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The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include the following: Jewish Scriptures and Cognate Fields Steven L. Bridge, Getting the Old Testament: What It Meant to Them, What It Means for Us, reviewed by Robert Wallace Robert R. Cargill, Qumran through (Real) Time: A Virtual Reconstruction of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, reviewed by Eibert Tigchelaar Greg Schmidt Goering, Wisdom’s Root Revealed: Ben Sira and the Election of Israel, reviewed by Ibolya Balla Bernd Janowski, Bernhard Greiner, and Hermann Lichtenberger, eds., Opfere deinen Sohn! Das ‘Isaak-Opfer’ in Judentum, Christentum und Islam, reviewed by Paul Sanders Edith Lubetski and Meir Lubetski, eds., The Book of Esther: A Classified Bibliography, reviewed by Mayer I. Gruber Nathan MacDonald, What Did the Ancient Israelites Eat? Diet in Biblical Times, reviewed by Raz Kletter Mark S. Smith and Wayne T. Pitard, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle: Volume 2: Introduction with Text, Translation and Commentary of KTU/CAT 1.3–1.4, reviewed by Frank H. Polak Roger E. Van Harn and Brent A. Strawn, Psalms for Preaching and Worship: A Lectionary Commentary, reviewed by Hallvard Hagelia New Testament and Cognate Fields ...

This week in the blogosphere: Baker acquires Hendrickson’s academic arm (HT: Nijay Gupta and Rod Decker). Larry Hurtado rightfully lauds and recommends careful attention to Harry Gable’s Books and Readers in the Early Church. Cynthia Nielsen continues her discussion of interconnections between Joerg Rieger and Frederick Douglass with a post about duality in identity construction. Michael Halcomb has a new website specifically dedicated to Getting (Theological) Languages. Kirk Lowery returns to the biblioblogosphere after a hiatus for the development of the Groves Center as an independent research unit. I had the privilege of doing an Aramaic and a Hebrew Bible text-linguistics seminar under Kirk and am again looking forward to seeing what shows up on his “scratchpad.” Happy Dissertating suggests PhD2Published as a potentially valuable resource for new PhD graduates in humanities disciplines. James McGrath spots several video recordings of presentations at this past year’s annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion. Michael Bird starts reading a recent biography of Ernst Käsemann and reproduces several, brief quotations from Käsemann that are, as one might expect, particularly insightful. Todd Bolen reports a recent spectrometric analysis that suggests a Jerusalem origin for a newly discovered cuneiform tablet. Ken Schenck discusses the reading of biblical literature as Christian scripture. Brian LePort discusses the relationship between scripture and tradition in view of the Trinitarian-Oneness debate. On this relationship, our Writing Center director at Southeastern recently brought to my attention F. F. Bruce’s edited volume, Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition. I have yet really to peruse it, and the book is scarcely findable in print at this point. Still, it does look like a very interesting volume, and much of it is available through Google Books. Google and Verizon propose, regarding Net Neutrality,“that ‘wireline broadband providers [sh]ould not be able to discriminate against or prioritize lawful Internet content, applications or services in a way that causes harm to users or competition’, but broadband providers [sh]ould be able to offer ‘additional, differentiated online services’.” Chris Brady shares some of his conclusions from his recent International Organization for Targumic Studies presentation about Boaz in Targum Ruth.

In the past few weeks, I had thought of what might be a pedagogically helpful application for Google Wave. I had all but decided to experiment with it in a course assignment, but on Wednesday, Google announced that it would not “continue developing Wave as a standalone product” but would, over time, “extend the technology for use in other Google projects.” So, apparently, it is time to “wave” goodbye and wait to see what the next iteration of the technology holds. ...

Hosea (NICOT) The Book of Hosea, written by Andrew Dearman for the New International Commentary on the Old Testament series, has been released. Dearman is Professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary’s Houston extension. Some of the endorsements for Dearman’s volume include: ...

This week in the biblioblogs: Christopher Skinner points out an interview with Simon Gathercole about the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Judas. Cynthia Nielsen provides part one of a series on Joerg Rieger, Frederick Douglass, and the myth of individualism. John Meade discusses the Peshitta’s reading of Acts 16:34. Jeff Oien, Robert Jimenez, and Michael Bird spot an interview with Gordon Fee primarily connected with Fee’s forthcoming commentary on Revelation but also with various hermeneutical issues. James McGrath mentions that Tim Henderson, a recent PhD graduate from Marquette University, is now blogging at Earliest Christianity. Joel Watts begins a series on 2 Clement and puts this early Christian document into dialog with the “prosperity gospel.” Michael Bird refers us to a Touchstone essay in which N. T. Wright reflects on C. S. Lewis.

