Early New Testament Textual Recensions?

Larry Hurtado asserts that, "The continued claim that there was a datable “recension” of NT writings sometimes resembles the stubborn rear-guard action of a retreating force that’s been beaten in battle but won’t surrender." Read his explanation here. 

Translating Porneia

Dr. David Hutchison, Associate Professor of New Testament at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s Houston campus recently gave a presentation related to a paper that he had presented at the 2015 Evangelical Theological Society meeting entitled, “Translating Porneia: Implications for Divorce, Pornography, and Homosexuality.”

The presentation surveyed the uses of porneia in the New Testament, Septuagint, Apocrypha, Deas Sea Scrolls, and Pseudepigrapha. These references suggest that porneia and its cognates should be understood as referring to all unlawful sexual intercourse or immoral sex but not more broadly to all forms of sexual immorality (e.g., lust). Or in other words, porneia is a smaller subset of sexual immorality.

A number of English translations were also examined. Hutchison noted that, “English translations from Tyndale to the 1901 ASV regularly translated porneia “fornication. In the 20th century, translations began to render the term more diversely, frequently using the broader concept of “sexual immorality.”

It was a helpful presentation and I hope that it will be published in some format in the near future.

Dating Revelation

Phillip Long has a brief but good discussion of the dating of Revelation here.

Animated Bible Stories

Chuck Miller has pretty good rundown of animated Bible productions here.

The Septuagint

Paul Lawrence provides a brief history of the Septuagint here.

Free Audio Book: Taking God at His Word

Christianaudio.com is offering Kevin DeYoung's Taking God at His Word: Why the Bible is Knowable, Necessary, and Enough, and What That Means for You and Me as their free audio download for the month of April. You can access this offer here.

Free Logos Book for April: Athanasius: On the Incarnation of the Word of God

The free Logos Book for April is Athanasius: On the Incarnation of the Word of God. This book comes with audio. You can also purchase Tertullian Against Praxeas for $1.99. You can also enter to win the seven-volume Life and Works of Athanasius the Great. For all these offers you can go to the Logos' Free Book of Month page here.

Pillar New Testament Commentaries on Sale

The Westminster Bookstore is offering a sale on all the volumes of the Pillar New Testament commentary. Individual commentaries are at 40% off and the entire series for 50%. The sale ends April 6.

Shaping Sermons Like Scripture

I have just started reading Steven Smith's Recapturing the Voice of God: Shaping Sermons Like Scripture (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2015). Smith suggests that the better way to preach texts is by allowing the genre and structure of the text to drive the structure of the sermon.So far the book has thought-provoking, clear, and well-written. If you have the book or you might be interested to see what Smith is advocating you can watch these brief videos.

Recapturing the Voice of God #1 - Introduction
Recapturing the Voice of God #2 - Old Testament Narrative
Recapturing the Voice of God #3 - Law
Recapturing the Voice of God #4 - Gospel and Acts

HT: B&H Academic Blog

Salvaging a Bad Dissertation

Although this probably does not apply to the gifted readers of this blog, Rachel Herrmann provides some advice on how to salvage the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad dissertation here. There might also be some help here for really good dissertations.

Michael Holmes Festschrift

Michael Holmes, University Professor of Biblical Studies and Early Christianity at Bethel, was recently presented with a Festschrift entitled Studies on the Text of the New Testament and Early Christianity: Essays in Honor of Michael W. Holmes on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday. You can read about the presentation here and look at the volume here.

Registry of the Priesthood

"The Temple Institute has announced a bold new initiative to identify, select and register kohanim-priests who would be eligible to participate in the process of preparing the Red Heifer, which is used in the ritual of purifying Jews from the tuma-impurity of the dead." You can read more about it here.

That Moment in the Classroom

Recently while browsing the books at a local Goodwill store, I happened upon a dirt-cheap copy of Thomas C. Foster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines. Browsing through the introduction, I read the author's description of a typical classroom experience. Although Foster's discipline is literature, it seems that his experiences are not all that different from those in biblical studies. Foster writes,

A moment occurs in this exchange between professor and student when each of us adopts a look. My look says, “What, you don’t get it?” Theirs says, “We don’t get it. And we think you’re making it up.” We’re having a communication problem. Basically, we’ve all read the same story, but we haven’t used the same analytical apparatus, If you’ve ever spent time in a literature classroom as a student or a professor, you know this moment. It may seem at times as if the professor is either inventing interpretations out of thin air or else performing parlor tricks, a sort of analytical sleight of hand (xiii). 

