Blog

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. ...

In the March 26 issue of All You magazine, my wife, Carrie, has had following recipe featured: The roll-ups really are quite good, and of course, the black-and-white picture hardly does justice to the visual appeal of the dish. In addition to the instructions here, the chef herself does suggest that the “sprinkl[ing] with mozzarella” (#4) should be done rather generously. ...

The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include the following: New Testament and Cognate Fields François Bovon, L’Evangile selon saint Luc 19,28–24,53, reviewed by Richard I. Pervo Jean-Marie van Cangh, Les sources Judaïques du nouveau testament: Recueil d’essais, reviewed by Peter Tomson Pamela Eisenbaum, Paul Was Not a Christian: The Original Message of a Misunderstood Apostle, reviewed by Yung Suk Kim Lee Martin McDonald, Forgotten Scriptures: The Selection and Rejection of Early Religious Writings, reviewed by Francis Dalrymple-Hamilton Paul Middleton, Angus Paddison, and Karen Wenell, eds., Paul, Grace and Freedom: Essays in Honour of John K. Riches, reviewed by Michael J. Lakey Mogens Müller, The Expression ‘Son of Man’ and the Development of Christology: A History of Interpretation, reviewed by Rollin Kearns C. Kavin Rowe, World Upside Down: Reading Acts in the Graeco-Roman Age, reviewed by V. Henry Nguyen Alexander Tsutserov, Glory, Grace, and Truth: Ratification of the Sinaitic Covenant according to the Gospel of John, reviewed by Christopher W. Skinner Jewish Scriptures and Cognate Fields ...

Jeremy Thompson has the month-end biblioblog rankings available, and Joel Watts again tops the chart. Congratulations are also due to the folks at Near Emmaus who, after cracking the top 50 in the middle of the month, have now settled into the number 40 slot for February as a whole. Today will tell, but on the back of what may turn out to be the busiest month yet, New Testament Interpretation has also risen to 79th place, its strongest standing thus far. Many thanks to everyone for the interest. ...

New to the biblioblogosphere this week is Matthew D. Larsen’s NT Studies Blog. Matthew is a graduate student in Jewish Studies, and some of his major, academic interests include studying the synoptics, the historical Jesus, and early Jewish-Christian relations with, according to the blog’s subtitle, a blend of “Narrative, Rhetorical, and Historical” criticism. In his inaugural post series, Matthew is discussing Jesus’ relationship to women against the backdrop of several different corpora of Jewish literature. ...

Brooke Lester has a bipartite Biblical Studies Carnival LI available at Anumma. In consideration of February 3 as Blogroll Amnesty Day, Lester particularly highlights the smaller fry in the biblioblogging community.

Why should Christians care about Jewish scriptures and their theology? Bruce Waltke offers some telling remarks: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBoswQ9WhW8&hl=en_US&fs=1&] Consequently, Waltke’s remarks appear nicely to complement and extend Klyne Snodgrass’s recent lectures on a hermeneutics of identity. HT: Matthew Montonini

Dead Sea Scrolls Today A revised edition of James VanderKam’s excellent introduction to the Dead Sea Scrolls is making its way to retailers. This new edition “retains the format, style, and aims of the first edition, and the same wider audience is envisaged” ( xii). Consequently, this edition includes five primary categories of changes ( xii–xiii): ...

The Evernote blog has a helpful new video for Google Chrome users, showing them how to get Chrome to search their Evernote accounts directly. Firefox users can achieve the same results with Ubiquity (0.1.9.1) by copying this code into the Ubiquity command editor or by subscribing to this command feed. ...

This morning, Tommy Wasserman introduces the new “Digitised Manuscripts Blog,” which will “report on various issues related to the current digitisation projects at the British Library, in particularly the Greek Manuscripts Digitisation Project funded by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.” Wasserman especially draws attention to Juan Garcés’s post from yesterday. There, Garcés notes that “[t]he first phase of the Greek Manuscripts Digitisation Project, funded by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, will include no less than one majuscule from the 7th century, 33 minuscules from the 10th–14th centuries, and 16 lectionaries from the 11th–14th centuries,” and he mentions plans to “post on a selection of these over the following weeks,” a series that will surely prove interesting. ...

