Christianity

Daily Gleanings about what’s available through the British Library’s “Discovering Sacred Texts” web portal.

The Baker Illustrated Bible Dictionary is a helpful resource with some useful enhancements in the Logos Bible Software version.

The new Judaism and Rome project “aims to:

• give access to some important sources, providing as much information as possible: images, original text, translation
• provide the reader with an original and detailed analysis of each source, a service that is very rarely offered on the internet, and which makes this website comparable to a rich sourcebook
• promote interdisciplinary discussion between scholars working on Roman history, Jewish Studies, Epigraphy, Numismatics, Classics, Patristics, History of Christianity, etc.”

Several interesting resources have already been made available with the promise of more to come.

The Review of Biblical Literature contains Jason Myers’s helpful and appreciative review of Teresa Morgan’s Roman Faith and Christian Faith: Pistis and Fides in the Early Roman Empire and Early Churches (OUP, 2015).

The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include:

• Markus Bockmuehl and Guy G. Stroumsa, eds., Paradise in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Views, reviewed by Pieter G. R. de Villiers
• Tony Burke, ed., Ancient Gospel or Modern Forgery?: The Secret Gospel of Mark in Debate: Proceedings from the 2011 York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium, reviewed by James F. McGrath
• Andrew R. Davis, Tel Dan in Its Northern Cultic Context, reviewed by Bob Becking and by Aren M. Maeir
• Stephen Finlan, The Family Metaphor in Jesus’ Teaching: Gospel Imagery and Application, reviewed by Joanna Dewey
• Kai Kaniuth, Anne Löhnert, Jared L. Miller, Adelheid Otto, Michael Roaf, and Walther Sallaberger, eds., Tempel im Alten Orient, reviewed by Jeffrey L. Morrow
• Emma Loosley, The Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema in Fourth- to-Sixth-Century Syrian Churches, reviewed by Robert Morehouse
• Elvira Martín Contreras and Guadalupe Seijas de los Ríos-Zarzosa, Masora: La transmisión de la tradición de la Biblia Hebrea, reviewed by Amparo Alba Cecilia
• Halvor Moxnes, Jesus and the Rise of Nationalism: A New Quest for the Nineteenth Century Historical Jesus, reviewed by Craig A. Evans
• Pheme Perkins, First Corinthians, reviewed by H. H. Drake Williams III

The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include:

• Francis Borchardt, The Torah in 1 Maccabees: A Literary Critical Approach to the Text, reviewed by Thomas Hieke
• Cilliers Breytenbach and Jörg Frey, eds., Reflections on the Early Christian History of Religion—Erwägungen zur frühchristlichen Religionsgeschichte, reviewed by Thomas J. Kraus
• Walter Dietrich, Die Samuelbücher im deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerk: Studien zu den Geschichtsüberlieferungen des Alten Testaments II, reviewed by Mark W. Hamilton
• James D. G. Dunn, The Oral Gospel Tradition, reviewed by David B. Sloan
• Paul S. Evans and Tyler F. Williams, eds., Chronicling the Chronicler: The Book of Chronicles and Early Second Temple Historiography, reviewed by Michael D. Matlock
• Katharina Galor and Hanswulf Bloedhorn, The Archaeology of Jerusalem: From the Origins to the Ottomans, reviewed by Aren M. Maeir
• Moshe Garsiel, From Earth to Heaven: A Literary Study of the Eliijah Stories in the Book of Kings, reviewed by Keith Bodner and by David A. Glatt-Gilad
• Alison Ruth Gray, Psalm 18 in Words and Pictures: A Reading through Metaphor, reviewed by Leslie C. Allen
• Mignon R. Jacobs and Raymond F. Person Jr., eds., Israelite Prophecy and the Deuteronomistic History: Portrait, Reality, and the Formation of a History, reviewed by James M. Bos and by Thomas Wagner
• Ronald Jolliffe, Gertraud Harb, Christoph Heil, Anneliese Felber, and Angelika Magnes, Q11: 39a, 42, 39b, 41, 43-44: Woes against the Pharisees, reviewed by Peter J. Judge
• W. G. Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths, reviewed by Michael S. Moore
• Daniel C. Matt, trans., The Zohar: Pritzker Edition (vol. 6), reviewed by Ralph K. Hawkins
• Abera M. Mengestu, God as Father in Paul: Kingship Language and Identity Formation in Early Christianity, reviewed by Inhee C. Berg
• Anthony M. Moore, Signs of Salvation: The Theme of Creation in John’s Gospel, reviewed by Brian J. Tabb
• Valérie Nicolet-Anderson, Constructing the Self: Thinking with Paul and Michel Foucault, reviewed by Chris L. de Wet
• Vernon K. Robbins, Who Do People Say I Am? Rewriting Gospel in Emerging Christianity, reviewed by Michael J. Kok
• David S. Vanderhooft and Abraham Winitzer, eds., Literature as Politics, Politics as Literature: Essays on the Ancient Near East in Honor of Peter Machinist, reviewed by Shawn W. Flynn
• Ryan Donald Wettlaufer, No Longer Written: The Use of Conjectural Emendation in the Restoration of the Text of the New Testament, the Epistle of James as a Case Study, reviewed by Jeff Cate

