For some reason, I have always felt the least confident in the minor prophets. Perhaps it is the anthological structure of the books that makes it difficult to remember the contents of each book, the region and dates in which they ministered, and their theological themes. I generally devote some time each year to reading chapters in a new introduction to the minor….
This book was the product of a symposium in Perth Australia at Trinity Theological College. Key speakers were Larry Hurtado, Roland Deines, Allan Chapple, and Mark Seifrid. As the title indicates, the papers focused on the use of Scripture in early Christianity and what we can glean from that for knowledge about the emergence of early Christianity, and topic very well connected with Hurtado’s work….
In recent years I have noticed a lot of criticism of Christians who love Jer 29:11 and have personalized it for their lives. Recently even the Babylon Bee satirizes a young Christian who has it as a tattoo to commemorate his return from exile in Babylon. You certainly have hear it quoted, but here it is again….
Anderson’s purpose is to analyze the dual biblical theological theme of blessing and cursing across the OT. Whereas previous scholarship has been interested in the supposed magic of the words, Anderson chooses instead to apply speech-act theory to the various instances of blessing and cursing….
In this four part series, I look at the four sections in Matthew 1-2 and how Matthew utilizes Old Testament passages that are “fulfilled” in the life of the Young Messiah. Find the rest of the series here….
This year’s Institute for Biblical Research’s plenary speaker was Craig Bartholomew. He spoke on a biblical philosophy of history, which he draws out of the Old Testament, focusing in his talk on the view of God and history espoused in Ps 93, the first of the “YHWH mlk” psalms (“Yahweh reigns”). This theory comes largely out of his new….
There are several different types of Greek Bibles and all have strengths and weaknesses–for both the disciplined and the undisciplined among us.
In 2012 I was in the Dominican Republic helping to rebuild a church when I got into a discussion about whether we really needed the Old Testament. I tried to defend the OT by arguing that the NT by itself would be like a childrens’ coloring book, with all the shapes drawn but with no color to fill in the pictures to get all the fullness of the biblical picture of God and his purposes. I also pointed out that many heresies likely would arise without the OT to guide us in our understanding of God. Well, John Goldingay has done away with a defensive strategy and he’s gone on the offense. He flips the common question of whether we need the OT on its head and asks: Do we really need the New Testament?…
Craig Keener’s Bible Background Commentary has sold over half a million copies. It was first published in 1993 and has been of great assistance to students and pastors for a quick reference to the background issues at stake in a certain passage. What’s the deal with head coverings? Baptism for the dead? Who are the Epicureans? What was Ephesus like, and what is the Temple of Artemis? These are questions that you could certainly Wikipedia in a jam, but why not allow a seasoned scholar who focuses on NT background explain it for you? And he does it in one not-so-large volume!
Biblical Studies Anthony Petterson, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi (Apollos Old Testament Commentary) Michael Gorman, Becoming the Gospel (The Gospel and Our Culture Series), Kindle Edition