In an essay entitled “Paul and James on the Law in the Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Martin Abegg incisively observes that The interpretation of the law, which had been revealed by God, is the focus of the phrase “works of the law” [at Qumran]. . . . No doubt the emphasis is on Torah in its entirety (see 1QS 8.1–2) but “obeying the law” was in accordance with the correct interpretation, that which had been revealed by God. . . . [T]he phrase does not simply mean “works of the law as God has commanded,” but rather “works of the law that God has commanded and revealed fully only to us” ( 72–73; italics original). ...

Klyne Snodgrass discusses a “hermeneutics of identity.” Snodgrass repeatedly observes the New Testament’s concern with issues related to identity.

The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include the following: New Testament and Cognate Fields John Fleter Tipei, The Laying on of Hands in the New Testament: Its Significance, Techniques, and Effects, reviewed by Everett Ferguson Chris A. Vlachos, The Law and the Knowledge of Good and Evil: The Edenic Background of the Catalytic Operation of the Law in Paul, reviewed by James M. Howard Magnus Zetterholm, Approaches to Paul: A Student’s Guide to Recent Scholarship, reviewed by David G. Horrell Hermeneutics ...

Jeremy Thompson has mid-month biblioblog rankings available for the top 50 biblioblogs. Congratulations to Brian LePort and JohnDave Medina, who have cracked the top 50 for the first time, and to Joel Watts who continues to lead the pack. The full list, including some additions, will again be available at the month’s end.

The final release of Zotero 2.0 is now available. For a list of changes since 2.0rc5, see here, or check this page for upgrade instructions and a list of new features in Zotero 2.0.

At least in dramatic representation. The clip below was uploaded earlier this year, and if it is any measure of today’s performance, the folks at Oklahoma Baptist have just enjoyed a substantial treat. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfsO-JhqZak&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

This morning, Scot McKnight has an engaging post that addresses some ambiguities present in descriptions of “theological interpretation.” To move toward decreasing these ambiguities, McKnight proposes his own description of what interpreting scripture theologically should mean—namely, “read[ing] individual passages in the Bible through the lens of one’s orthodox, community-shaped, and confessional theology” (italics original). Read the whole post, particularly the concluding paragraphs, for some other, very good reflections on the interrelationships between theology and hermeneutics. ...

When they happen, scientific revolutions occur suddenly by a process that may not be completely quantifiable, a fact that partially accounts for the controversy and opposition often experienced in the historical period surrounding a given revolution ( Kuhn, Scientific Revolutions 89–90, 151–52, 159; cf. Barber 97–113; Poythress 461). Although certain criteria exist, based on the broader scientific community’s shared paradigm, by which a scientific community can evaluate a candidate paradigm ( Achinstein 413; Kuhn, Essential Tension 321–22), these criteria’s applications and their relative weights are insufficiently discreet to facilitate paradigm choice by simple proof alone ( Kuhn, Essential Tension 320, 329; cf. Carson 89–90; Kuhn, Scientific Revolutions 94, 152, 160–87; Kuhn, Since Structure 208–15). Thus, one might best describe paradigm change as a kind of “conversion” ( Kuhn, Essential Tension 338; cf. Poythress 473), and different conversions may have different magnitudes. Indeed, even a conversion to the same paradigm may have different magnitudes for different, scientific sub-communities ( Kuhn, Scientific Revolutions 49–51, 92). ...

The folks over at a Blog of Biblical Proportions have compiled lists of the Top 50 Biblical History Blogs and the Top 50 Blogs for Online Scripture Study and have kindly included New Testament Interpretation among them. For the complete lists, please see Biblical Proportions. ...

Three routes exist for crisis resolution within a normal scientific community. First, the community may forestall the crisis by proposing an adjustment to the received paradigm, provided that this adjustment is plausible enough to decrease the severity of the paradigm’s perceived inadequacies. Second, the community may, after repeated failures to explain the crisis-inducing problem(s) satisfactorily, defer this problem(s) indefinitely to future, scientific research. In both these cases, the crisis finds its resolution, however tenuously, in fresh reaffirmation of the received paradigm ( Kuhn 84–85). ...

