Free Interpretive Guides to the Bible

My friend, Dr. Steven Anderson, is making his eight interpretive guides to the Bible available as free PDF downloads here. Check it out. This is a great resource.

Authorship of the Gospels?

Torrey Seland interacts in this post with Brant Pitre's assertion that the Gospels were not originally anonymous and that the traditional ascriptions to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are likely correct

Preachers and Teachers

"We, in theological colleges must be preachers as well as teachers. We must not only model good preaching but show students how to become good preachers. We must persuade our students that it is the word which is powerful, accurately interpreted, applied by God’s Spirit, and not the style, winsomeness, humour, or anecdotal ability of the preacher which is the most important. There is so little Old Testament preaching done in our pulpits, and what is done is often so bad, that there is a big job to be done for theological students."

Paul Barker, “Correctly Handling the Word of Truth — Teaching the Old Testament as a Christian Book,” in Make the Old Testament Live: From Curriculum to Classroom, ed, Richard S. Hess and Gordon J. Wenham (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 70.

Expository Preaching

Ed Stetzer has posted a third installment on expository preaching here. You can see post 1 here and 2 here.

Did David Author 4,050 Psalms!

Recently while doing some reading I was reminded of a statement in one of the Dead Sea Scrolls that David might have been much more prolific than might be indicated by the 73 psalms associated to him in the Psalter. In fact, we are told that David composed 4,050!

Col. XXVII (Compositions of David Sam 23:7) I and the haft of his spear and he cast them in the fire
leaving no trace of them.

² Blank And David, son of Jesse, was wise, a luminary like the light of the sun, learned, ³ Blank knowledgeable, and perfect in all his paths before God and men. And to him ⁴ Blank YHWH gave a wise and enlightened spirit. And he wrote psalms: ⁵ three thousand six hundred; and songs to be sung before the altar over the perpetual ⁶ offering of every day, for all the days of the year: three hundred 7 and sixty-four; and for the sabbath offerings: fifty-two songs; and for the offering for the beginning ⁸ of the month, and for all the days of the festivals, and for the day of atonement: thirty songs. ⁹ And all the songs which he composed were four hundred and forty-six. And songs ¹⁰ to be sung over the possessed: four. The total was four thousand and fifty ¹¹ He composed them all through the spirit of prophecy which had been given to him from before the Most High. Blank (11Q5 27:2–11)

Translation from Florentino García Martínez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated: The Qumran Texts in English (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 309.

Standing Stones at Gezer

Carl Rasmussen has a nice post here on the standing stones found at Gezer.