Divinity United

"...a solely eschatological understanding of “apocalyptic” overlooks the way in which the revelatory nature of apocalypses may have influenced New Testament language and its portrayal of revelation."  For more see, 'Jewish Apocalyptic Tradition in the New Testament' at BibleInterp.com .

The Daily Mail Online has run a piece today entitled: "' Jesus NEVER existed': Writer finds no mention of Christ in 126 historical texts and says he was a 'mythical character .'" The writer is Michael Paulkovich who is described as a "historical researcher." (It is probably worth mentioning that the next story that the Daily Mail suggests its readers view is "Has 'Dracula's dungeon' been unearthed in Turkey?") As the title, and every following paragraph, states, Paulkovich did not find reference to Jesus in 126 ancient historical writers (his list is provided), and so therefore, Paulkovich believes Jesus was mythical. The assumption built in here is that by the end of the first century Jesus was famous enough throughout the Roman Empire that any decent historian would have mentioned him: "all of whom should have heard of Jesus but did not."  Yet, it should be obvious that this is clearly an argument from sile...

It has been a while since posting, but I have been meaning to get to this one. I wanted to formally apologize to Dr. Saeed Hamid-Khani for not making use of his published thesis in the writing of my own thesis on the Gospel of John. Hamid-Khani's thesis was published as: Revelation and Concealment ofChrist: Theological Inquiry into the Elusive Language of the Fourth Gospel  (WUNT II/120; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000) . It was examined by William Horbury and C.K. Barrett. John Philip M. Sweet was Hamid-Khani's supervisor.  In the course of working on an essay related to the topic of "revelation" in the Gospel of John, I ran across the title of Hamid-Khani's book. I was able to get a copy through interlibrary loan and waded my way through the immense amount of work that the volume contains. The striking contribution of Hamid-Khani's thesis is his  challenge  to Rudolf Bultmann's claim that what is revealed in John's Gospel is an empty revelation fo...

I was sorry to hear this week that Professor Maurice Casey passed away on 10 May 2014. There have been numerous postings in honour of Professor Casey, from longer interactions with his scholarship by his former student James Crossley (parts one and two ), Mark Goodacre , Larry Hurtado , and Dominic Mattos , to a number of announcements and annecdotes shared by Jim Davila , Jim West , Peter Head ( in comment ), and Chris Keith , as well as others I have not read. I had the privilege of meeting Maurice on a few occasions while I was working on my doctoral thesis on the Son of Man in John. Like Peter Head, I met Maurice at the annual conference on the use of the OT in the NT held at St. Deneiol's library in Hawarden. My paper was scheduled for the last day of the conference, and on the preceding evening, Maurice told me that my paper on the Son of Man in Daniel 7 and John 5:27 was the paper he was most looking forward to hearing. For a doctoral student who knew he was going to be ...

For those interested in the fragment called "The Gospel of Jesus' Wife" and the controversy around it -- forgery or not, see Mark Goodacre's helpful collection of links to recent comments and stories about the Coptic papyrus fragment.

For those interested in what some biblical scholars are saying about Reza Aslan's book Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. A selection of reviews and blog comments are located below. I highly recommend Robert Gundry's razor-sharp review, but you can't go wrong with Le Donne, Hurtado, Evans, and Carey either. Reviews:  Robert Gundry's review of Zealot  in Books and Culture "Jesus as a Jewish Jihadist":  http://www.booksandculture.com/articles/2013/novdec/jesus-as-jewish-jihadist.html Anthony Le Donne at Jesus Blog:  http://historicaljesusresearch.blogspot.ca/2013/07/a-usually-happy-fellow-reviews-aslans.html#more Larry Hurtado:  http://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/zombie-claims-and-jesus-the-zealot/ Craig Evans at Christianity Today:  http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/august-web-only/zealot-reza-aslan-tells-same-old-story-about-jesus.html Greg Carey at the Huffington Post:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-care...

Recently the Guardian Data Blog brought together a number of data images of the Bible in a post entitled "Holy Infographics: the Bible Visualised." The above image is the first of those images. I think that the image itself is actually quite beautiful in the rainbow like arcing of color, especially when the high resolution image is viewed (find that here ). The image is attributed to Christoph Römhild and Chris Harrison. And the following description of the image is given:   "This is about how the bible speaks to itself - or the textual cross-references within it. The bar graph that runs along the bottom represents all of the chapters in the Bible. Books alternate between white and light gray and the length of each bar denotes the number of verses in the chapter. Each of the 63,779 cross references found in the Bible is depicted by a single arc - the color corresponds to the distance between the two chapters, creating a rainbow-like effect." This ap...