Been there. Done that.

Daily Dose of Greek: Good Friday Edition

I encourage my students to watch the Daily Dose of Greek and Daily Dose of Hebrew videos. Here is the Daily Dose of Greek for today from Matthew 27:51-52.

Psalms Video

This is a another nice video from the folks at The Bible Project. This one provides a nice explanation of the structure of the Psalms as argued by Gerald Wilson and others.

Online Resources for Studying Q and the Synoptic Problem

Michael Kok has a helpful compilation of links related to studying Q here. Many of the links might also be helpful for studying the synoptic problem in general.

The Biblical Languages

Here is a word from Terry Wilder on the importance of studying the biblical languages.

Academic Unprofessionality

Rob Jenkins asks and attempts to answer the question, "Why Are Some Academics So Unprofessional?" here. As one who has spent a fair amount of time in the academic world, I think that the author's negative experiences are more common than they should be. The same could be said for many pastors and ministry leaders as well. In any case, Jenkins offers some solutions that are worth considering.

Passover Pesach 2015 Seder Rube Goldberg Machine

The following video came out last year but it is worth watching if you haven't seen it or maybe worth watching again if you have.

The Historicity of Esther

It is rare these days to find someone who will affirm the historicity of Esther. So this brief article was a pleasant surprise.

Gospels and Greek-wear

Some might be interested in two different kinds of products.

First up, Credo Courses is offering 50% off of a course by Craig Blomberg  on "The Historical Reliability of the Gospels." You can purchase DVDs, audio, and workbooks all at 50%-off. You can check it out here but the sale ends tomorrow.

Second, the Conversational Koine Insitute is offering a number of Greek-themed t-shirts for sell here.

9 Things You Didn’t Know About Purim

This is a fairly interesting list but but most Bible students are aware of #3 (and it might not be correct depending on one's translation of Songs 8:6).

Akkadian Prayers

Alan Lenzi has an interesting article on the ASOR blog entitled, "Akkadian Prayers in Ancient Mesopotamia." Here are a couple of excerpts just in case you can't access the article.

The Mesopotamians never defined “prayer,” though they had a number of words that we translate with the term (e.g., Akkadian supû, teslītu, and ikribu).

A preliminary definition of prayer (as found in texts) might run something like this: when a text records an appeal to some supra-human, benevolent being who is presumed to be powerful enough to assist in granting the appeal.

Complaint is another common feature in prayers. One particularly poignantly example complains “(My) life has become like that (of someone) beaten with wooden poles.” Supplicants often voice their woes, laments, and confessions to the being to whom they are appealing. Sometimes these occur during but also after the expression of praise. Complaints may also be interlaced with the supplicant’s petitions, yet another common feature in Akkadian prayers.

The ancient Mesopotamians prayed for the same general reason people pray today: they needed something that the gods could supply. This might be a response to a query, forgiveness for a sin, the restoration of health, renewed prosperity, help against an enemy, or deliverance from the threat of an announced evil (in the form of an ominous sign), among other things. Ritual officials assisted supplicants in making petitions by providing the proper, pre-formulated ritual to enact that included the prayer to recite (e.g., a shaziga for sexual impotence, a namburbi to turn away the announced evil of an ominous sign, or a dingirshadabba for the quelling of the wrath of a personal deity). Occasionally, a ritual instructs a person to speak from their heart, which seems to be a reference to extemporaneous prayer.

Craig Evans on the Jewish Roots for a Divine of Messiah

Craig Evans recently spoke at Southwestern Seminary for the first annual E. Earle Ellis lecture series on the topic of the Jewish roots for a divine of Messiah in early Christianity. You can read about it here or access the message through free video (here) or audio (here) through iTunes.

Books for Being More Productive

Some might find this list of books for helping one to be more productive helpful.