Joel Watts has a very intriguing “showcase [of] several motifs in Second Temple Jewish thought” related to the creation narrative in Genesis 1–3. To read the three-part series, click below. Part 1: Introduction Part 2: Creation Part 3: Seven Days As a whole, the series “survey[s] . . . how certain authors interpreted and perhaps used the Creation account as a means to [their own] end[s].” ...

Today, Philip Payne concludes his critique of Peter Head’s contention that the distigmai in Vaticanus “mark[] textual variation” and “belong to one unified system that was added some time in the 16th century.” To read the series in five parts, click below. Part 1: Introduction Part 2: Diple Part 3: Small Numbers, Large Numbers, and Other Marginalia Part 4: De Sepulveda Part 5: Identifying Later Distigmai and Conclusion A composite PDF is forthcoming, as is Head’s revised argument that incorporates Payne’s critiques. ...

The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include the following: New Testament and Cognate Fields Michael F. Bird, Introducing Paul: The Man, His Mission and His Message, reviewed by Tony Costa Delbert Burkett, The Unity and Plurality of Q (Rethinking the Gospel Sources, Volume 2), reviewed by Tobias Hagerland Greg Carey, Sinners: Jesus and His Earliest Followers, reviewed by Burgert De Wet Andrie Du Toit, edited by Cilliers Breytenbach and David S. Du Toit, Focusing on Paul: Persuasion and Theological Design in Romans and Galatians, reviewed by Sheila E. McGinn Carole R. Fontaine, With Eyes of Flesh: The Bible, Gender and Human Rights, reviewed by Robin Gallaher Branch J. R. Daniel Kirk, Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God, reviewed by Jens Herzer Kenneth L. Schenck, Cosmology and Eschatology in Hebrews: The Settings of the Sacrifice, reviewed by Thomas Kraus Gerhard Sellin, Der Brief an die Epheser, reviewed by Angela Standhartinger Edna Ullmann-Margalit, Out of the Cave: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Dead Sea Scrolls Research, reviewed by Samuel Thomas Jewish Scriptures and Cognate Fields ...

I have been asked to produce a resource for distance education students who may have more difficulty than on-campus students with accessing traditional research venues like the brick-and-mortar library. To that end, this blog now has an Online Research page, part of which subsumes and expands the old, Other Websites page. I have tried to highlight and link to many of the wonderful resources already available for distance education students who are doing biblical studies work, but if anyone has suggestions about other free-access resources that these students might find particularly useful, please do post them in the comments section here. The students who will use this page and I would be very grateful for these additions. ...

This morning, Logos Bible Software announced an agreement with Baker Books that will soon allow Logos to bring “hundreds” of Baker titles into pre-publication. According to Logos’s normal procedure, once available on the Pre-Pub page, production will begin on a given title once a sufficient number of people have ordered that title at the Pre-Pub price. Some of the new Baker titles already available on the Pre-Pub page include: ...

The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include the following: New Testament and Cognate Fields Jonathan Knight, Christian Origins, reviewed by Markus Oehler Kasper Bro Larsen, Recognizing the Stranger: Recognition Scenes in the Gospel of John, reviewed by Dorothy Lee Ramsay MacMullen, The Second Church: Popular Christianity A.D. 200–400, reviewed by Charles Bobertz John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (Volume 4: Law and Love), reviewed by Susan Graham Stanley E. Porter and Wendy J. Porter, eds., New Testament Greek Papyri and Parchments: New Editions: Texts and Plates, reviewed by Thomas Kraus Loren Stuckenbruck, 1 Enoch 91–108, reviewed by Archie T. Wright Jerry L. Sumney, Colossians: A Commentary, reviewed by Angela Standhartinger Jewish Scriptures and Cognate Fields ...

Various people have expressed, at different points, the wish that David Black’s blog had its own feed, but Google Reader users can now have this feed—somewhat. Last week, the Official Google Reader Blog announced an update to Google Reader that allows individual users, much as they would add any normal feed within Reader itself, to have Google Reader watch for changes on any webpage. ...

Zotero 2.0 release candidates three and four have been released with several improvements, including upgrades and fixes for the synchronization and indexing functionality. As always, new Zotero users can download the latest version from the Zotero homepage. For those who may be interested, although composed for Zotero 1.5, the screencast below still highlights the main features of Zotero 2.0. ...