Oct 1, 2011

Free ESV for Kindle

  
Amazon is offering a free download of the English Standard Version for Kindle here.
  

Latest Issue of Review of Biblical Literature

  
The latest issue of Review of Biblical Literature is out. Reviews can be accessed by clicking the links below.

Kathleen E. Corley
Maranatha: Women's Funerary Rituals and Christian Origins
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=7427
Reviewed by Nicola Hayward
 
Jeremy M. Hutton
The Transjordanian Palimpsest: The Overwritten Texts of Personal Exile and Transformation in the Deuteronomistic History
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=7887
Reviewed by Walter Dietrich
 
Thomas Kazen
Issues of Impurity in Early Judaism
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=7844
Reviewed by John W. Fadden
 
Margaret M. Mitchell
Paul, the Corinthians and the Birth of Christian Hermeneutics
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=7912
Reviewed by A. K. M. Adam
Reviewed by Thomas Schmeller
 
Eric D. Reymond
New Idioms within Old: Poetry and Parallelism in the Non-Masoretic Poems of 11Q5 (=11QPsa)
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=7974
Reviewed by John Engle
Reviewed by James A. Sanders
 
Ben Witherington III
Letters and Homilies for Jewish Christians: A Socio-rhetorical Commentary on Hebrews, James and Jude
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=7595
Reviewed by Loveday Alexander

  

Sep 30, 2011

A Preacher's Sacred Duty


"For the Scripture to have value for preaching and for the preacher's text to become God's message, the Bible must be interpreted correctly. To interpret and apply his text in accordance with its real meaning is one of the preacher's most sacred duties. He stands before the people for the very purpose of teaching and exhorting them out of the Word of God. He announces a particular passage of God's Word as his text with the distinctly implied understanding that from this his sermon will be drawn. By using a text and undertaking to develop and apply its teaching he is solemnly bound to represent the text as meaning precisely what it does mean.gs, he is solemnly bound to represent the text as meaning precisely what it does mean."

John A. Broadus, On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, ed. V. L. Stanfield, 4th ed. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1979), 23-24.

  

Sep 29, 2011

Denominational Humor




HT: Fred Butler
 

Lamentations

  
One might quibble with the first part of this statement in light of passages such as Lamentations 3:22-24 which appear to look forward in hope, but Adele Berlin captures the general sense of Lamentations well in noting, "Lamentations does not look forward and does not look back, does not dwell on what went before or what will come after–its gaze is fixed directly on the event itself . . . Lamentations is an expression of the suffering and grief associated with the calamity of destruction, but even more, it is a memorialization of that suffering and grief. It eternalizes the catastrophic moment and its aftermath, freezing it in time, probing it from various perspectives, and preserving it forever," 

Adele Berlin, Lamentations, Old Testament Library (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002), 1.

Sep 28, 2011

Why We Should Preach the Doctrine of Creation


  
At the most recent Advanced Expository Workshop, Matthew McKellar presented the following five reasons (slightly modified) for preaching creation 
  
1. The Bible places great significance upon it (Gen 1:1; John 1:1–3).
2. Creation is a key component of the church’s faith.
3. One’s doctrine of creation is directly related to the understanding of other doctrines.
4. Creation helps one differentiate Christianity from other religions and worldviews.
5. Creation promotes the glory of God.
  

Sep 27, 2011

Deadline for Early Registration for The Future of Biblical Archaeology Conference

  
By way of reminder, the deadline for the discounted early registration for The Future of Biblical Archaeology Conference is this Thursday, September 30. I posted on this conference awhile back (see here) and you can get more information here.

Sep 26, 2011

Narrative Criticism as a Key

  
"Narrative criticism is best understood as one key among several that are available to biblical interpreters. Used properly, it is able to open some doors and grant access to certain kinds of insight that may not be otherwise attainable. But it will not open all the doors or answer all the questions that people ask about the Bible and about the meaning of biblical material."

Mark Allan Powell, "Narrative Criticism," in .Hearing the New Testament, 2nd ed., ed. Joel B. Green (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 254.
  

Sep 25, 2011

New Commentary Series: Reformation Commentary on Scripture


I recently received two volumes from InterVarsity which relate to the work of the Reformers. The first volume entitled Reading Scripture with the Reformers is written by Timothy George. According to the Publisher's description,  

In Reading Scripture with the Reformers, Timothy George takes readers through the exciting events of the sixteenth century, showing how this dynamic period was instigated by a fresh return to the Scriptures. George immerses us in the world of the Reformation, its continuities with the ancient and medieval church, and its dramatic upheavals and controversies. Most of all, he uncovers the significant way that the Bible shaped the minds and hearts of the reformers.

This book shows how the key figures of the Reformation read and interpreted Scripture, and how their thought was shaped by what they read. We are invited to see what the church today can learn from the fathers of the Reformation, and how these figures offer a model of reading, praying and living out the Scriptures.

The second volume is Galatians, Ephesians, the first available volume in the Reformation Commentary on Scripture series. You can access the table of contents here. Features of this volume and this series include:

·  Offers the insights of Protestant Reformation interpretations of Galatians and Ephesians
·  Presents the diversity and the unity of Protestant Reformation interpretation of Scripture
·  Highlights the exegetical developments that characterized the Protestant Reformation
·  Features a wealth of material previously unavailable in English
·  Introduces the reader to the richness and complexity of the Reformation era
·  Includes in-depth but accessible introductions by world-class Reformation scholars to Reformation interpretations of each book of the Bible