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. 

Michael Avioz
Josephus’ Interpretation of the Books of Samuel
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10471
Reviewed by Jeffrey L. Morrow

Michael F. Bird
An Anomalous Jew: Paul among Jews, Greeks, and Romans
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11436
Reviewed by Mark Harding

Seulgi L. Byun
The Influence of Post-biblical Hebrew and Aramaic on the Translator of Septuagint Isaiah
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11588
Reviewed by Arie van der Kooij

Terry Giles and William J. Doan
The Story of Naomi—The Book of Ruth: From Gender to Politics
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11171
Reviewed by Christina Landman

James R. Harrison and L. L. Welborn, eds.
The First Urban Churches 2: Roman Corinth
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11531
Reviewed by Richard Last
Reviewed by B. J. Oropeza

Kevin M. McGeough
The Ancient Near East in the Nineteenth Century: Appreciations and Appropriations: III. Fantasy and Alternative Histories
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11131
Reviewed by James Harding

Beth M. Stovell, ed.
Making Sense of Motherhood: Biblical and Theological Perspectives
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11186
Reviewed by L. Juliana Claassens

Jane S. Webster and Glenn S. Holland, eds.
Teaching the Bible in the Liberal Arts Classroom, Volume 2
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11122
Reviewed by John Lanci

Azzan Yadin-Israel
Scripture and Tradition: Rabbi Akiva and the Triumph of Midrash
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10571
Reviewed by Joshua Schwartz

The History of Spiritual Gift Profiles and Inventories

Gary McIntosh has a nice survey of the origins of spiritual gift inventories here. By the way, I have taken and used several that are mentioned. I think the inventories can be a bit mechanical but they can provide a way to get people interested in the Bible's teachings on the subject.

Some Proverbs if Solomon Had Been a Millennial

Jennifer Greenberg shares internet proverbs if Solomon had been a millennial here.

HT: Alvin Thompson

Free Logos "Book" for November: Jesus and the Witness of the Outsiders

The free Logos Book of the Month for November is not a book but one of their Mobile Ed courses taught by Craig Evans, "Jesus and the Witness of the Outsiders." You can also purchase another Mobile Ed. course entitle, "Paul's Theology and the Letter to the Philippians for $9.99 and enter a giveaway for a twenty volume Supplementary Texts package. Go to the Logos' Free Book of Month page here.

Slavery and Philemon

Phil Long has been blogging on Philemon and slavery recently. Today's post addresses some recent scholarship regarding Greco-Roman and Jewish slavery and succinctly addresses some recent scholarship on the matter. You can check it out here and you might want to bookmark this excellent blog.

Four Suggestions for Reading the Minor Prophets

Scott Slayton offers them here.

HT: David Murray

Law as Academic Treatises?

I am making my way through Roy Gane’s recent volume on Old Testament law. Gane and others suggest that the Old Testament laws were not normative legislation, at least in the technical sense. ANE law codes might be more accurately identified as academic treatises. He writes,

It appears that the early law collections, such as that of Hammurabi, were academic treatises that gathered, edited, organized, and supplemented existing legal customs and precedents. That they did not function as normative legislation is shown by the fact that extant Mesopotamian court records and contracts, of which there are thousands, do not explicitly refer to the Laws of Hammurabi or any other written law collection, so these collections were not used to directly govern day-to-day legal practice.

Roy E. Gane, Old Testament Law for Christians: Original Context and Enduring Application (Grand Rapids: Baker, 201), 32.