Divinity United

I just added a link under "Biblical Studies Resources" to BiblicalStudies.org.uk . This is a great resource for looking up commentaries, articles, and other secondary literature for studying the Bible. The site had some links to articles for a current project I am working on. Take a look and see what it has to offer.

"The challenge of the Christian interpreter in our day is to hear the full range of notes within all Scripture, to wrestle with the theological implication of this biblical witness, and above all, to come to grips with the agony of our age before a living God who still speaks through the Prophets and Apostles." --the concluding sentence of Brevard S. Childs, "Psalm 8 in the Context of the Christian Canon," Interpretation 23.1 (1969), 20-31 (31).

There looks to be a great conference at Lincoln Christian University on the forthcoming book edited by Chris Keith and Anthony Le Donne: Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity (T&T Clark/Continuum, 2012). The major contributors to the book will be at the conference and some of them include Dale Allison, Mark Goodacre, Jens Schroeter, and Loren Stuckenbruck. Morna Hooker has written the   foreward , which is posted at the T&T Clark blog, and the opening line is priceless! The premise of the book is that the criteria of authenticity have never really yielded us an objective view of the historical Jesus. This book has been a long time coming. I am looking forward to its release. [30 May 2012 -- new location for the conference!]

In the Economist's The World in 2012 edition there is an interesting piece by Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, entitled "Sharing to the power of 2012" (p. 50). She opens by talking about Mark Zuckerberg's "law of sharing." This "law" is Zuckerberg's assertion that every year the amount of information shared digitally will double. She says, "Around the globe, people will share more and more of their lives online, transforming relationships on every level--personal, commercial and institutional." In the article she talks about the positives of sharing and how organ donors have been found through sharing information on social media and how money has been raised for charity. (However, there wasn't any mention of the people who have had their homes broken into when they share the dates of their holiday.) So there are some positive aspects of social media. The Arab Spring is an excellent example. One of San...

Saturday, February 4, 2012, is the 3rd Tyndale Biblical Studies Symposium . There will be seven papers given by Tyndale Faculty and alumni. The time is from 9:30am-4:00pm. No lunch is provided but there will be coffee and tea. It looks to be a great day.

At the close of last semester, I had the privilege of reviewing Anathea Portier-Young's recent book, Apocalypse Against Empire: Theologies of Resistance in Early Judaism (Eerdmans, 2011) . The review will hopefully be coming out in the Review of Biblical Literature  within the next six months (see review here ). The book is well done and I recommend it for those interested in early Judaism and Jewish apocalypses, as well as those who work in the area of New Testament. The background that she provides on the Seleucid and Hasmonean periods is stellar. Portier-Young presents a solid argument that Daniel, the Book of Dreams, and the Apocalypse of Weeks were written as apocalypses against empire. She provides an in depth look at the Seleucid regime under Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the terror of his imperial rule. Portier-Young also gives a helpful reminder that the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid empire is not the same as Jewish rejection of Hellenism. Her book is a valuable l...