As promised, Jim West’s revival of the Biblical Studies Carnival has begun. HT: Mark Goodacre.

This year’s second issue of the Bulletin for Biblical Research arrived in the mail yesterday and includes the following: Brian Gault, “An Admonition against ‘Rousing Love’: The Meaning of the Enigmatic Refrain in Song of Songs,” 161–84 William Wilder, “The Use (or Abuse) of Power in High Places: Gifts Given and Received in Isaiah, Psalm 68, and Ephesians 4:8,” 185–200 Gerald Peterman, “Plural You: On the Use and Abuse of the Second Person,” 201–14 Craig Keener, “Spirit Possession as a Cross-cultural Experience,” 215–36 Joshua Jipp and Michael Thate, “Dating Thomas: Logion 53 as a Test Case for Dating the Gospel of Thomas within an Early Christian Trajectory,” 237–56 Book reviews, 257–307

In commenting on Phil 2:12 in his recent Pillar series volume, Walter Hansen observes the following about Paul’s description of Christian community and obedience: The church is an eschatological community, a colony of heaven. But in order for the heavenly reality to be a present, earthly experience, believers need to work out the salvation promised to them. Paul desires to see an ecclesiological fulfillment of the eschatological promise of salvation. This understanding of working out salvation as a present expression of God’s promise of salvation does not contradict but rather implements Paul’s earlier instruction to look after the interests of others ( 2:4) ( 174–75; cf. 177). ...

In this clip, Richard Bauckham briefly abstracts his own argument from Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=292NTf1cCNw&hl=en_US&fs=1]

Blogging has unfortunately gotten edged out by too many other things the past few months, but I hope the dearth of posts here recently will be reversing itself shortly. In any case, last week, Carrie and I were blessed with a beautiful baby girl, Ella Grace. Ella came a bit early, but I can now officially enter her as my vote for the “most precious baby ever” award: [slideshow]

Robert Cargill reports that a recent test conducted by Italian scientists suggests that the Temple Scroll’s papyrus was “cured using water from the Dead Sea.” Cargill also mentions a forthcoming test that could reasonably demonstrate a connection between the scroll’s ink and the water of the Dead Sea. Even if it does so, however, Cargill qualifies, “this still leaves open the possibility that both the inks and parchment were produced at Dead Sea industrial installations and exported to other areas (for instance, Jerusalem), [but] the preponderance of evidence (animals at Qumran, inkwells at Qumran, scrolls in caves near Qumran) would seem to support the continued suggestion that at least some of the Dead Sea Scrolls were produced at Qumran.” ...

Sunday, National Geographic reported that researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had successfully tested a computer system that, by itself, deciphered a substantial amount of Ugaritic “in a matter of hours” ( MIT press release). This system is based on a statistical model developed by Benjamin Snyder and Regina Barzilay of MIT and Kevin Knight of the University of Southern California. According to MIT, ...

The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include the following: New Testament and Cognate Fields Paul Barnett, Finding the Historical Christ: After Jesus, Volume 3, reviewed by Matthew Recla David W. Chapman, Ancient Jewish and Christian Perceptions of Crucifixion, reviewed by John T. Carroll Gordon D. Fee, The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians, reviewed by James W. Aageson Edna Johnson, A Semantic and Structural Analysis of Ephesians, reviewed by Timothy Gombis Brigitte Kahl, Galatians Re-imagined: Reading with the Eyes of the Vanquished, reviewed by Vernon K. Robbins Jewish Scriptures and Cognate Fields ...

[caption id=“attachment_1618” align=“alignleft” width=“80” caption=“Paul Silvia”] [/caption] Over at To Do: Dissertation, one of the authors provides a list of aids that dissertation writers may find helpful. Second on this list is Paul Silvia’s book How to Write a Lot, which has proven particularly helpful to me as well. The book really is worth its purchase price for the number of practical thoughts that it includes that may help the writing process go more smoothly. ...

Defending the legitimacy of the category of “collective memory,” Maurice Halbwachs observes the following: History is neither the whole nor even all that remains of the past. In addition to written history, there is a living history that perpetuates and renews itself through time and permits the recovery of many old currents that have seemingly disappeared ( 64). Thus, in some respect, the “collective memory” provides the means by which a community recovers for itself things that it has forgotten or allowed to fall into the vague and dusty corners of its memory. Without such collective memory, these lost currents would have no presence in relation to the community and they would have to be recovered—if they would ever be recovered at all—in the same manner as the community discovers new things of which it had not previously been aware. ...

