A "Pick List" for Historical Jesus Studies

   
Loren Rosson has posted his "pick list" of authors he believes to have made crucially significant contributions to historical Jesus studies. You can see Loren's list here.
  

Micah 5:2

  
Just in time for Christmas, David Murray has made his lecture notes on Micah 5:2 (which most readers will know is quoted in Matthew 2:6) from a course he is teaching on Poets & Prophets available as a PDF. Check it out here.
 

The Future of English as a Lingua Franca

  
See this interesting article on the future of English as a lingua franca.
  

Winning the Hermeneia CD-ROM

 
This year's Society of Biblical Literature meeting was particularly enjoyable, in no small measure, to the fact that my name was selected as the winner of the Hermeneia on CD-Rom drawing. I was allowed to choose either the Old Testament or New Testament volume. I chose the Old Testament volume because I have more of the New Testament volumes already as hard copies. Both volumes typically retail for $599 each, although Fortress has a 50% off special running until December 31 (see here and here). 
 

Major Themes in the Old Testament

    
The discipline of Bible exposition is interested in biblical theology and tracing major themes in Scripture. So I am often fascinated by the themes that different interpreter identify in either books or in the Old or New Testaments. Marty Stevens in a recent book identifies four major theological themes in the Old Testament. The themes (helpfully alliterated) are:

Creation
Covenant
Cultus
Character

Marty E. Stevens, Theological Themes of the Old Testament, Creation,Covenant,Cultus, and Character (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2010).

Black on the Ten Best Books for Studying New Testament Greek

  

See this article by David Alan Black on the "Ten Best Books for Studying New Testament Greek."

HT: Rodney Decker

 

Access to God in Hebrews 10

  
See posts, here, here, and here for James Allman's helpful posts on the idea of access to God in Hebrews 10.
 

Greidanus on Preaching Christ

   
"We can define ‘preaching Christ’ as preaching sermons which authenticall integrate the message of the text with the climax of God’s revelation in the person, work, and/or teaching of Jesus Christ as revealed in the New Testament.”

Sidney Greidanus, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermeneutical Method (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 10.
    

The Temple in 1 Chronicles 22

  
“The paramount concern in this chapter, as in chapters 22–29, if not the entire book of Chronicles, is the temple. The temple is to be ‘exceedingly’ magnificent, famous and glorified throughout ‘all lands’ (v. 5). The temple, thus, is to bring Israel’s renown to the nations, and the amounts of the materials set aside for is construction are incredible (vv. 2–4, 14). The magnificence of the temple structure is important not as an end in itself but because it attests the grandeur of Israel’s God.”

Steven L. McKenzie, 1–2 Chronicles, Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries (Nashville: Abingdon, 2004), 183. 
    

Herschel Hobbs on Expository Preaching

   
“Early in my ministry I determined to major on expository preaching. To me this means to draw out of Scriptures their original meaning and then apply it to present needs. Expository preaching does not depend so much upon the length of the passage but upon how it is treated. It is possible to do this even with one word. Of course, I allow myself the freedom of using other types of sermons when it seems advisable. But for the most part I adhere to exposition.”

Herschel H. Hobbs, “Aiming for a Verdict,” in Inside the Sermon, ed. Richard Allen Bodey (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), 127.