Divinity United

Jason Maston asked me some questions recently about the recent book I co-edited on the relationship between biblical and systematic theology: https://dunelm.wordpress.com/2014/11/10/ben-reynolds-on-biblical-and-systematic-theology-author-interview/. Thanks, Jason and the Dunelm crew.

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...

I recently received an email from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt publishers about the release of a book edited by Hal Taussig called A New New Testament: A Bible for the 21st Century Combining Traditional and Newly Discovered Texts . The book is the traditional or canonical New Testament with the addition of ten texts that have been found in Egypt and elsewhere over the last one hundred years. The Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary are two of these texts. Hal Taussig is a founding member of the Jesus Seminar, and he gathered "a council of scholars and spiritual leaders" to talk about the various apocryphal New Testament texts and to vote about which ones to include in the New New Testament. I could only find the list of council members on the short video on the website. Some of this group include Karen King, Stephen Moore, and John Dominic Crossan. The case made in the promotional material is that these ten texts are early Christian literature and some of it "has be...