Divinity United

I have just added a link to Early Christianity under "Journals" at the right. The journal Early Christianity which was started in 2010 is now in its third volume and tenth issue, June 2012, Vol. 3, number 2. The editors are Jörg Frey, Clare K. Rothschild, Jens Schröter and Francis Watson. Here is the website comment: The journal is concerned with early Christianity as a historical phenomenon. Thereby, “Early Christianity” aims to overcome certain limitations which have hindered the development of the discipline, including the concept of the “New Testament” itself. The journal, then, is taken to cover not only the first Christian century but also the second. This journal will not, however, give any special prominence to reception-history or to the second century. The total phenomenon called "early Christianity" comprises a kaleidoscopic range of individual phenomena, including communal structures, social norms, discursive practices, points of confli...

I am teaching Isaiah in the NT this semester and one of the books we are reading for the course is Three Views on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology) . In the third major essay, Peter Enns makes some comments on studying the Bible's historical context. He states (p. 170-171): "My reason for fronting the issue of the NT hermeneutical context is not an attempt to place historical study 'over' Scripture somehow. Rather, I simply wish to acknowledge that God himself, in Scripture, has spoken in time and space, and we honor him by taking seriously those contexts in which he, by his wisdom, has chosen to speak. To engage in such historical investigation is not to suggest that God's Word is somehow a slave to historical circumstances, but it is a reminder that the Bible is not a heavenly treatise, hurled down to earth from an Olympian height, or a Platonic ideal kept at a safe distance from the human drama. Rather, God is the L...