Religion

The Database of Religious History tries to address the volume of scholarly literature being produced and the difficulty of keeping current with it all.

Gleanings about social media and religion, as well as newly digitized Greek New Testament manuscripts.

Recently, I noted that an English Standard Version audio Bible was freely available with registration at Bible.is. This version’s Old Testament is also still freely available in MP3 format on Amazon.

In addition to these, Logos Bible Software is now giving away the ESV audio Bible read by David Cochran Heath. This resource “is available for streaming only and cannot be stored on your device. A reliable internet connection is required for use,” but it does sync “word-for-word” with the Logos ESV text.

The latest issue of Currents in Biblical Research includes the following:

• Serge Frolov, “Sleeping with the Enemy: Recent Scholarship on Sexuality in the Book of Judges”
• Jason Hood and Matthew Emerson, “Summaries of Israel’s Story: Reviewing a Compositional Category”
• Coleman Baker, “Peter and Paul in Acts and the Construction of Early Christian Identity: A Review of Historical and Literary Approaches”
• Bruce Worthington, “Alternative Perspectives beyond the Perspectives: A Summary of Pauline Studies that has Nothing to Do with Piper or Wright”
• F. S. Naiden, “Recent Study of Greek Religion in the Archaic through Hellenistic Periods”

Jim Davila notes a report of a new German bill that explicitly permits the continued practice of infant male circumcision on religious grounds. The legality of the practice in Germany had been thrown into question by a related decision by the Cologne court earlier this year.