Free Faithlife Flashcard App for Hebrew and Greek Vocabulary

Watch this video by Michael Burer on how to download and set up the fee Faithlife flashcard app for Hebrew and Greek vocabulary.

Westminster Theological Seminary Faculty Website

Westminster Theological Seminary has a new faculty website here. You can access free articles, lectures, and courses. For example, under courses you can access audio of A New Testament Biblical theology taught by Greg Beale or Biblical Hermeneutics by Very Poythress.

the “I” of Romans 7

Lindsay Kennedy has a good presentation here of the various views of the "I" in Romans 7.

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).

Free Book: The Promise-Plan of God

I am not sure how long this offer has been available, but Logos users can download Walt Kaiser's The Promise Plan for God for free. Use this link.

Free Logos Book for September: Amos by Gary Smith

The free Logos Book for September is Gary V. Smith’s commentary on Amos in the Mentor Commentary series. You can also purchase Joel and Obadiah in the same series for $1.99 and enter to win the entire sixteen-volume Mentor commentary series. Go the Logos' Free Book of Month page here to enter and download your free book today!

The Unity of the Bible and Expository Preaching

“Perhaps no single factor is more detrimental to Biblical exposition in our day than a widespread failure to recognize that the Bible is a unity and in order to be adequately interpreted must be treated as such. In many circles this unity is lost sight of in a tendency to emphasize the diversity of the content of the Bible.

“In other circles the Old Testament and New Testament are studies apart from one another, with little or no attention paid to their close interrelation. Their theologies are frequently treated separated and in many instances the New Testament is refused its legitimate role as a commentary on the Old Testament. Schools and theological seminaries customarily allocate the Old and New Testament into different departments, a practice doubtless necessary, but fraught with the gravest peril to expository preaching, when the essential unity of the Bible is not kept constantly in mind” (Merrill F. Unger, Principles of Expository Preaching [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1955], 156). I might add that one of the values of having a Bible Exposition department in a Bible college or seminary is the cross-Testament, cross-disciplinary nature of the department. One reason that I chose Bible Exposition as a discipline was its crossroads-like nature where Old and New Testaments, preaching/teaching, and biblical theology intersect.

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.

Adesola Joan Akala
The Son-Father Relationship and Christological Symbolism in the Gospel of John
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9872
Reviewed by Sherri Brown

Eve-Marie Becker and Anders Runesson, eds.
Mark and Matthew II: Comparative Readings: Reception History, Cultural Hermeneutics, and Theology
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9281
Reviewed by Craig A. Evans

Eberhard Bons, Ralph Brucker, and Jan Joosten, eds.
The Reception of Septuagint Words in Jewish-Hellenistic and Christian Literature
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9853
Reviewed by Randall X. Gauthier

Paul J. Brown
Bodily Resurrection and Ethics in 1 Cor 15: Connecting Faith and Morality in the Context of Greco-Roman Mythology
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9851
Reviewed by Matthew R. Malcolm

Teresa J. Calpino
Women, Work and Leadership in Acts
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9903
Reviewed by Deborah Thompson Prince

James H. Charlesworth, ed.
Jesus and Temple: Textual and Archaeological Explorations
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9818
Reviewed by S. Aaron Son

E. Anne Clements
Mothers on the Margin? The Significance of the Women in Matthew’s Genealogy
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9821
Reviewed by Erin K. Vearncombe

Lynn H. Cohick
Ephesians: A New Covenant Commentary
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9218
Reviewed by Brian C. Small

F. Stanley Jones, ed.
The Rediscovery of Jewish Christianity: From Toland to Baur
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=8564
Reviewed by Edwin Broadhead

Jennifer L. Koosed, ed.
The Bible and Posthumanism
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9773
Reviewed by Norman Habel
Reviewed by Trevor W. Thompson

Jan Krans, Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, Peter-Ben Smit, and Arie Zwiep, eds.
Paul, John, and Apocalyptic Eschatology: Studies in Honour of Martinus C. de Boer
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9236
Reviewed by S. Michael Ahn

Carol Meyers
Rediscovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9354
Reviewed by Linda S. Schearing

Merrill Morse
Isaiah Speaks: A Voice from the Past for the Present
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=8794
Reviewed by Hélène Dallaire

Carl P. E. Springer
Sedulius, The Paschal Song and Hymns
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9242
Reviewed by Jade Weimer

David I. Starling
UnCorinthian Leadership: Thematic Reflections on 1 Corinthians
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9995
Reviewed by J. Brian Tucker

The Preacher and His Books

After unpacking boxes and boxes of books in a recent move, I wondered whether I had too many. My wife certainly thinks so! But books are important tools for those in ministry. This post by Steve Weaver makes a case for the importance of books for the ministry of the preacher.

The Gospel of Jesus' Wife Fragment

Andrew Bernhard has a guest post on Mark Goodacre's blog here that pretty convincingly demonstrates that the so-called "Gospel of Jesus" and its related documents are a fraud. 

