Mission as the Staring Point for the Theology of the Pastorals?

Andreas Köstenberger in this post suggests that "mission" might be the best starting point for the theology of the Pastorals. I'm not sure I agree but it is interesting.

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. 

Bradford A. Anderson
An Introduction to the Study of the Pentateuch
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11666
Reviewed by Reinhard Achenbach

Pablo Andiñach
El Dios que está: Teología del Antiguo Testamento
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10438
Reviewed by Osvaldo D. Vena

Eugene Cruz-Uribe
The Demotic Graffiti from the Temple of Isis on Philae Island
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11206
Reviewed by John Gee

April D. DeConick
The Gnostic New Age: How a Countercultural Spirituality Revolutionized Religion From Antiquity to Today
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11396
Reviewed by James F. McGrath

Alan Kirk
Q in Matthew: Ancient Media, Memory, and Early Scribal Transmission of the Jesus Tradition
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11394
Reviewed by Akiva Cohen

Michael J. Kruger
The Question of Canon: Challenging the Status Quo in the New Testament Debate
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10146
Reviewed by Chris S. Stevens

Benjamin W. Porter
Complex Communities: The Archaeology of Early Iron Age West-Central Jordan
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9691
Reviewed by Ralph K. Hawkins

Brian S. Rosner, Andrew S. Malone, and Trevor J. Burke, eds.
Paul as Pastor
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11967
Reviewed by Scot McKnight

Lauri Thurén
Parables Unplugged: Reading the Lukan Parables in Their Rhetorical Context
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10139
Reviewed by Susana de Sola Funsten

David Willgren
The Formation of the ‘Book’ of Psalms: Reconsidering the Transmission and Canonization of Psalmody in Light of Material Culture and the Poetics of Anthologies
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11966
Reviewed by Erhard S. Gerstenberger

Three Books for Preaching Ecclesiastes

Matt Capps writes about three books that he found helpful for preaching Ecclesiastes here.

How to Read Faster in Seminary

Just in time for the spring semester, Seminary Survival Guide has some helpful infographic on surviving the reading demands of graduate school here. I question whether the 200 pages per week per course number for at least master's level students is correct. But I suppose this might vary quite a bit from class-to-class and institution-to-institution. 

One other point needs to be made. One has to be careful that if the professor requires you to report your reading, then integrity demands that you accurately report what you have read. Some professors will allow skimming, others will not.

That being said the information is helpful.

John Piper on the Value of the Old Testament

You can read or listen to John Piper's comments on the value of the Old Testament for the Christian life here.

The Complexity of Translation

The New Yorker has an interesting article here related to the recent translation of a Korean novel into English. This is a great illustration of the complexity of the process of translation, whether it relates to the Bible or a novel.

Donald Campbell (1926–2018)

Donald Campbell, former professor and president of Dallas Theological Seminary, has gone to be with the Lord. There is a nice write-up here. Although I met Dr. Campbell on a few occasions, I mainly profited from his preaching and popular level expositions.

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. 

Mark J. Boda, Michael H. Floyd, and Colin M. Toffelmire, eds.

The Book of the Twelve and the New Form Criticism
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11093
Reviewed by James M. Bos

Athalya Brenner-Idan and Archie Lee, eds.
Samuel, Kings and Chronicles I
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11578
Reviewed by John W. Herbst

Warren Carter
Telling Tales about Jesus: An Introduction to the New Testament Gospels
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11218
Reviewed by Marius J. Nel
Reviewed by Steven R. Shisley

Tat-siong Benny Liew and Erin Runions, eds.
Psychoanalytic Meditations between Marxist and Postcolonial Readings of the Bible
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11418
Reviewed by Rhiannon Graybill

Siobhán Dowling Long and John F. A. Sawyer
The Bible in Music: A Dictionary of Songs, Works, and More
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10778
Reviewed by James F. McGrath

Todd D. Still and David E. Wilhite, eds.
The Apostolic Fathers and Paul
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11573
Reviewed by Christopher T. Holmes
Reviewed by H. H. Drake Williams III

Henry Wansbrough
Introducing the New Testament
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10286
Reviewed by Ken Olson

Archie T. Wright
The Origin of Evil Spirits: The Reception of Genesis 6:1–4 in Early Jewish Literature
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10359
Reviewed by Michael B. Hundley

Grant Osborne on the Teacher as Pastor

Grant Osborne has some helpful advice or reminders about the role of the professor in the Bible college or seminary classroom here. Here is an excerpt.

"I have long felt that if all I was in the classroom was a disseminator of information, I would fail. The problem today is that the seminary (or college, or graduate school) classroom is often too academic, and too few students fall in love with the process of exegesis and feeding their flock—even looking upon the act of “feeding” in terms of delivering simple topical messages. We must show students the relevance of the biblical text for their lives, stimulating them spiritually as well as intellectually. The truth is that they can find everything we are going to say in commentaries and other sources. What we need to do is show them how practical and refreshing deep exegesis can be."

