happy birthday, amelia!

A very happy 10th birthday to our precious Amelia! You are growing up far too quickly! May this next year be filled with treasures of God's grace and mountains of his unexpected blessing...

back from israel

I returned from Israel late Friday night, safe but not quite sound - sick with some sort of bug. I think my body's getting the better of the battle at this point, but things are certainly not functioning normally yet. I don't know if this is related to some sickness I endured early in the trip - I spent two days in the hotel sick as a dog - but whatever it is I'm ready for it to be done.

Aside from dealing with sickness and worrying about things back home, the trip was amazing. This was not a normal tourist trip as we did some wandering in the desert and some hiking in the hill country. But we also did manage to see a few of the most significant archaeological and traditional sites related to the biblical narratives. In the near future I hope to put together some posts related to specific sites, but until then here are a few random pics from a prairie boy's first experience of Israel.

off to israel

My lightness of blogging will be even lighter over the next two weeks as I head off to Israel. If I can I may post some pics during the trip, but if not I will be sure to post some after I return.

Shalom!

latest biblioblogger of the month

Stephen Pfann, who contributes to the View from Jerusalem blog, is the biblioblogger of the month at Biblioblogs.com. You can read his interview with Jim West here: Blogger of the Month for May 2008.

latest biblical studies carnival

The latest edition of the Carnival has been posted by Jim West: Biblical Studies Carnival 29 (XXIX). Be sure to check out his comprehensive collection of the best in biblical studies blogging for April 2008.

latest review of biblical literature

The latest in RBL includes the following New Testament-related items of interest:

Eldon Jay Epp. Junia: The First Woman Apostle.
Reviewed by Nancy Calvert-Koyzis

Philip L. Mayo. "Those Who Call Themselves Jews": The Church and Judaism in the Apocalypse of John.
Reviewed by Jack T. Sanders

John Howard Schütz. Paul and the Anatomy of Apostolic Authority.
Reviewed by Graydon F. Snyder

latest journal for the study of the new testament

The latest issue of JSNT is online for subscribers, with abstracts available for all: June 2008, Volume 30, No. 4. This issue includes articles such as "Paul among the Philosophers: The Case of Sin in Romans 6-8" by Emma Wasserman, "Immortal Bodies, before Christ: Bodily Continuity in Ancient Greece and 1 Corinthians" by Dag Øistein Endsjø, and "Confession of the Son of God in the Exordium of Hebrews" by Scott Mackie.

latest currents in biblical research

The latest Currents in Biblical Research is now online for those with subscription access, abstracts available for all: June 2008, Volume 6, No. 3. This issue includes "Jewish Interpretation of Paul in the Last Thirty Years" by Michael Bird and Preston Sprinkle, and "Recent and Previous Research on the Pericope Adulterae (John 7.53—8.11)" by Chris Keith.

latest review of biblical literature

Better late than never, here are a couple of items of interest from the last round in the RBL:

Joseph A. Fitzmyer. The One Who Is to Come.
Reviewed by Jeffrey L. Staley

Kathy L. Gaca and L. L. Welborn, eds. Early Patristic Readings of Romans.
Reviewed by David A. Creech

death of vision

Slowly,
not quickly,
seeds plunged deep –
softly,
growing,
it blossoms
in strength and beauty.

Suddenly,
not slowly,
life stops –
sight falls to blackness,
dream gives way to death,
and all vision
is lost.

some british high church humour

A colleague sent along this YouTube item, the Weather Forecast according to the parodic sung liturgy of the Master Singers:


Also on YouTube, the Master Singers do The Highway Code:


These brought back some great memories of our year in England, and my own blog reflections on British weather and signage and pedestrian dangers...

latest scottish journal of theology

The latest issue of the Scottish Journal of Theology is online for subscribers with abstracts available for all: Volume 61, Issue 02, May 2008. There are a couple of articles of interest for New Testament studies, including "The Shape of Soteriology and the pistis Christou Debate" by David L. Stubbs.

latest review of biblical literature

Lots of interest among the most recent book reviews in RBL, including the following related to the New Testament:

John Barton. The Nature of Biblical Criticism.
Reviewed by James D. G. Dunn

Zeba A. Crook. Reconceptualising Conversion: Patronage, Loyalty, and Conversion in the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean.
Reviewed by Dietmar Neufeld

A. Andrew Das. Solving the Romans Debate.
Reviewed by Don Garlington

James M. Robinson. Jesus: According to the Earliest Witness.
Reviewed by Robert A. Derrenbacker Jr.

Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. The Power of the Word: Scripture and the Rhetoric of Empire.
Reviewed by Warren Carter

happy birthday, michael!

