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 but unfortunately you must be a SBL member.

Terrance Callan
Acknowledging the Divine Benefactor: The Second Letter of Peter
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10182
Reviewed by Michael F. Bird

Greg Carey
Apocalyptic Literature in the New Testament
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11281
Reviewed by David L. Barr
Reviewed by David A. Sánchez

Eryl Davies
Numbers: The Road to Freedom
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10499
Reviewed by David Frankel

Jason S. DeRouchie, Jason Gile, and Kenneth J. Turner, eds.
For Our Good Always: Studies on the Message and Influence of Deuteronomy in Honor of Daniel I. Block
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10777
Reviewed by Jeffrey G. Audirsch

Tobias Hagerland
Jesus and the Scriptures: Problems, Passages and Patterns
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11189
Reviewed by John C. Poirier

Stephen Mark Holmes, ed.
The Fathers on the Sunday Gospels
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=8817
Reviewed by Jennifer S. Wyant

Robert D. Holmstedt
The Relative Clause in Biblical Hebrew
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11312
Reviewed by Frank H. Polak

Hieronymus Horn
Anfänge, die Geschichte schrieben: Das Buch Genesis (1–11) neu kommentiert
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9342
Reviewed by Matthias Millard

Teresa J. Hornsby and Deryn Guest
Transgender, Intersex, and Biblical Interpretation
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11332
Reviewed by Jo Henderson-Merrygold

Simon J. Joseph
The Nonviolent Messiah: Jesus, Q, and the Enochic Tradition
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9811
Reviewed by Blake A. Jurgens

Thomas W. Mann
The Book of the Torah
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9496
Reviewed by Cody Eklov

Elvira Martín-Contreras and Lorena Miralles-Maciá, eds.
The Text of the Hebrew Bible: From the Rabbis to the Masoretes
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10528
Reviewed by James R. Blankenship

Dieter T. Roth
The Text of Marcion’s Gospel
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10399
Reviewed by Hugh Houghton

Emanuel Tov
Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Qumran, Septuagint: Collected Essays, Volume 3
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10398
Reviewed by Randall X. Gauthier

First Century Jews Still in Exile?

Mike Bird discusses the question of whether first century Jews considered themselves to be still in exile here. The discussion is brief and will not shed much light on the particulars but Bird does provide a good bibliography on the topic. 

The AD 33 Date for Jesus' Death

This article by Andreas J. Köstenberger and Justin Taylor came out a few years ago but it provides a good argument for AD 33 rather than 30 for the death of Jesus.

Fake Dead Sea Scrolls?

See this article on the possibility that some of the Dead Sea Scroll fragments that have been sold/purchased recently are likely fakes.

The “Para” in Parachurch Ministries

Eric Davis has a good word here on keeping the “para” in parachurch ministries.

Coins in the Bible Conference

I really wish I could attend this conference on coins in the Bible.

HT: Larry Hurtado

The Center of the Old Testament

Trying to identify a center for Old Testament has proven to be a daunting task. In a recent article, Richard Davidson notes that he has identified 28 different centers and has added his own seven-fold multiplex suggestion to the pile.[1] The article itself does not provide the list but in an earlier work he lists the following 50 which presumably includes the aforementioned 28.[2]

1. Covenant (Walter Eichrodt)
2. God as Lord (Ludwig Köhler)
3. Holiness of God (Ernst Sellin)
4. The “experience of God” (O. J. Baab)
5. Communion (Theodorus C. Vriezen)
6. Christ (Henry L. Ellison and J. Alec Motyer)
7. God-Man-Salvation (George A. F. Knight)
8. Israel’s election as the people of God (Hans Wildberger and Horst D. Preuss)
9. No center (the early Gerhard von Rad and G. Ernest Wright)
10. Yahweh, with the Deuteronomistic theology of history as the secret center (the later Gerhard von Rad)
11. Covenant-kingdom (Rudolph Schnackenburg)
12. Rulership of God (Horst Seebass)
13. Heilsgeschichte, or Salvation History (Oscar Cullmann)
14. The rule of God and communion between God and man (Georg Fohrer)
15. Covenant of Sinai and covenant of David (Frederick Prussner)
16. The exclusiveness of God (W. H. Schmidt)
17. The Kingdom of God (Günther Klein)
18. Yahweh the God of Israel; Israel the people of Yahweh (Rudolf Smend)19
19. The book of Deuteronomy (Siegfried Herrmann)
20. “I am Yahweh your God”: First Commandment (Walther Zimmerli)
21. God as the dynamic unifying center (Gerhard Hasel)
22. Creation faith (H. H. Schmid)
23. The atoning work of Christ (J. Sidlow Baxter)
24. Promise-blessing (Walter Kaiser, Jr.)
25. A multiplex center “expressed diagrammatically by an elliptical cylinder. The center is Christ; the foci are God (Yahweh) and people (Israel); concentric layers of the cylinder are election, promise, covenant, kingdom, etc.; and the length of the cylinder is the time in which Israel experienced God in history” (D. F. Baker)
26. The dialectic of law and promise (Ronald E. Clements)
27. The elusive presence of God, with a dialectic of the ethical and aesthetic (Samuel Terrien)
28. The dialectic of deliverance and blessing (Claus Westermann)
29. The dialectic of providence and election (the earlier Walter Brueggemann)
30. God’s design (plan and purposes), involving a fourfold center of deliverance, community, knowledge of God, and abundant life (Elmer A. Martens)
31. Righteousness and justice (Rolf Knierim)
32. Messianic eschatology (John Sailhamer)
33. Righteousness (Walter Dietrich)
34. Covenant and the new creation (Graeme Goldsworthy)
35. A drama with five acts—creation, sin, Israel, Christ, church (N. T. Wright)
36. The courtroom trial metaphor/imagery: legal claims—testimony, dispute, advocacy—asserted for Yahweh, God of Israel (the later Walter Brueggemann)
37. Warfare worldview and theodicy (Gregory Boyd)
38. Monotheism—the existence and worship of one God (Paul R. House)
39. God’s steadfast love (Hermann Spieckermann)
40. Geography and genealogy, dominion and dynasty (Stephen G. Dempster)
41. God’s order, God’s servant, God’s people, and God’s way (Charles H. H. Scobie)
42. God’s mission—announcing His kingdom (Arthur F. Glasser)
43. The hermeneutics of grace (J. Clinton McCann, Jr.)
44. A drama with six acts (Craig G. Bartholomew and Michael W. Goheen)
45. The paradigmatic story of Israel—sin, exile, restoration (C. Marvin Pate et al.)
46. The mission of God (Christopher J. H. Wright)
47. The sovereign reign of God through human agency (Eugene H. Merrill)
48. The glory of God in salvation through judgment (James Hamilton)
49. The “in-breaking of God’s rule” (Bruce Waltke)
50. The sanctuary/temple (Roberto Ouro)

[1] “The Legacy of Gerhard Hasel’s Old Testament Theology: Basic Issues in the Current Debate Revealed in Old Testament Scholarship of the Last Four Decades,” Journal of the Adventist Theological Society 26 (2015): 15.

[2] Richard M. Davidson, “Back to the Beginning: Genesis 1–3 and the Theological Center of Scripture, in Christ, Salvation, and the Eschaton: Essays in Honor of Hans K. LaRondelle, ed. Jiří Moskala (Berrien Springs, MI: Old Testament Department, Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Andrews University, 2009), 5-9.

Free Logos Book for April: Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible

The free Logos Book of the Month for April is Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible by Brandon O’Brien and E. Randolph Richards. You can also purchase Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers for $1.99. For both offers you can go to the Logos' Free Book of Month page here.