Todd Scacewater

Todd (PhD, Hermeneutics) serves with Wycliffe Bible Translators as a professor of international studies at Dallas International University.

Keep Your Greek: Taking Greek Electives

August 26, 2015

Todd Scacewater

When I was doing my MDiv, I had a good amount of elective hours: 18 if I remember correctly. Those are a precious 18 hours. For better or for worse, I had different goals in my first two years of my MDiv. I came to seminary probably wanting to pastor, and pretty quickly gained a passion for church planting. I was excited to study hard, prepare for church planting, and pastor a church that was faithful to the biblical picture for the church (whatever that is!). Now here I am, completing my dissertation in a PhD program in hermeneutics and teaching Greek and New Testament courses. That’s quite a distance from planting a church….

Huge Book Sale You Don’t Want to Miss

August 19, 2015

Todd Scacewater

B&H Academic has a ton of their books on huge sale for Kindle today. I already own most of these, but I picked up Everlasting Dominion by Merrill. Which books did you get?

Everlasting Dominion: A Theology of the Old Testament, by Eugene Merrill, $2.99

Colossians and Philemon (Exegetical Guide to the Greek New Testament) by Murray J. Harris, $0.99

Hebrews (The New American Commentary), by David L. Allen, $2.99….

Linguistics and the New Testament: Critical Junctures, eds. Stanley Porter and D. A. Carson

August 19, 2015

Todd Scacewater

T&T Clark is reissuing several studies from the JSNTSS series in their Library of New Testament Studies series. Many of these are valuable sets of essay, including the present volume, which contains papers that apply modern linguistic methods to the analysis of the New Testament. As in most sets of essays, some are more useful than others, but the volume gives a good sampling of what modern linguistics has to offer biblical scholars….

Philosophy Before Socrates: An Introduction with Texts and Commentaries, 2nd ed., by Richard D. McKirahan

August 17, 2015

Todd Scacewater

This work contains the primary texts containing information about the presocratic philosophers, with introductory notes and commentary on the texts. He organizes the material by topic to attempt to present each thinker in an organized fashion. The beauty of this book, as opposed to other “readers,” is that McKirahan presents “most, and in many cases all, of the fragments of the philosophers discussed, as well as other important evidence on their thought” (ix). There are cases where he cannot do this, for example, Hesiod’s Theogony, which is too long for full inclusion….

Weekly Roundup August 14, 2015

August 14, 2015

Todd Scacewater

Blogs

Eerdmans featured five great books by Stanley Hauerwas.

Book Deals

$0.99 on Kindle: Nine “Perspectives” Books from B&H Academic: Perspectives on….

On Sale from $0.99: “Perspectives” Books from B&H Academic

August 13, 2015

Todd Scacewater

I came across this huge sale today from B&H Academic on their Perspectives series (multiple views written by various authors in one volume). I already bought the volume on the ending of Mark and want to read it just to have the various views on it….

Greek Matters: Colossians 2:20 and Liberation from Fleshly Living

August 12, 2015

Todd Scacewater

Εἰ ἀπεθάνετε σὺν Χριστῷ ἀπὸ τῶν στοιχείων τοῦ κόσμου, τί ὡς ζῶντες ἐν κόσμῳ δογματίζεσθε; (Colossians 2:20)

There are two difficult elements of Greek grammar here, but, once sorted out, we see a powerful question posed to the Colossians. The first four words are simple enough, “If you died with Christ…” But the following preposition ἀπό seems strange following the verb ἀποθνῄσκω, “to die”; what does it mean to “die from” something? As you can imagine, it means more to “die to” or with reference to something, but even more than that. According to BDAG….

State Correspondence in the Ancient World, ed. Karen Radner

August 10, 2015

Todd Scacewater

The central starting point (it’s not quite a thesis; if it is, it’s an implicit one) for this volume is that “long-distance communication plays a key role in the cohesion and stability of early states, and in turn, these states invest in long-term communication strategies and networks” (1). The book is wide-ranging in both geography and chronology, ranging from the Eastern Assyrian Empire to the Western Roman empire, and from the 15th century BC to the 6th century AD. Each chapter covers one state (or a certain period of it): New Kingdom Egyptians, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Seleukids, and Romans. The pleasure of this book is that the authors met twice….

Weekly Roundup August 7, 2015

August 7, 2015

Todd Scacewater

Blogs

Brian Davidson at the Center for Ancient Christian Studies interviewed Ken Penner on his forthcoming book, The Verbal System of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which discusses how the Hebrew language evolved between the Bible and the Mishnah.

Larry Hurtado discusses the issue of the history of the emergence of orthodoxy….

ESV Verse-by-Verse Reference Bible from Crossway

August 6, 2015

Todd Scacewater

Crossway has released a new ESV Bible that lists each verse on its own line. I’m not one for this type of Bible, but I know many are, especially since it can facilitate Scripture memory by allowing you to single out and focus on one verse at a time. The major downside of a Bible like this is the inability to see the organization of thought via paragraphs, but sometimes paragraphs can lead you astray as well! I thought I might allow Crossway to try to convince you of the benefits….