacre also notes that the German Bible Society has made the main texts of BHS, Septuaginta (ed. Hanhart), and NA27 available online.

Through its Academic Bible website’s homepage, the German Bible Society is offering a free download of the brochure Textual Research on the Bible: Introductions to the Scholarly Editions of the German Bible Society. The Society envisions that the brochure will

provide insight into this fascinating field of research. We have particularly in mind the interests of first-year students, who might benefit from a basic introduction like this. Thus we invite lecturers of exegesis and textual criticism to make use of this brochure in their classrooms. (Letter from the German Bible Society and Nida Institute)

...

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According to Todd Bolen,

The Memory and Identity Working Group, University of California, Berkeley is hosting a lecture entitled “Mining for Solomon” by Professor Steven Weitzman (Stanford University) on Tuesday, September 6, 2011.

For more information, see here.

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The fall issue of the Journal of Biblical Literature includes:

• James Watts, “Aaron and the Golden Calf in the Rhetoric of the Pentateuch”
• Mark Leuchter, “The Ambiguous Details in the Blasphemer Narrative: Sources and Redaction in Leviticus 24:10–23”
• Serge Frolov and Allen Wright, “Homeric and Ancient Near Eastern Intertextuality in 1 Samuel 17”
• C. L. Crouch, “Ezekiel’s Oracles against the Nations in Light of a Royal Ideology of Warfare”
• Ted Erho, “Historical-Allusional Dating and the Similitudes of Enoch”
• David Sick, “The Architriklinos at Cana”
• Roy Ciampa, “‘Examined the Scriptures’? The Meaning of α̉ναϰρíνoντες τὰς γραϕάς in Acts 17:11”
• Tzvi Novick, “Peddling Scents: Merchandise and Meaning in 2 Corinthians 2:14–17”
• Jennifer Glancy and Stephen Moore, “How Typical a Roman Prostitute Is Revelation’s ‘Great Whore’?”
• Stephen Barton, “Eschatology and the Emotions in Early Christianity”
• Theodore Bergren, “Gentile Christians, Exile, and Return in 5 Ezra 1:35–40”

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Peter Head responds to the recent, British Library blog post about Sinaiticus’s New Testament.

On the web:

• Google Docs can now display page numbers in documents themselves and not just on a printed or PDF copy.
• Google Chrome Frame now has a beta version that does not require administrative privileges to install.
• The third edition of Emmanuel Tov’s Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible should be available around November 1 (HT: Peter Williams).
• Ben Witherington’s Is There a Doctor in the House? is apparently now available on Kindle (HT: Mark Stevens), although the printed text from Amazon is still forthcoming.
• Steve Caruso continues discussing the Jordanian lead codices.
• Zotero releases some significant updates to their 3.0 beta.
• Peter Head reports that the Green Collection at Bethel University has acquired a new 1 Corinthians manuscript in addition to the Hebrews manuscript that had already been announced.
• Logos Bible Software adds The Babylonian Talmud: Original Text, Edited, Corrected, Formulated and Translated into English (19 vols.) to their community pricing program.