A happy 8th birthday to our son Michael! We are proud of you, how you are growing in so many ways and learning so much. May this next year be another year of learning new things, growing bigger and stronger, succeeding in new challenges, and trusting in Jesus more and more...

latest currents in biblical research

The latest Currents in Biblical Research is now online for those with subscription access, abstracts available for all: June 2008, Volume 6, No. 2. This issue includes "New Testament Greek Language and Linguistics in Recent Research" by Stanley E. Porter and Andrew W. Pitts, "What has Athens to Do with Patmos? Rhetorical Criticism of the Revelation of John (1980-2005)" by David A. Desilva, and "Women in Early Judaism: Twenty-five Years of Research and Reenvisioning" by Susan Marks.

latest review of biblical literature

The latest New Testament-related items at the RBL include the following of interest:

Ronald Herms. An Apocalypse for the Church and for the World: The Narrative Function of Universal Language in the Book of Revelation.
Reviewed by David L. Barr

J. A. (Bobby) Loubser. Oral and Manuscript Culture in the Bible: Studies on the Media Texture of the New Testament-Explorative Hermeneutics.
Reviewed by Alan Kirk

D. Francois Tolmie. Persuading the Galatians: A Text-Centred Rhetorical Analysis of a Pauline Letter.
Reviewed by Steven A. Hunt

Ulrich Wilckens. Theologie des Neuen Testaments, Vol. 1: Geschichte der urchristlichen Theologie.
Reviewed by Christoph Stenschke

latest novum testamentum

The latest issue of Novum Testamentum is now online for subscribers, with abstracts available for all: Volume 50, Number 2, 2008. Articles include "Leben im Gesetz Die paulinische Interpretation von Lev 18:5 (Gal 3:12; Röm 10:5)" by Nicole Chibici-Revneanu, and "The Anonymity of the New Testament History Books: A Stylistic Device in the Context of Greco-Roman and Ancient Near Eastern Literature" by Armin D. Baum.

the meaning of a phd

According to Canadian icon and humorist Stephen Leacock in the preface to his 1912 classic, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town:

The meaning of this degree is that the recipient of instruction is examined for the last time in his life, and is pronounced completely full. After this, no new ideas can be imparted to him.

latest biblical studies carnival

The latest edition of the Carnival is up and running at Chris Weimer's Thoughts on Antiquity blog: Biblical Studies Carnival XXVIII. Check it out for some of the best in biblical studies blogging for the month of March.

latest journal of theological studies

The latest issue of the Journal of Theological Studies has some New Testament-related items, including "The Roots of a 'Libertine' Slogan in 1 Corinthians 6:18" by Jay E. Smith. The full issue can be accessed here for subscribers, with abstracts available for all: Volume 59, Number 1, April 2008.

latest biblioblogger of the month

The latest blogger of the month over at Biblioblogs.com is Doug Chaplin, author of MetaCatholic. You can read his interview here: Blogger of the Month for April 2008.

mark noll on evangelicals and biblical criticism

As a further note on historical evangelical perspectives related to the issues surrounding the Peter Enns suspension, here's a very illuminating book I would highly recommend, written by the dean of historians of evangelicalism: Mark Noll, Between Faith and Criticism: Evangelicals, Scholarship, and the Bible in America. Written in the mid '80s after the "Bible Wars" of the '70s, this book went to a second edition in the early '90s, and its usefulness continues on to this very day...

b. b. warfield on the divine and human dimensions of scripture

This is worth re-posting in light of the recent events at Westminster Theological Seminary regarding Peter Enns and his book Inspiration and Incarnation. It's essentially an incarnational model of inspiration from that highly-regarded Reformed Princetonian, that "pre-Westminster Westminsterian," B. B. Warfield – a full century before Peter Enns started teaching at Westminster:

"In the first place, we may be sure that they [the human and divine dimensions of Scripture] are not properly conceived when one factor or element is so exaggeratingly emphasized as to exclude the other altogether. . . . We may be equally sure that the relation of the divine and human in inspiration and in the Bible are not properly conceived when they are thought of, as elements in the Bible, as lying over against each other, dividing the Bible between them; or, as factors in inspiration, as striving against and excluding each other, so that where one enters the other is pushed out. . . . Justice is done to neither factor of inspiration and to neither element in the Bible, the human or the divine, by any other conception of the mode of inspiration except that of concursus, or by any other conception of the Bible except that which conceives of it as a divine-human book, in which every word is at once divine and human. . . . The fundamental principle of this conception is that the whole of Scripture is the product of divine activities which enter it, however, not by superseding the activities of the human authors, but confluently with them; so that the Scriptures are the joint product of divine and human activities, both of which penetrate them at every point, working harmoniously together to the production of a writing which is not divine here and human there, but at once divine and human in every part, every word and every particular. According to this conception, therefore, the whole Bible is recognized as human, the free product of human effort, in every part and word. And at the same time, the whole Bible is recognized as divine, the Word of God, his utterances, of which he is in the truest sense the Author." (B. B. Warfield, "The Divine and Human in the Bible" [1894])

latest review of biblical literature

The latest New Testament-related items in the RBL include the following of interest:

Joan Cecelia Campbell. Kinship Relations in the Gospel of John.
Reviewed by Ritva H. Williams

John Fotopoulos, ed. The New Testament and Early Christian Literature in Greco-Roman Context: Studies in Honor of David E. Aune.
Reviewed by Michael Labahn and Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr

Paul M. Fullmer. Resurrection in Mark's Literary-Historical Perspective.
Reviewed by John Dart

James K. Mead. Biblical Theology: Issues, Methods, and Themes.
Reviewed by James D. G. Dunn

latest new testament studies

The latest issue of the journal New Testament Studies is online for subscribers, with abstracts available for everyone: Volume 54 - Issue 02 - April 2008. Articles include "Mission in Matthew against the Horizon of Matthew 24" by Vicky Balabanski, "Auferweckt und erhöht: Zur Genese des Osterglaubens" by Ulrich B. Müller, and "Nochmals zu den ‘schwachen und unfähigen Elementen’ (Gal 4.9): Paulus, Philo und die στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου " by Johannes Woyke.