Recommended Reading for Church History

  
Keith Mathison has a recommended reading list for church history here.
 

Eilat Mazar in Christianity Today

  
Those interested in archaeology and the Bible might want to check out this story on Eilat Mazar in Christianity Today.
 

More Book Deals

  

Westminster Seminary Bookstore has two books on sale that might be worth considering.

The first book is Invitation to Biblical Interpretation: Exploring the Hermeneutical Triad of History, Literature, and Theology by Andreas Köstenberger and Richard Patterson for $23.50 (50% off). This offer is good for only one week.

The second volume of interest is A New Testament Biblical Theology by Greg Beale for $30.24 (45% off). Note that at 45% off this is a better deal than you can get from Baker at ETS or SBL which has this volume at 40% off even before you add sales tax.

If you buy both of these volumes you will qualify for free shipping which comes with any order over $49. By the way, you can help me out by clicking on the links above and helping me earn gift certificates from the bookstore. Thanks.

 

Midweek Markdowns at CBD

  

Christian Book Distributors offers a midweek sale each week. This week's sale has two volumes which might be of particular interest. 

Great Prayers of the Old Testament by Walter Brueggemann for $3.49 ($15.00 retail).

Ruth in the Continental Commentary series by André Lacocque for $3.49 ($29.00 retail).

 

You must place your order between 12:01 AM ET on Tuesday and 11:59 PM  ET on Friday. See here for the entire sale.

By the way, a number of the Continental series are also on sale. See here.
  

The Importance of Practicing Church Discipline

  
Brian Croft has a good reminder here.
 

Course on Hebrews Taught by George Guthrie

  
BiblicalTraining.org has announced that George Guthrie's course on Hebrews is now available.This course is "An exegetical study of Hebrews" in which "Dr. Guthrie interacts with each verse" and "explores not only the meaning of the text, but how we apply the theology of the text in our daily lives and ministries." Check it out here.
 

Preaching Mark

  
Nicholas Perrin has some good insights into preaching the Gospel of Mark here.
 

The Author of Ecclesiastes

  

I was recently introducing the Book of Ecclesiastes and discussing the issue of authorship. During such discussions I state that I hold to Solomonic authorship but take care in my presentations to note that there are other viable options. After a bit of back-and-forth, one person asked whether it made any difference whether Solomon was the author or not. What a great question. My response was that there were two possible advantages to Solomonic authorship. First, since it is likely that Solomon was a believer then we might be able to assume that Solomon wrote the book as a believer and if that were so, then it might help to better understand the difficult content of the book. Second, if Solomon were the author, then the claims of great wisdom (1:16), wealth (2:8), and number of women (2:8), etc. could be understood as statements of fact rather than hyperbole (cf. 1 Kgs 3–11). The author would be no poseur and this would add credibility to the authors claim that even an abundance of wisdom, wealth, and women would still be hebel. I realize that these perceived advantages could be challenged both in their assumptions (e.g., that Solomon was a believer) and in their implications (e.g., hyperbolic statements are necessarily less credible), but I still think that there at least potential advantages if Solomon were the author of Ecclesiastes.