The Dating of Acts

This post, which is adapted from a course taught by Darrell Bock, covers the issue of the dating of Acts pretty well. 

Improving Your Speaking Skills

Although this post by Jason Shen is not specifically about teaching or preaching, there is some helpful advice about becoming a better speaker.

The Primacy of Peter

I do not hold to the primacy of Peter, at least in the Roman Catholic sense, or perhaps more accurately, the implications that they draw from it, namely, from the primacy to the papacy. But Dave Armstrong gives us fifty reasons supporting the primacy here and the twenty reasons he considers the best here. 

Writing Sermons with Integrity

Brad Whitt has a thoughtful and helpful post on avoiding sermon plagiarism here.

Journal of Biblical Literature 136:4

The latest volume of the Journal of Biblical Literature is now out. Here is a list of the articles with links to abstracts.

Creating a New “Great Divide”: The Exoticization of Ancient Culture in Some Recent Applications of Orality Studies to the Bible
Paul S. Evans
abstract

The Date of the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4–5)
Nathan MacDonald
abstract

The Lists of Levitical Cities (Joshua 21, 1 Chronicles 6) and the Propagandistic Map for the Hasmonean Territorial Expansion
Yitzhak Lee-Sak
abstract

Hands, Heads, and Feet: Body Parts as Poetic Device in Judges 4–5
Karolien Vermeulen
abstract

“He Will Take the Best of Your Fields”: Royal Feasts and Rural Extraction
Gale A. Yee
abstract

Yahwistic Appropriation of Achaemenid Ideology and the Function of Nehemiah 9 in Ezra-Nehemiah
David Janzen
abstract

Job 2 and 42:7–10 as Narrative Bridge and Theological Pivot
Paul K.-K. Cho
abstract

[Hbl] as “Worthless” in Qoheleth: A Critique of Michael V. Fox’s “Absurd” Thesis
Mark Sneed
abstract

Naqia and Nineveh in Nahum: Ambiguity and the Prostitute Queen
Gregory D. Cook
abstract

A Newly Reconstructed Calendrical Scroll from Qumran in Cryptic Script
Eshbal Ratzon and Jonathan Ben-Dov
abstract

Jesus’s Question to Pilate in Mark 15:2
Jonathan Schwiebert
abstract

Slow Sailing in Acts: Suspense in the Final Sea Journey (Acts 27:1–28:15)
Troy M. Troftgruben
abstract

Is Every Sin outside the Body except Immoral Sex? Weighing Whether 1 Corinthians 6:18b Is Paul’s Statement or a Corinthian Slogan
Andrew David Naselli
abstract

James 3:13–4:10 and the Language of Envy in Proverbs 3
Benjamin Lappenga
abstract

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. 

Eric D. Barreto, Matthew L. Skinner, and Steve Walton, eds.
Reading Acts in the Discourses of Masculinity and Politics
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11585
Reviewed by Christy Cobb

Craig G. Bartholomew and Michael W. Goheen
The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9933
Reviewed by Carl Long

Marie-Claire Beaulieu
The Sea in the Greek Imagination
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11027
Reviewed by Edmund P. Cueva

Daniel I. Block
For the Glory of God: Recovering a Biblical Theology of Worship
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9930
Reviewed by J. Michael Thigpen

Suzanne Boorer
The Vision of the Priestly Narrative: Its Genre and Hermeneutics of Time
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11416
Reviewed by Roy E. Garton
Reviewed by Brandon Grafius

Luc Dequeker
Studia Hierosolymitana
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11322
Reviewed by Jacques T. A. G. M. van Ruiten

Deena E. Grant
Divine Anger in the Hebrew Bible
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10125
Reviewed by Bruce E. Baloian

John Paul Heil
The Letter of James: Worship to Live By
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=8948
Reviewed by Patrick J. Hartin

Paul A. Himes
Foreknowledge and Social Identity in 1 Peter
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9967
Reviewed by Ruth Anne Reese

Mischa Hooker, trans.
Origen of Alexandria: Exegetical Works on Ezekiel
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10116
Reviewed by Peter W. Martens

Eric C. Lapp
Sepphoris II: The Clay Lamps from Ancient Sepphoris; Light Use and Regional Interactions
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11184
Reviewed by James Riley Strange

Jens-Christian Maschmeier
Rechtfertigung bei Paulus: Eine Kritik alter und neuer Paulusperspektiven
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=8041
Reviewed by James D. G. Dunn

Vincent K. H. Ooi
Scripture and Its Readers: Readings of Israel’s Story in Nehemiah 9, Ezekiel 20, and Acts 7
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10283
Reviewed by Steve Smith

Benjamin Porter and Alexis Boutin, eds.
Remembering the Dead in the Ancient Near East: Recent Contributions from Bioarchaeology and Mortuary Archaeology
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10600
Reviewed by Kristine Henriksen Garroway

Charles M. Stang
Apophasis and Pseudonymity in Dionysius the Areopagite: “No Longer I”
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=8498
Reviewed by Hennie Stander

Free Commentaries on 1-2 Kings

Rob Bradshaw has posted about four free commentaries and other resources on these books here.

