Jan 3, 2015

Pauline Authorship of Ephesians

Michael Barber has an interesting post on Doug Campbell's recent affirmation of Pauline authorship of Ephesians here. Barber goes on to note that, "a significant shift seems to be occurring as a growing number of leading scholars have written works arguing that such epistles have been wrongly rejected as Pauline." Conservative interpreters can say, "What took you so long?"

Jan 2, 2015

Annoying Things to Say to a Theology Major

See this funny list of the even most annoying things to say to a theology major. Most of these apply to biblical studies majors as well.

Jan 1, 2015

Free Audio Book: Spurgeon's Morning and Evening

Christianaudio.com is offering Charles Spurgeon's well-known devotional, Evening and Morning, as their free audio download for the month of January. This would be a great way to start off the year. To read more about this resource and to get your free audio download in either MP3 or M4B formats go here.

Dec 31, 2014

The Richness of the Psalms

“This great diversity of emotion and perspective is the source of Psalter’s richness for believers. Because the Psalter is a collection of poetry, it does not have a plot in the same way that narrative books of the Bible do. Nor does it have a central argument in the same way that the epistles of the New Testament do. Nor does it have a unified vision or source as many of the prophetic books of the Old Testament do. Comprised of a 150 compositions from many authors, the Psalter more resembles a great choir of witnesses than it does a story, or letter, or collection of visions. The Psalter gives voice to the faith struggles, theological insights, and liturgical witnesses than it does a story, or letter, or collection of visions. For this reason and others, even though more than two thousand years separate us from days when they were first written, the psalms continue to be central to the life of faith for both Christians and Jews. Near the beginning of life, people of faith memorize them as children at their mother’s feet. They sing or chant them when they come together for weekly worship. In times of trouble they recall the psalms’ words of promise and hope. And to mark the end of life, they utter them solemnly when they bury their fathers.” 

Nancy deClaissé-Walford, Rolf A. Jacobsen, and Beth LaNeel Tanner, The Book of Psalms, New International Commentary on the Old Testament, ed. Robert L. Hubbard Jr. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014), 1–2.

Dec 30, 2014

Top Ed-Tech Trends of 2014

I found this list of the top ed-tech trends of 2014 to be interesting.

Dec 29, 2014

Traveling in the Holy Land: Then and Now

For fun, I have been reading Herbert Rix’s Tent and Testament: A Camping Tour in Palestine with Some Notes on Scripture Sites, a book published 1907. I came upon the following statement and was reminded of two points. First, traveling in the Holy Land, even with the hassles of security, lost luggage, etc., is still much easier and safer now. Second, some things have not changed that much. Nablus is still a somewhat difficult to visit and photography is not allowed, at least at Jacob’s well.

“I should have preferred to encamp at Nablûs, in that Vale of Shechem concerning whose beauties I had heard so much. But Hanna strongly dissuaded us from any such plan. The people, he said, were rude, and it was impossible to keep them from invading the tents; and they were fanatical to such a degree that they often became dangerous to Christians. He further took occasion to remind us that pictures were forbidden by the Mohammedan religion, so that when we entered Nablûs I must not attempt to photograph, otherwise we stood a fair chance of all being killed. It may be that for reasons of his own he exaggerated the dangers, but, of course, for the ignorant there was nothing to do but to follow his advice” (
Herbert Rix, Tent and Testament: A Camping Tour in Palestine with Some Notes on Scripture Sites [New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1907], 22).  

Here is a picture of Jacob's Well from the book. I am not sure how he secured the picture though.



By the way, can download Rix’s book for free at Google Books here.

Dec 28, 2014

Some Thoughts on Baylor's Handbook on the Greek Text Series



FWIW, I own most of the volumes published in this series so far and have found what I have used has to be helpful.