An excellent Pre-SBL conference is being jointly hosted by St. Mary's Seminary and University and the John, Jesus, and History Group. The headline speakers will be James Dunn and Alan Culpepper who have been outstanding contributors to Johannine scholarship. Other noteworthies include John Ashton, Jan van der Watt, Craig Koester, and Catrin Williams. The conference is subtitled "Engaging the Legacies of C.H. Dodd and R.E. Brown." Looks to be a highlight of SBL even before SBL begins. Details below: John, Jesus, and History Engaging the Legacies of C.H. Dodd and Raymond E. Brown A Pre-SBL Conference at Saint Mary’s Seminary & University, Baltimore November 20-22, 2013 Program as of May 1, 2013 Sponsored by the John, Jesus, and History section of SBL and St. Mary’s Seminary & University Conference fee: $150 (June 1 to October 15; $170 thereafter) (includes program, lunch and dinner Thursday, coffee breaks, reception) WEDNESDAY ...

The McMaster Bingham Colloquium will be held on June 8, 2013, and the title of this year's Bingham Colloquium is "Rejection: God's Refugees". The schedule can be found here . The description of the one day colloquium that will revolve around the topic of Diaspora is as follows: "God’s people have always lived as exiles and refugees–from the ancient Israelites to Christians throughout history. This conference explores what it means for God’s people of any age to live as those rejected by their surrounding cultures, and living in the world as refugees. For some, this takes the character of spiritual isolation, living a life of faith within a hostile alien culture. For others, this means living outside their land of origin among strangers and even those hostile to them and their beliefs. This conference explores what it means to be God’s refugees in four broad sweeps–from the Old Testament and its tales of exile, to the Second Temple period and Jewish...

For a longer and more well-informed critique  on the New New Testament (the same topic as my previous  post ) see Daniel Wallace's post here .

Isaac Oliver has a great piece in the recent New Testament Studies on the ritual purity question concerning Peter staying in the home of Simon the Tanner in Acts 9:43. "Simon Peter Meets Simon the Tanner: The Ritual Insignificance of Tanning in Ancient Jerusalem," NTS 59 (2013): 50-60. Oliver shows the overwhelming way in which New Testament scholars have explained Peter's staying with Simon the Tanner as a nascent disregard for ritual purity even before Peter's vision in Acts 10 of the sheet with unclean animals. This is a comment I admit to having made in my courses on a number of occasions, but as Oliver points out, this is what the guild has taught us. The strength of the article is the way in which Oliver delves into the rabbinic sources on tanning and how the rabbis dislike of the occupation has been interpreted as a dislike based on ritual impurity. Oliver shows that their dislike is often due to the messiness and smelliness of the business and not due to r...

Just a couple quotes from Robert H. Gundry's essay "Hermeneutic Liberty, Theological Diversity, and Historical Occasionalism in the Biblical Canon" in his book The Old is Better: New Testament Essays in Support of Traditional Interpretations (pp. 1-17). "...the Christ of the NT insists on questioning us before answering us. Here as elsewhere in the Bible the text interprets us before we interpret it" (15). "...it is not enough to know what the Scriptures teach; we also need to discern what is appropriate and inappropriate to be said from them in any given situation" (16).

The following quote is N.T. Wright's paper  ‘Mind, Spirit, Soul and Body: All for One and One for All Reflectionson Paul’s Anthropology in his Complex Contexts’ given at the  Society of Christian Philosophers: Regional Meeting, Fordham University in March 2011.  In his paper, Wright discusses the body/soul dualism as it is often addressed within philosophical circles. Coming from his understanding of Paul and other NT writings, he argues that as human beings we are made up of a unified mind, body, soul, and spirit. These aspects cannot be separated, but we are fully and wholly one. The resurrection is thus the remaking of the whole person and not just the body. This quote is part of the heart of his argument of which there is much to ponder. "...we do not need what has been called ‘dualism’ to help us over the awkward gap between bodily death and bodily resurrection. Yes, of course, we have to postulate that God looks after those who have died in the Mess...

Robert Gundry's fifth edition of his Survey of the New Testament came out in June 2012 (just six months ago). The new edition has some added photos and a different pagination, but one of the biggest benefits is available online through Zondervan's " Textbook Plus ." Students are able to create an account and have access to online quizzes and flash cards that match the "People to Remember," "Places to Remember," "Terms to Remember," and "How much did you learn?" sections at the end of each chapter. The focus of all these materials is clearly on student learning, and now there are multiple ways for students to engage in active learning. Gundry's survey textbook is still one of the best NT surveys, in my opinion, because of the way in which students are encouraged to actually read the text of the NT rather than merely reading about background content. The historical, cultural, social, and biblical context information is not ...

The Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity Conference organized by Chris Keith and Anthony Le Donne and hosted by United Theological Seminary and the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio, took place on October 4 and 5. It was a great conference. I am always a fan of smaller conferences where there is more interaction and discussion on a single topic and the related issues. The core of the conference were presentations by the contributors to the volume edited by Keith and Le Donne and bearing the same title as the conference. Each paper was an argument against the basic premise of each of the criteria of authenticity as they have been used in historical Jesus studies. You can read the book to get the details and you can read Mark Goodacre's blog for the play by play ( Oct 4 and 5 ). There is a question as to what the demise of the criteria of authenticity means for historical Jesus study and whether their demise is eminent. While many of the presenters highlighted th...

In his 1964 introduction to "Apocalyptic," P. Vielhauer defines apocalyptic as primarily focused on eschatology or the imminent expectation of the end ("Introduction," in E. Hennecke, New Testament Apocrypha (W. Schneemelcher, ed.; R. McL. Wilson, ed. ET; vol. 2; London: Lutterworth Press, 1965) 581-607). The majority of scholars of apocalyptic literature today would not define "apocalyptic" as essentially eschatology. The following quote highlights some of the difficulties of defining "apocalyptic" and the contents of apocalypses. "'For the youth of the world is past; the strength of the creation has long ago come to its end, and the approach of the times is (already) at hand and (indeed already) passed by. For the pitcher is near to the well, the ship to harbour, the caravan to the city, and life to its conclusion' (syr. Bar. 85:10). "This cosmological statement makes it clear that the conviction concerning the nearne...

A great opportunity to do post-doctoral work with an excellent NT scholar has recently been advertised. See below for details.   Post Doc: Durham University: forwarded on behalf of Prof. Francis Watson Post Doctoral Researcher "The Fourfold Gospel and its Rivals" Durham University - Department of Theology and Religion Salary (£) 23811 - 29249 University of Durham AHRC-Funded Project on "The Fourfold Gospel and its Rivals": The Department of Theology and Religion seeks applicants with doctoral- level expertise in New Testament studies and/or Patristics, for a position as Postdoctoral Researcher on a project entitled "The Fourfold Gospel and its Rivals". This will be funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) under its Research Grant scheme, and led by Prof. Francis Watson. Applicants should have completed their PhD within the past three years (i.e. since January 2009), or be intending to submit no later than May 2012. The postholder w...

Larry Hurtado has recently made some comments about the state of the British PhD on his blog (see links below). Apparently some NT PhD candidates in the UK are submitting PhD theses when they do not have a reading knowledge of Koine Greek, German, or French. Nor is it apparent that some students can understand and explain the textual variants of a passage from the Nestle-Aland apparatus. It is disappointing (although not entirely shocking) that some UK PhD candidates have come to this point. The blame can largely be placed on the universities (and I think the supervisors of these students should shoulder some of it, unless of course, the students have not heeded their supervisors warnings and advice. The latter does happen!). Hurtado explains in the third post listed below some of the pressures placed on UK universities by the government that have led to this.  As the graduate of a British PhD programme, I understand how this can happen. The situation is unfortunate and only spel...

Dr. Simon Gathercole will be giving two lectures at Tyndale University College on Thursday, November 17, 2011. The formal announcement has now been made. The first lecture is entitled "In Defence of Substitution: The Atonement in Paul" and will be given over lunch (11:45-1:00) on the Tyndale Ballyconnor Campus. The second lecture is open to the public and is entitled "Who were the Gnostics? Their Beliefs, Practices, and Gospels". This lecture will take place at 7:00pm in the auditorium (NB: not the chapel!) at the Tyndale Bayview Campus (Sisters of St. Joseph). If you would like further information on either lecture, please let me know and watch the Tyndale website for further information. Dr. Simon Gathercole is Senior Lecturer in New Testament in the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge. He is editor of the Journal for the Study of the New Testament and is well-known for his books Where is Boasting? Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul's Respon...

During the week of Oct 3-7, 2011, a number of NT scholars, pastors, and students will be posting blog entries on Bruce Fisk's, A Hitchhiker's Guide to Jesus . This will be a great opportunity to find out other opinions about the book from a variety of perspectives. Here is the link: http://hitchhikersblogtour.wordpress.com/ . Check out the list of bloggers and blog who will be reviewing. I am looking forward to reading what everyone has to say.