Old Testament Quotations in 1 Peter

Mahlon Smith posts about them here.

Douglas Campbell on 1 Corinthians

The Christian Century has a good article written by Douglas Campbell on 1 Corinthians here. Is a fairly lengthy article so here are two paragraphs that I appreciated. 

"The church at Corinth was a mess. I count 15 distinguishable problems that Paul addresses in 1 Corinthians: partisanship, with the Corinthians factionalizing behind rival leaders (1:10–4:21; 16:10–18); incest (5:1–13); prostitution (6:12–21); celibacy within marriage (7:1–7); Christians married to one another asking about divorce (7:8–11, 39); Christians married to pagans asking about divorce (7:12–16); questions surrounding marriage and remarriage (7:25–40); lawsuits (6:1–11); idolatry (8:1–11:1); concerns about women praying and prophesying in immodest ways (11:2–16); chaos in worship, with speaking in tongues and competing voices (chapter 14); inequality in the communal meal (11:17–34); denials of the bodily resurrection of Jesus and of Christians (15:1–58); the collection of a large sum of money to be sent to Jerusalem (16:1–4); and a change in Paul’s travel plans (16:5–9).

 "Underlying this mess, there were four main difficulties: a basic failure in relating to one another in love; a dramatic failure of the local church leaders to act considerately in the face of their competition for status and influence; arrogant theological reasoning that denied the importance of the body (which we might call “Christian intellectualism”); and tensions arising from the pressures that Paul’s teaching about sex placed on his converts. Each of these problems would have been bad enough, but when they were all present together, the combination was toxic."

Free Audio Book of the Month: Twelve Ways Your Phone Is Changing You

Christianaudio.com is offering Tony Reinke's Twelve Ways Your Phone Is Changing You as their free audio download for the month of January. To read more about this resource and to get your free audio download in either MP3 or M4B formats go here.

Interview with Mark Keown on Philippians

Todd Scacewater has a pretty interesting interview here with Mark Keown on Philippians. Keown has written a two-volume commentary on Philippians in the Evangelical Exegetical Commentary series.

Questioning Apocalyptic

I have long struggled with apocalyptic both as a phenomenon and as a genre. It is not so much that I don't understand what is said about these but rather how the term apocalyptic and the baggage that comes with it is applied to books in the Bible (e.g., Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah, Revelation). Too often it seems that the label is used much like a hermeneutical trump card. Merely playing the card means this or that. But labeling a text is not interpreting it. There also seems to be a fair amount of circularity in the process. Certain texts are determined to be apocalyptic and therefore we derive a definition of apocalyptic based on characteristics noted in the books. In turn we say that a certain book is apocalyptic because it fits a definition that we derived from books we have already determined were apocalyptic. I hope that makes sense. In any case, Paul Henenbury raises some issues here that resonate with me. But I will have to wait until his forthcoming fuller discussion is available to assess his critique overall. 

Christianity Today's Top Ten Biblical Archaeology Discoveries of 2017

Gordon Govier enumerates and discusses them here.

Todd Bolen's List of Top 10 Discoveries in Biblical Archaeology from 2017

Check Todd's list out here. And if you don't already have Todd's resources or his Photo Companion to the Bible and/or his Pictorial Library of Bible Lands were left out of your stocking, you might want to check them out here.

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

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. 

Robert Karl Gnuse
The Elohist: A Seventh-Century Theological Tradition
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11643
Reviewed by Philip Y. Yoo

Esther J. Hamori
Women’s Divination in Biblical Literature: Prophecy, Necromancy, and Other Arts of Knowledge
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11500
Reviewed by Gerhard Karner

Lanuwabang Jamir
Exclusion and Judgment in Fellowship Meals: The Socio-historical Background of 1 Corinthians 11:17–34
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11262
Reviewed by Valeriy Alikin

Yigal Levin
The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah: 2 Chronicles 10–36
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11641
Reviewed by Ralph W. Klein

Richard D. Nelson
Judges: A Critical and Rhetorical Commentary
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11639
Reviewed by Keith Bodner

Frederick S. Tappenden
Resurrection in Paul: Cognition, Metaphor, and Transformation
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=11335
Reviewed by John Granger Cook
Reviewed by Robert H. von Thaden Jr.

James W. Voelz
Mark 1:1–8:26
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10070
Reviewed by Hallur Mortensen

Sarah Whittle
Covenant Renewal and the Consecration of the Gentiles in Romans
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10408
Reviewed by Ryan Heinsch
Reviewed by Janelle Peters