D.A. Carson Festschrift

Understanding the Times: New Testament Studies in the 21st Century. Essays in Honor of D.A.Carson on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday

Edited by Andreas Köstenberger and Robert Yarbrough

Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011 - due out 30 April!

In appreciation of Carson’s life work, editors Andreas J. Köstenberger and Robert Yarbrough, themselves respected scholars, have assembled a team of contributors, including Stanley Porter, Grant Osborne, Mark Dever, John Woodbridge, Douglas Moo, Peter O’Brien, Eckhard Schnabel, Craig Blomberg, and David Pao, together to produce this volume of essays on New Testament studies in modern times. The book is divided into three parts: New Testament Studies and Ancillary Disciplines, Special Topics in New Testament Studies, and New Testament Studies Around the World. Pastors, professors, and students will benefit not only from the example of a man who understands the times, but also from the high quality of scholarship and wide variety of topics covered in this volume.

“Don Carson is one of the most productive and capable evangelical scholars in the English-speaking world, and this volume by former students and teaching colleagues reflects the breadth of his interests and especially his concern for the development of biblical studies in a global context. Alongside fresh personal contributions to New Testament study, there are informative surveys of developments in New Testament studies in Africa and Asia, as well as in North America and Europe. This solid volume thus offers not only a worthy tribute to its honoree but also valuable assessments of the state of New Testament scholarship worldwide.”

-I. Howard Marshall

“D. A. Carson is the Renaissance man of North American evangelicalism. He is a biblical scholar of the highest caliber, a preacher and evangelist of renown, and a theologian of unswerving commitment to the gospel. His teaching ministry has spanned the globe; in fact, I’ve heard his sermon on Matthew 27 on three different continents and found it equally stirring each time. This book is a snapshot of issues in the international New Testament scene as it stands today. This erudite collection of essays is rightly dedicated to one who has committed his life to serving the global church.”

-Michael F. Bird

Michael Bird on N.T. Wright and other Influential Authors

Zondervan has interviewed me on authors that have shaped and influenced my thinking. Here's what I had to say (but note that this is a send up and is not real!):

Cover of Next Bird Book

I'm currently finishing up the editing and indexing for another Bird-Book that I hope to be out in time for ETS/SBL 2009, which is Crossing over Sea and Land: Jewish Missionary Activity in the Second Temple Period (Hendrickson). Here's the cover: gucci job by the designer me thinks!

COSL Cover

Alban offer to Euangelion Followers

The generous folks at Alban Books have an excellent offer available exclusive to "followers" and readers of Euangelion. Alban Books is giving a 20% discount to all Euangelion followers/readers who purchase items from them before 31 August 2009. But wait, there's more. Order immediately and you'll also get free postage. Sadly, this offer applies only to UK and European customers. To my American friends I say, get the books you want sent to a friend in the UK and have them to send it to you in the US (I don't know if it's legal, but it's practical). Alban Books distributes volumes for Abingdon, Augsburg Fortress, Ave Maria, Baylor Uni Press, Templeton Press, Westminster John Knox, Eerdmans, Hendrickson, and Orbis. I think I'll even order Leader Keck on Romans myself! To order, print out this form and send it to Alban Books.

Book Notice: Heretics: For Armchair Theologians

Justo L. Gonzalez & Catherine Gonzalez

Illustrations by Ron Hill

Heretics: For Armchair Theologians

Louisville/London: Westminster John Knox, 2008

Available at Alban Books in the UK

Available at Amazon.com in the USA

This is a great little introduction to the "other side" of early Christianity, those who lost the doctrinal disputes, and became known as heretics. Gonzalez & Gonzalez give a good intro to the Ebionites, Gnostics, Marcion, Montanists, Donatists, and Pelagius. There is something that lay people and first year Church History students would find very readable and highly informative. You could easily base a Sunday school class around this book. The illustrations by Ron Hill are also very amusing. One great quote is worth reproducing: "This goes against the common stereotype of the church being narrow-minded in contrast with the open-minded attitude of heretics, when in fact the opposite is closer to the truth: at least in the early centuries of Christianity, it was the heretics who rejected all views but their own, and most often the church at large allowed for more latitutde than did the heretics" (p. 11).

Book Notice: The Word Leaps the Gap

I've finally been able to spend an afternoon reading over the Richard Hays festschrift The Word Leaps the Gap: Essays on Scripture and Theology in Honor of Richard B. Hays. This is one of those uber-books with a who's who of biblical and theological scholarship involved. I won't give an article by article review, but some essays stood out for me in my afternoon of browsing through the book:

1. Luke Timothy Johnson "John and Thomas in Context: An Exercise in Canonical Criticism" - you could replace Gos. Thom. with John in the Nag Hammadi, but you can't replace John with Gos. Thom. in the NT, it doesn't sit neatly between Luke and Acts.

