Around the Blogosphere

Things to note around the blogs:

It must be approaching MLK day in the USA and Denny Burk links to John Piper's 2000 sermon on racial reconciliation based on Ephesians 2.11-122. A recommended read!

Rachel at re-vis.ingre-form has some links on Eternal Subordination of the Son.

Chris Keith asks if we will ever have another Martin Hengel.

Things to Click

Around the blogosphere I note the following:

Patrick Schreiner notes a new book co-edited by his Father Tom Schreiner on the Lord's Supper in the Baptist Tradition. He provides an interview with the editors Tom Schreiner and Matthew Crawford about the book. I've glimpsed at the book and it looks good. Though as many of my student's know, I often joke about the Baptist view of the sacraments as teaching a doctrine of "real absence," i.e., wherever Jesus is, he's nowhere near the bread and wine. In fact, it is probably better if he doesn't even come to our communion service, because if he did ever come too close to the bread or the wine, we might end up turning Catholic. Caricatures aside, this book by Schreiner and Crawford looks like a good description of the Lord's Supper in the Believers church.

There is a continuing debate over at the Gospel Coalition on Bible Translation, this time discussing 2 Tim 2:2 about entrusting things to reliable "men" or reliable "people". Contributors to the discussion include Craig Blomberg, Ray Van Neste, and Michael Bird. More on the theme of women, you can read Ben Witherington's interview at CPX about Jesus, women, and the church. The Zondervan blog also draws attention to one of it's books How I Changed My Mind About Women in Leadership.

On Paul, there is a podcast about Brian Tucker's book You Belong to Christ: Paul and the Social Formation of Identity in 1 Corinthians 1-4. Matt Montonini also draws attention to a video interview with Doug Campbell about his book Deliverance of God (gotta love that Kiwi accent).

Things to Click

Jason Hood has some diabolical fun with 666.

Matt Montonin has an interview with J. Ramsay Michaels about his new John commentary.

Ben Myers has 13 Theses on Writing.

Things to Click

Over at Clayboy, Doug Chaplin asks what should we call the Old Testament/First Testament/Hebrew Bible. In my academic works I tend to refer to "Israel's sacred texts and traditions" because the canon was not closed for most Jews and there was a fluidity of texts and editions around. Also, Old/First Testament presupposes a Christian canonical framework, which I think can be used in its proper place, but not in the descriptive historical area. Even "Hebrew Bible" is a bit misleading and anachronistic since it contains it contains Aramaic and ANE loan words and "Bible" itself is a modern term. I think a bigger question is what do we call the Jewish literature written after the OT and before the NT (whoops, I lapsed into the old language again). Do we call it "intertestamental literature" or "post-biblical literature" or something else?

Over at Jesus Creed, Scot McKnight reflects on the new translation the Common English Bible. I know for a fact that the 1 Esdras translation is absolutely brilliant, the best in English around (I do have insider info on that one!). A big point of discussion is that the CEB translates tou huiou tou anthropou (i.e. the Son of Man) as "the Human One". This is not entirely new. In the Scholars Bible (by Robert Funk et al.) the phrase is translated as "Son of Adam" and Herman C. Waetjen in his under read but useful Mark commentary A Re-Ordering of Power: A Socio-Political Reading of Mark's Gospel translates it as "the Human Being". Do we translate the words or a possible semitic idiom behind the words?

Over at the Institute, Anthony Bradley has a great post on Glenn Beck confusion and why Christian leaders are unable to offer a viable alternative to him.

Over at Vorsprung durch Theologie, David Kirk reflects on his time studying on 1 Corinthians.

Euangelion Plugged at Koinonia

Over at Zondervan's Koinonia blog there is a plug for Euangelion as one of the favorite and most recommended blogs! I should add that Joel Willitts is co-author of Euangelion and my chum-in-arms does not always get a mention in dispatches. Several other blogs and sites are mentioned as well.

Things to Click

Around the blogosophere let me note two things:

The new "Lutheran Airlines" (hilarious) and HT: Scot McKnight.

Seth Odom interviews Jo Fitzmyer who is not impressed with the NPP.

Thinks to Click

Scot McKnight has a great image to ponder about being pro-life. Doug Moo tweets the meaning of justification by faith (do read!). Ardel Caneday has a new blog on Greek exegesis. Tom Schreiner is replacing John Piper as a plenary speaker at ETS at Atlanta. Mike Koke has a good round up of stuff on the Secret Gospel of Mark. Michael Jensen has 10 observations about the New Testament. And Bishop Mouneer Anis calls for a new Anglican Communion Structure.

Things to Click

Around the blogosphere please note:

Justin Taylor blogs on ambition and the imitation of Christ (with some good quotes from an article by Jason Hood). Craig Evans debates Bart Ehrman on the historical reliability of the Gospels. The Bibledex has some good videos on Jude and 1 Peter. Stephen Carlson notes two recent articles in JTS about forgeries concerning Mark. The division in evangelicalism today is probably represented with the two conferences running in Wheaton (Annual Theology Conference) and Louisville (T4G) respectively and Brian LePort asks people where they'd rather be.