This month, Logos Bible Software is giving away Hans Iwand’s The Righteousness of Faith according to Luther (trans., Randi Lundell; Wipf & Stock, 2008, originally published in 1941). According to the product page, the volume:

is an important contribution to contemporary appreciation of Luther’s theological significance. Although Iwand wrote his study three decades after the beginning of the Luther Renaissance, it nevertheless developed some of the central insights of Luther scholarship during that period. Two concepts—in particular, promise and simultaneity—are crucial to an appreciative understanding of Luther’s doctrine of justification. The language of promise presents justification to the believer as a reality that has yet to arrive or is hidden under present reality. And the language of simultaneity attests that humans remain throughout their lives one in the same, sinner and saint.

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The latest reviews in the Review of Biblical Literature include:

Jewish Scriptures and Cognate Studies

• Peter Enns, The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say about Human Origins, reviewed by Paul Korchin
• Kai Kaniuth et al., eds., Tempel im Alten Orient, reviewed by Jason M. Silverman
• Christoph Körner and Hans-Winfried Jüngling, eds., “…denn das ist der ganze Mensch”: Jüdische Feste: Kohelet, Ester, Hoheslied, Rut, Klagelieder, reviewed by Andreas Lehnardt
• Michael Pietsch, Die Kultreform Josias: Studien zur Religionsgeschichte Israels in der späten Königszeit, reviewed by Peter Porzig

New Testament and Cognate Studies

The Journal of Biblical Literature 133, no. 2 includes:

• Joram Mayshar, “Who Was the Toshav?”
• Amitai Baruchi-Unna, “Two Clearings of Goats (1 Kings 20:27): An Interpretation Supported by an Akkadian Parallel”
• Ryan E. Stokes, “Satan, Yhwh’s Executioner”
• Saul M. Olyan, “Jehoiakim’s Dehumanizing Interment as a Ritual Act of Reclassification”
• John L. McLaughlin, “Is Amos (Still) among the Wise?”
• Christine Mitchell, “A Note on the Creation Formula in Zechariah 12:1–8; Isaiah 42:5–6; and Old Persian Inscriptions”
• Kristian Larsson, “Intertextual Density, Quantifying Imitation”
• J. R. Daniel Kirk and Stephen L. Young, “‘I Will Set His Hand to the Sea’: Psalm 88:26 LXX and Christology in Mark”
• Jennifer Knust and Tommy Wasserman, “The Biblical Odes and the Text of the Christian Bible: A Reconsideration of the Impact of Liturgical Singing on the Transmission of the Gospel of Luke”
• Brittany E. Wilson, “The Blinding of Paul and the Power of God:Masculinity, Sight, and Self-Control in Acts 9”
• Brice C. Jones, “Three New Coptic Papyrus Fragments of 2 Timothy and Titus (P.Mich. inv. 3535b)”
• Nicola Denzey Lewis and Justine Ariel Blount, “Rethinking the Origins of the Nag Hammadi Codices”

This issue also introduces the “JBL Forum,” which is intended to provide “an occasional series that will highlight approaches, points of view, and even definitions of ‘biblical scholarship’ that may be outside the usual purview of many of our readers. The format may vary from time to time but will always include an exchange of ideas on the matter at hand” (pg. 421). This issue’s forum includes:

Through June 11, the Westminster Bookstore is offering a free PDF download of Iain Duguid’s Is Jesus in the Old Testament? (P&R, 2013). Duguid has been at Grove City College but has recently joined the Westminster Seminary faculty. According to its introduction, Duguid’s essay (the text is a brief 33 pages of prose) has the following major components to its argument:

[T]his little booklet contends that Christ is present throughout the Old Testament. . . . I also want to explore what it means to rightly see Christ in the Old Testament. Not every attempt to discern the figure of Jesus in the Old Testament has been profitable. Some well-meaning interpreters have allowed their imaginations to run wild on this theme . . . . Finally, I want to look at some specific ways in which the Old Testament focuses on and prepares us to see and understand Christ and his ministry in the gospel. ( 6)

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This month, Logos Bible Software has Frederic Perthes’ Life of John Chrysostom (John P. Jewett, 1854) available for free. According to Logos’s description,

Based on the investigations of Neander, Böhringer, and others, Life of John Chrysostom details the “golden-mouthed” orator’s influence on Asia Minor. It offers a look into his role as preacher and bishop, his interactions with different sects and notable persons during his life, and an exacting account of his three-year exile.

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Through June 16, Ben Witherington’s What’s in the Word: Rethinking the Socio-Rhetorical Character of the New Testament (Baylor, 2009) is available for free from Logos Bible Software.