2. E.P. Sanders "Did Paul's Theology Develop?" where he argues that he never ever called Paul "inconsistent" or "irrational" but regarded him as a coherent though unsystematic thinker. Provides further reflections on development in the Pauline writings as a natural expression of his human personality and missiological activities.

3. James D. G. Dunn "EK PISTEOS: A Key to the Meaning of PISTIS CHRISTOU" written in letter form and closes with the words "Sorry Richard".

4. Douglas A. Campbell "An Echo of Scripture in Paul, and Its Implications" where builds on Hays' detection of an echo of Psalm 98.2-3 LXX in Rom. 1.17. Campbell asserts that divine kingship rather than covenantal faithfulness is the background to the echo in Rom. 1.17. I suspect that this is a rare and unusual convergence of Doug Campbell with Mark Seifrid who has argued similarly (but with very different nuances) about Ps 98 and "righteousness".

So many good essays in this volume, not enough time to read them all, Nijay Gupta also offers his own partial review. There is also a charming opening poem in tribute to Richard by one of his friends, a moving testimony about Richard from his daughter Sarah who is a Buddhist, and a concluding reprint of an essay by Richard and his wife Judy about growing old biblically.

I'm not a big believer in buying festschrifts, but this is a book that is genuinely good to have on the shelf with so many cool essays over diverse areas.

Spring 2009 Baker Catalogue

The Baker Publishers Spring 2009 Catalogue is available here which has some great books in Biblical Studies (esp. p. 26) and lots on Calvin as well.

Two Bargain Books at Wesley-Owen

For those in the UK, in the latest Wesley-Owen catalogue there is a stack of Paternoster books going cheap as chips which I recommend:

1. Tim Chester, From Creation to New Creation - excellent for giving small groups and Sunday school classes an introduction to the biblical storyline. (RRP £8.99, Now £4.50). Blurb: "The Bible is the story of God's salvation. Despite our fall into sin, and the recurrent rejection of God's rule, God promised to make Abraham into a 'great nation' and to 'bless' him. Yet what does this mean? How are we to interpret this promise of salvation? Looking at God's covenantal promises with Abraham, Moses and David, Tim Chester presents the 'big picture'? of the Bible and helps Christians understand the part in relation to the whole."

2. Petrus Grabe, New Covenant, New Community - the best introduction to the concept of covenant in the Bible, Second Temple Jewish literature, and Patristic literature that I've seen. (RRP £ 17.99, Now £ 8.99). Blurb: "The concept of 'covenant' is a crucial component in understanding God and his actions throughout salvation history. New Covenant, New Community looks at covenant in the Old and New Testaments and the history of Christian interpretation, and makes a substantial contribution to biblical theological studies in this area. What are the elements of continuity and discontinuity in terms of the covenant concept between the Old and New Testaments? Can we truly speak of a 'new' covenant that is distinct from the old? What are the implications of a biblical understanding of covenant for the community of faith - then and now? These are just a few of the many questions Grabe addresses in this far-reaching, well-researched and highly accessible study."

New Testament in Antiquity

There are so many good NT Introductions out there these days. Currently, I refer students to David deSilva, Raymond Brown, and sometimes Robert H. Gundry. But I am considering adding to the list the recent book by Gary Burge, Lynn Cohick, and Gene Green (all of Wheaton College) with their new volume The New Testament in Antiquity. I love Gary Burge's stuff on Gospel of John and Christian Politics about the land of Israel. Lynn Cohick is writing a commentary on Ephesians in the NCCS which I edit with Craig Keener. Sadly, I don't know that much about Gene Green as I haven't read his Thessalonians or 2 Peter/Jude commentaries. Zondervan has put an interview up of the trio on youtube discussing the book.

Book Notice: Prayer Coach

James L. Nicodem

Prayer Coach: For All Who Want to Get Off the Bench and onto the Praying Field (Click link to Amazon.com)

I have struggled to pray consistently since moving out of church ministry and into academics. I don't mean when I was in full-time church ministry prayer was an easy discipline for me; it never has been. But prayer seemed much more central to my vocation then and I was intentional about my prayer life. Once I stepped out of vocational church ministry my prayer life took a big hit and unfortunately it has yet to recover. 