The equivalent of 15 print volumes of over 1,800 Oxyrhynchus Papyri fragments are now available to order from Logos via their pre-publication discount program. Details about the module and a list of the papyri it will include are available here. ...

[caption id=“attachment_5648” align=“alignright” width=“80” caption=“Elizabeth Mburu”] [/caption] Due out in a little less than one month is the revised version Elizabeth Mburu’s PhD thesis, Qumran and the Origins of Johannine Language and Symbolism. In the book, Mburu sets out to demonstrate that the sectarian Qumran document The Rule of the Community, provides linguistic clues which illuminate our understanding of how the author of the Fourth Gospel used truth terminology and expected it to be understood. ...

Christian Book Distributors is offering their 22-volume collection of Calvin’s commentaries for $99.99 (retail: $1200.00) with a bonus copy of Calvin’s Institutes. Also, starting November 1, CBD will offer a 14-volume set of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics for $99.99 (retail: $995.00). Even after accounting for shipping costs, the 90%+ discount offered on these sets’ retail prices still leaves them as strikingly good bargains. ...

According to Google’s blog, the National Library of the Netherlands will soon start making over 160,000 public-domain volumes available through Google Books. Works targeted for digitization “constitute nearly the library’s entire collection of out-of-copyright books, written during the 18th and 19th centuries.” Among the authors whose works this post explicitly notes as being included within this group is Abraham Kuyper (at least via a direct link to his Wikipedia page), the Dutch Reformed theologian, philosopher, and politician. ...

Today, the following arrived from the kind folks at Baker for use this fall: [caption id=“attachment_5710” align=“alignleft” width=“80” caption=“Craig Blomberg”] [/caption] [caption id=“attachment_5709” align=“alignleft” width=“80” caption=“Darrell Bock”] [/caption] Being in the classroom (whether virtual or physical) is always enjoyable, and I am certainly looking forward to meeting and interacting with everyone there again this fall. ...

Larry Hurtado announces that the Centre for the Study of Christian Origins now has a blog from which readers may expect posts by " the several [scholars] who make up CSCO." ...

The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include the following: New Testament and Cognate Fields Willis Barnstone, The Restored New Testament: A New Translation with Commentary, Including the Gnostic Gospels Thomas, Mary, and Judas, reviewed by Sean Kealy James G. Crossley, Jesus in an Age of Terror: Scholarly Projects for a New American Century, reviewed by William Arnal Richard A. Horsley, Wisdom and Spiritual Transcendence at Corinth: Studies in First Corinthians, reviewed by L. L. Welborn Jerome H. Neyrey, The Gospel of John in Cultural and Rhetorical Perspective, reviewed by Steven Hunt Jewish Scriptures and Cognate Fields ...

Michael Meerson has the latest article in the Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism, “One God Supreme: A Case Study of Religious Tolerance and Survival.” In this article, Meerson “attempt[s] to combine the consideration of both [θεὸς ὕψιστος and εἷς θεός]” as these titles are found in a sundial inscription from Mount Gerizim (32). For, although ...

In the second and third centuries, the church worked under several different hermeneutical constraints, including: canonical development, community boundary definition (vis-à-vis Judaism, Paganism, and heretical, “Christian” sects), and hermeneutical method. Although this period of biblical interpretation has long been closed, being aware of the natures of these respective constraints can help us understand the early church’s hermeneutical environment and gain better access to some of their thoughts about scripture. Regarding canonical development, within the patristic period the text of the Jewish canon was essentially closed, but what has become known as the New Testament was not yet a distinct collection. In this period, the church sometimes used certain documents as scripture, although these documents like Shepherd of Hermas or 1 Clement were not eventually canonized, and the church sometimes refrained from using as scripture other documents like Hebrews and Revelation, which were eventually canonized. Additionally, the early church seems to have viewed the Old Testament as having a higher status than the Gospels [including the Diatessaron ( ANF 9:43–130)] and Paul’s epistles, although a somewhat more egalitarian view was also feasible (cf. 2 Pet 3:15–16). For instance, when the Epistle of Barnabas cites the New Testament, the references seem to be mainly incidental to the main line of thought (e.g., Epistle of Barnabas 5:9; 4:14; 13:7), whereas the Old Testament seems to be used as though it held more weight for Barnabas’s author. In the earliest part of the patristic period, it was also possible for Papias to say that he preferred the “living voice” (of oral testimony) to what was written. By contrast, in Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho (ca. AD 165; ANF 2:194–270), Justin explicitly cites the New Testament as scripture (e.g., §43, 100). Justin’s use of the New Testament as scripture typified a growing trend out of which the Muratorian Canon list (ca. AD 200; see Westcott 557–64) came and which culminated in Athanasius’s Easter letter of AD 367 ( NPNF2 4:551–52). In this letter, Athanasius demarcated what he saw to be the boundaries of the New Testament canon, which have remained until the present day. ...