In sum, “Expanding on the work in which he has been fruitfully engaged for over a quarter century, Witherington challenges the previously assured results of historical criticism and demonstrates chapter by chapter how the socio-rhetorical study shifts the paradigm.” The volume discusses concerns related to orality and canon, and includes several chapters treating particular texts or phrases within the New Testament.

The June free book of the month seems already to be live on the Logos Bible Software website. The included text is Walter Brueggemann’s Spirituality of the Psalms (Fortress, 2001). The optional, $0.99 add on is Brueggemmann’s David’s Truth: In Israel’s Imagination and Memory (Fortress, 2002).

[caption id=“attachment_2129” align=“alignright” width=“87”] Richard Bauckham[/caption]

In his 2006 Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Richard Bauckham suggests:

that we need to recover the sense in which the Gospels are testimony. This does not mean that they are testimony rather than history. It means that the kind of historiography they are is testimony. An irreducible feature of testimony as a form of human utterance is that it asks to be trusted. This does not mean that it asks to be trusted uncritically, but it does mean that testimony should not be treated as credible only to the extent that it can be independently verified. There can be good reasons for trusting or distrusting a witness, but these are precisely reasons for trusting or distrusting. Trusting testimony is not an irrational act of faith that leaves critical rationality aside; it is, on the contrary, the rationally appropriate way of responding to authentic testimony. . . . It is true that a powerful trend in the modern development of critical historical philosophy and method finds trusting testimony a stumbling-block in the way of the historian’s autonomous access to truth that she or he can verify independently. But it is also a rather neglected fact that all history, like all knowledge, relies on testimony. ( 5; italics original)

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According to Amazon,

Special pricing is available on select Kindle Fire tablets to Amazon Student members with an active Prime account (six months free or $39/year plan). Join Amazon Student or start your discounted Prime membership to take advantage of this discount. The promo codes below will become available 24 hours after activation of your account, through September 1. New members, don’t forget to check your .edu email and verify your account.

How to Take Advantage of This Offer:1. Place one of the tablets below in your cart.2. At checkout, enter the appropriate promo code when prompted:FIREHD89: Kindle Fire HD 8.9” for $199 FIREHDST: Kindle Fire HD for $149 FIREDEAL: Kindle Fire for $129

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Recently, a number of noteworthy works have come into Logos Bible Software’s prepublication and community pricing programs. On the prepublication program are collections about biblical backgrounds (9 vols.; T. & T. Clark), the Prophets (16 vols.; T. & T. Clark), the Writings (5 vols.; T. & T. Clark), Old Testament literature and linguistics (7 vols.; T. & T. Clark), Hebrew Bible (7 vols.; T. & T. Clark), topics in Old Testament Studies (11 vols.; T. & T. Clark), Old Testament theology (9 vols.; Oxford University), biblical history and historiography (3 vols.; T. & T. Clark), Jewish Studies (6 vols.; T. & T. Clark), Jesus (10 vols.; T. & T. Clark); the Gospels and Acts (18 vols.; T. & T. Clark), Johannine literature (10 vols.; T. & T. Clark), the Pauline Epistles (10 vols.; T. & T. Clark), topics in New Testament Studies (11 vols.; T. & T. Clark), early Christianity (13 vols.; T. & T. Clark), apocrypha and pseudepigrapha (7 vols.; T. & T. Clark), Apostolic Fathers (29 vols.; various publishers), church history (18 vols.; Oxford); biblical interpretation (3 vols.; Pontifical Biblical Commission and 5 vols.; T. & T. Clark), biblical languages (35 vols.; Zondervan), bibliology (7 vols.; T. & T. Clark), the Bible in art (3 vols.; Standard), theological interpretation (4 vols.; T. & T. Clark), and Dietrich Bonhoeffer (3 vols.; T. & T. Clark), as well as the select Loeb Classical Library works by Tertullian and Minucius Felix (2 vols.) and Virgil (4 vols.).

Barry F. Parker has the latest article in the Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism, “‘Works of the Law’ and the Jewish Settlement in Asia Minor.” According to the article’s conclusion:

The first recourse for the Anatolian Jews under [social, political, and religious] pressure was not an appeal to ‘legalism’, but to ‘selective works of the law’, as is implied by the phrase ἔργα νόμου. The only appearance of this phrase from that time outside of Paul is found in 4QMMT. The use of ‘works of the law’ there confirms both that Paul is in (indirect) dialogue with those familiar with Essene terminology and that selectivity is in view. Although he speaks to a different audience about a different problem regarding the law in Romans, when Paul uses the phrase ἔργα νόμου in Romans 3, the immediate context is quite similar to what he addresses in Galatians. It is, in both cases, a matter of the righteousness of God, as expressed in the faithfulness of Christ (πίστις Χριστοῦ). This faithfulness of Christ suffices for both Jew and Gentile (pagan), who are equally condemned—in Galatians they are condemned for trying to supplement that faithfulness with a perverted version of the law, and in Romans they are condemned for perverting the law by their very efforts to fulfill it through a selective participation in it ( 96).

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