I have found there are so many activities that take me away from praying. To be honest, it would be more accurate to say there are so many other pursuits I choose over praying. It is an issue of priority. I would rather begin reading the latest important article or book, write a paragraph or two, practice my Hebrew or German, revise a course syllabus or blog. I so often choose to do something other than pray. By this choice I deem the other things more necessary. This tendency isn't because I don't know the importance of prayer or know how to pray. It's not a matter of poor theology or lack of skill. No. My problem isn't what I don't know, its simply that I don't pray. 

I recommend the book Prayer Coach because it is just the kind of book I need. It's not a book so much about theology or skill, although both are adequately represented, as it is a book about the praying. Perhaps Bill Hybels's blurb says it best: "This book had a singular effect on me. It made me want to pray more". 

I recommend this book for a personal reason as well. The author Jim Nicodem is a personal and dear friend of mine and my pastor.  I have an up close and personal knowledge of the man behind the book. Jim is the founding pastor of Christ Community Church in the suburbs of Chicago and not only was I on his ministry staff in the late nineties, we continue to call CCC our church home. For more than a decade I have come to know that Jim is a pray-er. A Wheaton and TEDS (MDiv & DMin) graduate, Jim is an intellectual. But his passion is not theory; it is practice. Jim is passionate about and gifted at teaching the Bible. More than anything, however, Jim wants folks to live the teaching they know. Over lunch recently I told him that I really appreciate the tactility of his teaching (I don't think I put it like that over lunch). And it is just the kind of preaching/teaching I need to hear. While I am often content to think theoretically, he has little patience for mere intellectual gymnastics. I need this kind of influence in my life. I hope this book is the first of many from his pen or is it keyboard. 

It is important to put the book in its proper context however, so the reader has the right expectations when picking it up. Jim's book is squarely in the evangelical pietistic stream of the Protestant faith. For example, there is no attempt to put his approach to prayer in the context of the wider prayer traditions of the Church, although reflecting many of the same priorities, e.g. "Patterns" (ch. 3). For these one should consult either 

Phillis Tickle's book The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime or better 

Scot McKnight's Praying with the Church: Following Jesus Daily, Hourly, Today. 

Yet, Jim's interest is not this context and his work should not be judged for its omission. Rather Jim brings to bear on the topic of the practice of prayer in very real-concrete discussions both his over a quarter-century's experience as a pastor and more importantly his almost a half-century's walk with Christ. His writing is personally revealing and engaging to boot. 

The book is divided into four parts: (1) The Busters. Here Jim discusses several obstacles to praying. On list are things like not planning to pray, sin in the life of a believer, and a lack of passion. (2) The Basics. Here Jim discusses the importance of patterns in praying, responding to promptings and the need for a passionate speech when praying. (3) The Building Blocks. In this section, Jim develops his own and improved form of the well-known ACTS (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication). His is CHAT: Confess, Honor, Ask and Thank. Perhaps the most important point is that his list is comprised of verbs implying the importance of action. (4) The Beneficiaries. Jim discusses five categories of persons that will be affected by our prayers: our children, church leaders, accountability partners and Satan. There is a useful appendix of biblical names, titles and attributes of God for use in honoring God. 

The only disappointing part of the book for me, and only because I am a Bobby Bowden fan, is Bowden's foreward. When one has to say, "That's enough about me; now on to this book", with only five lines to go, there is something slightly awry. Nevertheless, Go FSU (Florida State University)! They play in a bowl game today against the University of Wisconsin.

Book Notice: Seeking the Identity of Jesus

Richard Hays and Beverly Gaventa (eds.)
Seeking the Identity of Jesus: A Pilgrimage
Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008
Available at Amazon.com

