Aramaic: Past and Present

See Jon McWhorter's story in the Atlantic entitled, "Where Do Languages Go to Die? The tale of Aramaic, a language that once ruled the Middle East and now faces extinction."

Do New Testament Authors Use Sub-Themes from the Old Testament

Kenneth Berding has an interesting post here suggesting that one way to explain the hermeneutic of the New Testament author's approach to the Old Testament is to see them using sub-themes rather than main themes of given passages.

55 Theses on Pastors as Public Theologians

There is much to consider here from Kevin Vanhoozer on pastors as public theologians.

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.

James H. Charlesworth, ed.
The Tomb of Jesus and His Family? Exploring Ancient Jewish Tombs Near Jerusalem’s Walls
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9634
Reviewed by Jodi Magness

John J. Collins
A Short Introduction to the Hebrew Bible
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9910
Reviewed by Corinne Blackmer
Reviewed by David M. Carr

Eric Eve
Behind the Gospels: Understanding the Oral Tradition
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9907
Reviewed by Werner H. Kelber

Charles W. Hedrick
The Wisdom of Jesus: Between the Sages of Israel and the Apostles of the Church
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10181
Reviewed by David Gowler

Douglas S. Huffman
The Handy Guide to New Testament Greek: Grammar, Syntax, and Diagramming
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9118
Reviewed by Justin Langford

Francisco Lozada Jr. and Fernando F. Segovia, eds.
Latino/a Biblical Hermeneutics: Problematics, Objectives, Strategies
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10076
Reviewed by Tat-siong Benny Liew

Ronald D. Peters
The Greek Article: A Functional Grammar of ?-items in the Greek New Testament with Special Emphasis on the Greek Article
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9784
Reviewed by Daniel Wallace

Rivka Ulmer and Moshe Ulmer
Righteous Giving to the Poor: Tzedakah (“Charity”) in Classic Rabbinic Judaism
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10023
Reviewed by Gregg E. Gardner

Yael Wilfand
Poverty, Charity and the Image of the Poor in Rabbinic Texts from the Land of Israel
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10090
Reviewed by Joshua Schwartz

A Revival of the Half-Shekel Commandment (Exod 30:15)

Interesting story here about one man's attempt to revive the half-shekel commandment found in Exodus 30:15. This includes minting new coins. But much of the process appears to be more traditional than biblical. Also, the article states that, "it is forbidden by Torah law to actually count Jews," but doesn't the Torah itself contain sanctioned censuses in Numbers 1 and 26. Maybe I am missing something here.

The Power of Language

My favorite homiletics teacher is fond telling neophyte preachers, “We deal in words, friend.” The more I preach, the more I think about how I am going to say what I have so diligently unearthed in my study. In the following quote, Charles Bartow gets at the power of language.

“The religious language of the preacher is similar to the language of the poet, novelist, or dramatist. It is alive with the rhythms, accents, and images of ordinary speech. However, those elements of ordinary speech combine bits of experience for us in ways that we might not expect, thereby provoking insight. Suddenly, because of what the poet says, the novelist says, the dramatist or preacher says, your world and mine, the world of everyday occurrences that we have named a thousand times, taken for granted, not given much thought to, lights up with significance. We see our world more clearly than we may have ever seen it before, and we say, ‘That’s right, that’s it! That is my world as it is or could be or ought to be!’” (Charles L. Bartow, The Preaching Moment: a Guide to Sermon Delivery, Abingdon Preacher’s Library, ed. William D. Thompson [Nashville: Abingdon, 1980], 17).