The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include the following: New Testament and Cognate Fields Kenneth E. Bailey, The Cross and the Prodigal: Luke 15 through the Eyes of Middle Eastern Peasants, reviewed by Robert O’Toole Brendan Byrne, A Costly Freedom: A Theological Reading of Mark’s Gospel, reviewed by Sean Kealy Stanley E. Porter and Mark J. Boda, eds., Translating the New Testament: Text, Translation, Theology, reviewed by Douglas Moo Jewish Scriptures and Cognate Fields ...

The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include the following: Jewish Scriptures and Cognate Fields Elizabeth Boase, The Fulfilment of Doom? The Dialogic Interaction between the Book of Lamentations and the Pre-exilic/Early Exilic Prophetic Literature, reviewed by Charles Miller Jo Carruthers, Esther through the Centuries, reviewed by Linda Day and reviewed by Timothy Laniak Mark K. George, Israel’s Tabernacle as Social Space, reviewed by Gert Prinsloo John Oswalt, The Bible among the Myths: Unique Revelation or Just Ancient Literature?, reviewed by Claude Mariottini Tessa Rajak, Translation and Survival: The Greek Bible and the Ancient Jewish Diaspora, reviewed by Christopher Beetham Hermeneutics ...

The Evangelical Theological Society’s southeastern, regional meeting begins tomorrow and will feature some interesting-looking papers, a couple of which I have been able to preview as they have come through Southeastern’s Writing Center. Fellow blogger Alan Knox will be presenting on “A Theology of Encouragement in Hebrews,” and my own paper, “But What about Israel?: A Biblical-Theological Approach to the Question of Individual and Corporate Election in Romans 9–11” has also been included in the program. To abstract this paper briefly: ...

Thanks to wonderful readers and the excellent folks at the Westminster Bookstore, the following arrived at our door this past week: [caption id=“attachment_5466” align=“alignleft” width=“100” caption=“Kurt Aland”][/caption] [caption id=“attachment_5467” align=“alignleft” width=“80” caption=“William Holladay”] [/caption] [caption id=“attachment_5468” align=“alignleft” width=“80” caption=“Warren Trenchard”][/caption][caption id=“attachment_5464” align=“alignleft” width=“80” caption=“Miles Van Pelt and Gary Pratico”][/caption] [caption id=“attachment_5465” align=“alignleft” width=“80” caption=“Ronald Williams”] [/caption] ...

The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include the following: New Testament and Cognate Fields Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (Twentieth Anniversary Edition with a New Introduction), reviewed by Richard Valantasis Kate Cooper and Julia Hillner, eds., Religion, Dynasty, and Patronage in Early Christian Rome, 300–900, reviewed by Ilaria Ramelli April D. DeConick, The Original Gospel of Thomas in Translation: With a Commentary and New English Translation of the Complete Gospel , reviewed by Stephen Patterson David A. deSilva, Seeing Things John’s Way: The Rhetoric of the Book of Revelation, reviewed by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza Terence L. Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles: Jewish Patterns of Universalism (to 135 CE) , reviewed by Joshua Schwartz Michael Philip Penn, Kissing Christians: Ritual and Community in the Late Ancient Church,reviewed by Candida Moss Stanley E. Porter, ed., Paul: Jew, Greek, and Roman, reviewed by Christoph Stenschke Turid Karlsen Seim and Jorunn Økland, eds., Metamorphoses: Resurrection, Body and Transformative Practices in Early Christianity , reviewed by V. Henry Nguyen Magnus Zetterholm, Approaches to Paul: A Student’s Guide to Recent Scholarship, reviewed by Nijay Gupta Jewish Scriptures and Cognate Fields ...

Over at the British Library’s Digitised Manuscripts Blog, Juan Garcés requests suggestions about “which particular Greek manuscripts held by the British Library . . . you [would] like to see digitised and why?” To add your suggestions to the growing list of requests that the Greek Manuscripts Digitisation Project will consider, head over to Digitised Manuscripts and post your preferences. ...