Around the Blogs

As the blogosphere enters a new year, please note:

James Crossley looks on the decade that was and what might be in the future. Excerpts from D.A. Carson's excellent devotional For the Love of God are being posted daily at the Gospel Coalition Website. Norman Jeune draws attention to this quote from Bavinck:

"[W]e must remind ourselves that the Catholic righteousness by good works is vastly preferable to a protestant righteousness by good doctrine. At least righteousness by good works benefits one’s neighbor, whereas righteousness by good doctrine only produces lovelessness and pride. Furthermore, we must not blind ourselves to the tremendous faith, genuine repentence, complete surrender and the fervent love for God and neighbor evident in the lives and work of many Catholic Christians. The Christian life is so rich that it develops its full glory not just in a single form or within the walls of one church."

I am glad to see that Steven Coxhead has launched his own blog called Berith Road which is well worth checking out! Finally, Daniel Doleys notices that Michael Bird's new line of fleece pullovers are now available at the WTS Store.

Around the blogs

Things around the blogs to note:

1. The other letter of Paul to the Corinthians:

HT: Rachel Marszalek

2. Listen (with nice pictures) to a performance of the earliest extant copy of a Christan hymn with musical annotations sung from a papyri fragment discovered in Oxyrhynchus (P. Oxy. XV 1786). Totally cool! Although the Odes of Solomon is probably the earliest Christian hymn book (see Michael Lattke's recently published magisterial commentary on the Odes in the Hermeneia series), the P.Oxy fragment is the oldest extant piece of Christian hymnody dating from the third century.

HT: Mark Goodacre

3. My good buddy Jim Hamilton advocates the case for a pre-millennial eschatology against Sam Storms (amillennial) and Doug Wilson (post-millennial) in a forum hosted by John Piper at Bethlehem Baptist Church in the USA. Well-worth listening to.

Around the Blogs

Around the blosophere:

On the travails in the Church of Scotland, note the sober and gracious thoughts of David Robertson (from a Free Church perspective). He particularly warns his FC friends against "schadenfreude, delighting in another’s misery in order to indulge in an ‘I told you so’ kind of self-justification".

Chris Tilling has the new COE logo, absolutely hillarious!

See Ben Myers on Blogging as Theological Discourse.

Around the Blogsphere

At the T&T Clark blog, Chris Roberts introduces his book Creation and Covenant about a theology of marriage from the Patristic period to the present and he writes: "In the end, the research for this book lead me to embrace orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. I hope that people who sympathize with this perspective will appreciate the book for its clear restatement of often under-developed and latent ideas within the tradition. Meanwhile, I hope that those who disagree with my conclusions - such as the undecided types that I once was, and the liberals with whom I interact - will feel like my book raises the standard of conversation for everyone, and helping them in particular to make better and more precise arguments."

Ken Schenck of "Methodists-R-Us" is blogging through N.T. Wright's new book. Darrell Bock gives a review of Bart Ehrman's latest rant against belief. Judy Redman reviews How Did Christianity Begin? (with a smiley face from Steph in the comments!). Trevin Wax is starting to read Introducing Paul. Peter Enns is interviewed by Zondervan (on you.tube) about how C.S. Lewis has influenced him.

Scott Clark starts his series explaining Paedo-Baptism. I liked his final quote, " Historic practice, however, suggests a certain presumption in favor of infant baptism. Nevertheless, tradition alone is not sufficient reason for any practice in the church. Therefore Reformed Christians practice covenant baptism because we are commanded to do so in both the Old and New Covenant Scriptures. We believe that the Bible alone is the Spirit inspired, infallible, Word of God written. God’s Word alone is the source of our faith. Comparing our ideas with God’s clear revelation in the Bible is the only way to safety and certainty."

Euangelion Rated

Anna Blanch has done a survey of the top 100 biblioblogs according to ChristianColleges.com. This is what she said about Euangelion:

Euangelion: Joel Willits, Assistant Professor in Biblical and Theological Studies at North Park University in Chicago, and Michael Bird, an Australian scholar and lecturer in New Testament at the Highland Theological College in Dingwall, Scotland, are the authors of this blog which is self labelled as a "post post-modern" blog which discusses "New Testament studies, Christian Origins, Theological Exegesis, and following Jesus." A scholarly theological blog which explores a wide range of issues, commentaries, recent book releases and posts in line with their stated telos. My biggest criticism is a painful design which is aesthetically very difficult to read - actually stopped from reading more!

Making the Grade:

Scope - B
Quality - B
Theological Leanings - Protestant (Anglican ?)

(1) Is the black background really that bad? Luke Skywalker wears black! (2) Why are we suddenly Anglican?