Larry Hurtado Podcasts

Larry Hurtado provides links to two interview podcasts featuring himself here.

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.

Katherine Bain
Women’s Socioeconomic Status and Religious Leadership in Asia Minor: In the First Two Centuries C.E.
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9817
Reviewed by Shelly Matthews

René Bloch
Jüdische Drehbühnen: Biblische Variationen im antiken Judentum
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9592
Reviewed by Michael S. Moore

George Brooke
Reading the Dead Sea Scrolls: Essays in Method
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9449
Reviewed by Carol A. Newsom

Walter Brueggemann and William H. Bellenger
Psalms
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9752
Reviewed by Gert T. M. Prinsloo
Reviewed by Beat Weber

Corrine L. Carvalho, ed.
Pastoral Essays in Honor of Lawrence Boadt, CSP: Reading the Old Testament
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9690
Reviewed by Deena Grant

Carl S. Ehrlich, Anders Runesson, and Eileen Schuller, eds.
Purity, Holiness, and Identity in Judaism and Christianity: Essays in Memory of Susan Haber
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9469
Reviewed by John C. Poirier

Laszlo Gallusz
The Throne Motif in the Book of Revelation
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9725
Reviewed by Andrew R. Guffey

Yung Suk Kim
Biblical Interpretation: Theory, Process, and Criteria
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9621
Reviewed by Valeriy A. Alikin

Jonathan S. Linebaugh
God, Grace, and Righteousness in Wisdom of Solomon and Paul’s Letter to the Romans: Texts in Conversation
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9486
Reviewed by Daniele Pevarello

Timothy Luckritz Marquis
Transient Apostle: Paul, Travel, and the Rhetoric of Empire
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9452
Reviewed by Brian C. Small

Isaac K. Mbabazi
The Significance of Interpersonal Forgiveness in the Gospel of Matthew
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9504
Reviewed by Dion Forster

Emanuel Pfoh and Keith W. Whitelam, eds.
The Politics of Israel’s Past: The Bible, Archaeology and Nation-Building
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9323
Reviewed by Mark Leuchter

Jörg Rüpke and Greg Woolf, eds.
Religious Dimensions of the Self in the Second Century CE
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9472
Reviewed by Clayton N. Jefford

Alistair C. Stewart
The Original Bishops: Office and Order in the First Christian Communities
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9835
Reviewed by Judith M. Lieu

J. Brian Tucker and Coleman A. Baker, eds.
T&T Clark Handbook to Social Identity in the New Testament
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9721
Reviewed by Jacobus (Kobus) Kok

W. Dennis Tucker Jr.
Constructing and Deconstructing Power in Psalms 107–150
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9856
Reviewed by Erhard S. Gerstenberger

Pauline A. Viviano
Jeremiah, Baruch
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9409
Reviewed by Matthias Henze

Catrin H. Williams and Christopher Rowland, eds.
John’s Gospel and Intimations of Apocalyptic
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9697
Reviewed by Laura C. S. Holmes

Carol B. Wilson
For I Was Hungry and You Gave Me Food: Pragmatics of Food Access in the Gospel of Matthew
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9738
Reviewed by Craig S. Keener

Ways to Get People Engaged with Scripture

Leadership Journal has an interesting article related to different approaches to getting people engaged with Scripture here.

Journal for the Study of the New Testament 38:1

Here are the articles to the latest issue of the Journal for the Study of the New Testament. The links will take you to an abstract.

Introduction: The Study of the Use of the Old Testament in the New
David M. Allen

The Old Testament in the New, Intertextuality and Allegory
Leroy A. Huizenga

Why Did the New Testament Writers Appeal to the Old Testament?
Craig A. Evans

Observations on the Text Form of the Minor Prophets Quotations in Romans 9–11
Gert J. Steyn

Qumran Scholarship and the Study of the Old Testament in the New Testament
Timothy H. Lim

Messianic Servant or the End of Israel’s Exilic Curses? Isaiah 53.4 in Matthew 8.17
Rikk Watts

Echoes without Resonance: Critiquing Certain Aspects of Recent Scholarly Trends in the Study of the Jewish Scriptures in the New Testament
Paul Foster

‘Do you Understand what you Are Reading?’ (Acts 8.30): Current Trends and Future Perspectives in the Study of the Use of the Old Testament in the New
Susan Docherty

Preaching with PowerPoint?

I have and will preach with or without PowerPoint. If given the choice I normally use it. Craig Schill gives four reasons to use it here. I do think that media software can become a crutch and I have seen some PowerPoint presentations that seemed to serve little purpose other than to have it. I suspect that in most cases this has more to do with the preacher than the technology.  As one of my preaching friends has said, "If you can't preach without it, then you can't preach with it." One other minor point, I think that the article is mistitled. This article actually has very little to say about whether Jesus would use PowerPoint.

