Mar 31, 2012

Integrity in Proclaiming the Resurrection

  
"The church today should examine itself with respect to the integrity of its proclamation of the resurrection. It must first ask whether it continues to proclaim the apostolic faith or whether the corrosive effects of modernity have softened the hard edges of the resurrection truth in the church's preaching and teaching. The church needs to consider the slow collapse of creedal commitment among its members, and even its leaders. The popularity of the 'historical Jesus' as a touchstone for many communities needs careful analysis and criticism. Certainly, the learning of history in order to be better readers of the Gospel is to be applauded; but a reconstruction of Jesus' ministry by historical means cannot replace the Gospels, which are written from beginning to end in light of the resurrection—that is, in light of the faith shared by the church of the evangelists, and the church today, if indeed it is."

Luke Timothy Johnson, Prophetic Jesus, Prophetic Church: The Challenge of Luke-Acts to Contemporary Christians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 183.

Mar 30, 2012

Moving from the Resurrection

  
Tim Gombis has some good thoughts related to the resurrection here.
 

Mar 29, 2012

The Opponents in Jude

  
Phillip Long here has a good discussion of the false teachers/opponents in the Book of Jude.
 

Mar 28, 2012

Seals of Jeremiah's Captors

  
If you find yourself near Edmond, Oklahoma you might be interested in this exhibit.

Preaching the Psalms

  
There are some interesting thoughts on preaching the Psalms here.
 

Mar 27, 2012

Thankful for Technology: Of Scribes and Manuscripts

  
I have seen several references to the following list  around the blogosphere to these scribal comments from monks written on illuminated manuscripts. They are "illuminating" and humorous. 


  • New parchment, bad ink; I say nothing more.
  • I am very cold.
  • That’s a hard page and a weary work to read it.
  • Let the reader’s voice honor the writer’s pen.
  • This page has not been written very slowly
  • The parchment is hairy.
  • The ink is thin.
  • Thank God it will soon be dark.
  • Oh, my hand
  • Now I’ve written the whole thing: for Christ’s sake give me something to drink.
  • Writing is excessive drudgery. It crooks your back, it dims your sight, it twists your stomach and your sides.
  • As the harbor is welcome to the sailor, so is the last line to the scribe.
  • This is sad! O little book! A day will come in truth when someone over your page will say, ‘The hand that wrote it is no more.’

Mar 26, 2012

The Task of Old Testament Theology

  
Joseph Kelly has some interesting observations about the evolving task of Old Testament theology here. That being said, I am not sure that the "new answer" that Kelly proposes is all that new. See this quote from George A. F. Knight from 1959.
  

Bulletin for Biblical Research 22:1


  
The latest issue of the Bulletin for Biblical Research is out. Here is a list of the articles.

The Septuagint and Apostolic Hermeneutics: Amos 9 in Acts 15
W. Edward Glenny

Matthew and Psalms of Solomon’s Messianism:  A Comparative Study in First-Century Messianology
Joel Willitts

Disagreement in the Greco-Roman Literary Tradition and the Implications for Gospel Research
Preston T. Massey

What “Mercies of God”? Oiktirmos in Romans 12:1 against Its Septuagintal Background
N. K. Gupta

Paul’s Imprisonment as the Glory of the Ethnē: A Discourse Analysis of Ephesians 3:1–13
Aaron Sherwood

Mar 25, 2012

Six Reasons for Preaching Ecclesiastes

  
See this post by Bill Gray in reference to John E. Johnson's recent Bibliotheca Sacra article, “The Special Relevance of Ecclesiastes for Contemporary Culture” (Bibliotheca Sacra 169 [2012]: 159-71.I might add that Johnson's article also offers the following six "clues" to preaching Ecclesiastes (pp. 164-70).

1. Commit to work hard
2. Read in the context of wisdom literature
3. Welcome rather than avoid the conflicts and apparent contradictions
4. Find the exhortation
5. Move from theme to theme
6. Move to the gospel

Bryant Wood Audio on “Archaeology and the Conquest: New Evidence on an Old Problem”

  
Bryant Wood's March 2012 lectures for the William R. Rice Lecture Series on the theme “Archaeology and the Conquest: New Evidence on an Old Problem”are now available as free audio.

Lecture 1: Background and Chronology of the Exodus and Conquest - MP3
Lecture 2: Digging Up the Truth at Jericho - MP3
Lecture 3: The Discovery of Joshua's Ai - MP3


Bonus Lecture: Great Archaeological Discoveries Related to the Old Testament. For a description see here or access the MP3 here (delivered for Campus Bible Fellowship at Wayne State University, Detroit, MI)
  
HT: Bill Combs at Theologically Driven