Divinity United

Previously, I have commented on the  "10 hour" miniseries on "The Bible" with regard to its portrayal of angels and its portrayal of certain characters such as John the Baptist. I would like to conclude my three part series by addressing what to me were two of the weakest moments of "The Bible" from a biblical and theological perspective. To be fair I will finish with a few comments on what I think is the most powerful scene of the 10 hours. (Comments on this scene have already been made by Rachel McMillan .) The first of the two weak moments I want to mention is the calling of Peter . This scene has problems for me because there is a cheesiness to it, while it is also a bit off both biblically and theologically. This account of the calling of Peter comes from Luke 5 and not from Matthew or Mark or John. In Luke's account, Peter, James, and John become disciples after Jesus gets into Simon Peter's boat and asks Peter to take him out into the ...

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...