Excerpt of Longenecker's Forthcoming Romans Commentary

Richard Longenecker's Romans NIGTC commentary is not yet available but you can access a 12-page excerpt here. I would have liked a little more of a sneak peak, especially of the commentary proper, but I suppose that something is better than nothing.

F. F. Bruce on Commentaries in Acts

I found the following comments from a 1989 article by F. F. Bruce on Acts commentaries interesting. Two points were of particular interest. First, I appreciated Bruce's positive affirmation of the commentary by Kirsopp Lake and Henry J. Cadbury. Second, it is interesting to note that Bruce saw this commentary as an end of an era where commentaries. It struck me, that the tides may have shifted somewhat since Bruce wrote this. It seems to me that a number of recent commentaries (e.g., Bock, Keener) take a more positive approach to the historicity of Acts, or at least a more nuanced approach than a wholesale skepticism of Acts' historicity. In any case, here are the paragraphs that caught my attention.

Let us begin with the appearance in 1933 of the great commentary by Kirsopp Lake and Henry J. Cadbury, based on a fresh English translation of the Greek text. This formed Volume IV of the encyclopaedic work on The Beginnings of Christianity, edited by F. J. Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake and published by Macmillan. Part of this enterprise, which ran to five volumes (1920-33), covered the Acts of the Apostles, but no further part was published. Volume V was a companion volume to the commentary; it contained Additional Notes which could not be conveniently accommodated in the commentary proper. VoIumes I–III had dealt with prolegomena to the study of Acts.

It was claimed at the time, certainly with justice, that no book of the Bible had been subjected to so exhaustive a treatment in a single work as Acts received in these five volumes. While the editors probably thought of their work as launching a new era in the study or Acts, it may more truly be viewed as marking the end of an era. But while it is inevitably dated, it cannot be neglected by the student of Acts, and this is specially true of the commentary volume. This volume expounds Acts in the light of practically everything that could be said of the book at that time from the viewpoints of historical, literary and textual criticism. On the historical side, a sequel was provided by Cadbury in his Lowell Lectures on The Book of Acts in History (New York: Harper, 1955). In these he illustrated the narrative of Acts from each of the overlapping cultural contexts in which the book is set.

The main reason for viewing The Beginnings of Christianity as marking the end of an era is that the perspective from which it was compiled has been replaced by one which treats Acts as being basically the work of a theologian who subordinated historical fact to theological appropriateness. Another factor tending to play down the former concentration on arguments for or against the historicity of Acts was the new emphasis on form criticism or ‘style criticism.’  

Commentaries or other studies in Acts since the 1930s have been influenced, positively or otherwise, by the work of Martin Dibelius. This influence was intensified with the publication of his posthumously collected Studies in the Acts of the Apostles; the German text of this collection (1951) was followed in 1956 by an English translation, published by the SCM Press. Dibelius insisted on the primary importance of the ‘style criticism’ of the book. Attention should be paid, he held, to Luke’s literary creativity rather than to the story he told.

F. F. Bruce, "Commentaries on Acts," Bible Translator 40 (1989): 315.

The Importance of Sound Exegesis and Preaching

Here is another great quote from Stephen Farris.

“It is not that it is impossible to preach a good sermon without sound exegesis. It is, however, hard to imagine preaching a good sermon regularly without such a discipline.

Stephen Farris, Preaching That Matters: The Bible and Our Lives (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1998), 41.

Three Dangers Associated with Studying Backgrounds

Duvall and Hays, in their book Grasping God’s Word, identify three dangers associated with studying backgrounds as part of the interpretive process.[1]

1. Use inaccurate background information.
2. Elevating the background of the text above the meaning of the text.
3. Letting yourself evolve into nothing more than a walking database of ancient facts.

This caution is not meant to devalue the study of backgrounds but I believe that Duvall and Hays are right to point out potential pitfalls. I have often witnessed the misuse and misapplication of background material. And this misuse and misapplication is often accompanied with an arrogant spirit of claiming to really know what a given text means.

[1] J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel Hays, Grasping God’s Word: A Hands-On Approach to Reading, Interpreting, and Applying the Bible, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012), 123–24.

Are You Widely-Read of Well-Read?

I was recently looking back through Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren's excellent work, How to Read a Book. This book is chock-full of insights but one in particular struck me as especially appropriate for those of us involved in the academic side of ministry, namely, the difference between being widely-read and well-read. There is too much in their discussion to reproduce here, but I do offer a little snippet to either introduce or remind you about this literary gem. 

There have always been literate ignoramuses who have read too widely and not well. The Greeks had a name for such a mixture of learning and folly which might be applied to the bookish but poorly read of all ages. They are all sophomores.

To avoid this error–the error of assuming that to be widely read and to be well-read are the same thing–we must consider a certain distinction in types of learning. Thais distinction has a significant bearing on the whole business of reading and its relation to education generally.

Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren, How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading, revised and updated ed. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972), 12.