Top 100 Theology Blogs

Euangelion makes it at #3 on the Top 100 Theology Blogs according to the Christian Colleges website.

Around the Blogs

First, if there is only one thing you do today, listen/watch to Danny Zacharias' multi-media music video on learning the Greek alphabet (he's doing some funky and amazing things for learning biblical Greek that are so hillarious and brilliant at the same time). We shall have to make his stage name Zac Dog for his singing abilities (as opposed to Nerdy Canadian Greek Geekoid which is less marketable).

Rick Creighton blogs on the moral universe of hollywood movies.

Ben Pfahlert lists 101 gospel Jobs.

Michael Barber has some stuff Jacob Neusner and Morton Smith's Secret Mark.

Thanks to Doug Chaplin I found this comment by Richard Fellows: "The 'Acts is unreliable' mantra is often repeated by people whose theories require it." That's the quote of the day!

Andrew Criddle posts on Clement of Alexandria's "order" of the Gospels.

David Kirk has this quote from John Murray: "We may not impose upon the Bible our own standards of truthfulness or our own notions of right and wrong. It is easy for the proponents of inerrancy to set up certain canons of inerrancy which are arbitrarily conceived and which prejudice the whole question from the outset. And it is still easier for the opponents of inerrancy to set up certain criteria in terms of which the Bible could readily be shown to be in error. Both attempts must be resisted ... In all questions pertinent to the doctrine of Scripture it is to be borne in mind that the sense of Scripture is Scripture; it is what Scripture means that constitutes Scripture teaching. We cannot deal, therefore, with the inerrancy of Scripture apart from hermeneutics." (Collected Writings 4, 26). I would surmize that recent debates which go under the cover of "inerrancy" are really in fact just the tip of the iceberg for larger more global differences on the nature of "Scripture", the type of divine and human agency postulated in the production of Scripture, and models of veracity in theology.

Around the Blogs

My post ETS/SBL wrap up will be soon enough, but here's something that have been happening in the interim:

Ben Myers of Faith and Theology has accepted a job at the Uniting Theological College in Sydney, so congrats to Ben and we wish him well in his new job.

Mark Dever interviews Don Carson about his call to ministry and evangelicalism.

Justin Taylor plugs into some video interviews with John Lennox (do watch some of them, he is great) about God, Science, and Atheism.

In the crazy world that is Anglicanism, the liberal American province will be received back into communion by the Anglican Consultative Council while the Province of the Southern Cone is likely to be suspended for providing a safe haven for Dioceses fleeing the the Episcopal Church in America.

Around the blogosphere

Around the traps:

Nelson Moore gives a review of James McGrath's new book on the Burial of Jesus.

Lynn Cohick has a great post on the Canannite Woman of Matthew 15.

Richard Hays will be lecturing on "Hidden in order to be Revealed: Jesus as the God of Israel in Mark's Gospel" (I wish my good friend James Crossley was in the audience).

Desi Alexander has a new book on biblical theology called From Eden to the New Jerusalem.

And CT has an article on the Vatican and biblical authority and an on-line poll about whether inerrancy is still the best word for communicating the nature and authority of the Bible (this has been taken off now and from memory those who said that inerrancy was still a useful word got the largest vote, but the largest vote was only 44% overall, and other categories were: useful but needs tweaking and never was a good word).

Congrats All Round

Good news on the blogosphere includes:

1. Denny Burke has just been appointed as Dean of Boyce College located at SBTS.

2. Alan Bandy has been appointed to SEBTS as assistant director of the Ph.D programme.

3. Michael Pahl receives his Ph.D: congrats to the new doktorb!

4. And this blogger is pregnant.

Congrats to everyone. May your crops be plentiful, the road rise up to meet you, and all your children be masculine and calvinistic.

The Death of Blogs?

Christianity Today has an interesting piece on the Death of Blogs by Ted Olsen. While the gimmick may be passing for many, I think that biblioblogs and theoblogs are in full swing. I feel like quoting Mark Twain: "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated".

Aussie Bloggers Reunited

And who says New Testament scholars and Theologians can't get along?

This photo is taken from my recent trip back to Zion (aka Australia) where I was able to reacquaint myself with the sun, a decent Merlot that did not taste like the juice of a rotten French turnip, and my good friend the Rt. Rev. Dr. Ben Myers. Our families got together for a lovely dinner and some great fellowship. I look forward to doing it again at San Diego where Ben will be giving the inaugural address for the "Self-Appointed Guardians of Orthodoxy" working-group at AAR and a paper on "Why Karl Barth would be a Republican" for the Karl Barth Society. At a recent conference in Edinburgh, Bruce McCormack told me that "Ben runs the best theology blog on the internet" so check out his blog Faith and Theology if you want a good run down on some (Barthianesque) theology and reflections about that boring musician Bob Dylan.