A recent Eerdmans volume from a series of interdisciplinary seminars held at the Centre for Theological Inquiry (Princeton) is Seeking the Identity of Jesus edited by Beverly Gaventa and Richard Hays. It includes sections on "Sources and Methods", "The Testimony of the Biblical Witness", "the Testimony of the Church", and "Epilogue: Who is Jesus Christ for us Today?". In the opening chapter, "Seeking the Identity of Jesus", Gaventa and Hays begin by examining the conflicting images of Jesus in scholarship and culture including the personal saviour Jesus and the Jesus of liberal theologies related to the Jesus Seminar and Gnostic spiritualities. I liked this quote about the Jesus Seminar: "This portrait was of a strikingly non-Jewish Jesus, a laconic wandering sage who loved witty aphorisms but had no interest in Israel's heritage or destiny, and no interest in leading a new religious movement" (p. 2). Amen! The Identity of Jesus Project at CTI, in contrast to the Jesus Seminar, came to believe that: "Jesus is best understood not by separting him from canon and creed but by investigating the ways in which the church's canon and creed provide the distinctive clarification of his identity. The church's ancient ecumenical creeds are not artificial impositions of Scripture but interpretative summaries of the biblical narratives. Therefore, they offer us an overarching sense of the meaning of the whole Bible, and of Jesus' place within that story" (p. 5). The highlight of the chapter is Hays and Gaventa's listing of the convergences between the various contributors: (1) Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew; (2) The identity of Jesus is reliably attested and known in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments; (3) The Entirety of the canonical witness is indispensable to a faithful rendering of the figure of Jesus; (4) In order to understand the identity of Jesus rightly, the church must constantly engage in the practice of deep, sustained reading of these texts; (5) To come to grips with the identity of Jesus, we must know him as he is presented to us throught the medium of narrative; (6) The trajectory begun within the New Testament of interpreting Jesus' identity in and for the church has continued through Christian history; (7) Because Jesus remains a living presence, he can be encountered in the community of his people, the body of Christ; (8) Jesus is a disturbing destabilizing figure; and (9) The identity of Jesus is something that must be learned through long term discipline. So far it's a great book and I'll blog on anything more interesting that I come across.

Book Notice: Vlachos, The Law and the Knowledge of Good & Evil

Chris Vlachos

The Law and the Knowledge of Good & Evil:
The Edenic Background of the Catalytic Operation of the Law in Paul

Pickwick Publications, Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2008.

Available at Amazon.com

First Corinthians 15:56, "The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law," is both puzzling and neglected. It is puzzling since there appears to be no precursor in 1 Corinthians to the law-critical statement found there. It is neglected because of its size. Nevertheless, the short verse offers the opportunity to analyze in a rudimentary state Paul's law-sin notion that appears full-blown in Romans, and the absence of a polemical setting allows scholars to examine a law-critical statement issued during a polemical lull. In The Law and Knowledge of Good and Evil, Vlachos weighs attempts to explain the presence of 1 Cor 15:56 in 1 Corinthians and argues that the Genesis Fall narrative, where the tempter plied his seductions by way of the commandment, provides the theological substructure to Paul's understanding of the law's provocation of sin. In doing so, Vlachos contends that Paul reaches the historical high water mark of his polemic against the salvific efficacy of the law by locating a law-sin nexus in Eden, and, contrary to some recent perspectives on Paul, he argues that the edenically informed axiom in 1 Cor 15:56 suggests that Paul's fundamental concern with the law was rooted in primordial rather than ethnic soil. While studies of Paul and the law have tended to bypass Eden, The Law and Knowledge of Good and Evil breaks ground by moving the argument beyond Second Temple Judaism to the Genesis Fall account, where the prohibition against partaking of the knowledge of good and evil led to the knowledge of sin.

Jesus the Messiah

Coming out mid next year is my book, Are You the One Who is to Come? The Historical Jesus and the Messianic Question (Baker 2009). I was amazed that no single monograph has appeared on this subject for some time. It was an immense topic of discussion in late nineteenth century German scholarship until William Wrede's Messianic Secret whereafter interest appears to have waned. Whether Jesus claimed to be a messianic figure is arguably one of the most important questions for a NT Theology and the history of early Christianity. My objective in this book is not to "prove" that Jesus was the Messiah to satisfy apologetic needs, rather, it is to show that the messianism of Jesus is the best way to account for the messianic dimension of the eary church (esp. as reported by Paul) and the messianic testimony embedded in our sources (i.e. the Gospels). In this respect I interact largely with works by N.T. Wright, Craig Evans, and Martin Hengel. I like to think that I'm relatively nuanced and careful in how I define a messianic figure, a messianic text, and which Gospel passages attribute a messianic role to Jesus (and the probability of their authenticity), but that will be for others to decide. I had been thinking about this topic ever since doing doctoral studies, but it was really Joseph Fitzmyer's The One Who is to Come that really motivated to write something since, as Hengel noted long ago, the non-messianic Jesus has become a virtual dogma in biblical scholarship. This volume is an attempt at a minority report. Stanley E. Porter was also kind enough to write the foreword which forms an excellent introduction to the problem being addressed in the book. It was also good to leave Paul for Jesus again and return back to the Gospels for a period of concerted study.

More Books to Watch Out For

1. On the historical Jesus, see Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus edited by Tom Holmén and Stanley E. Porter (I have an article here on 'the historical Jesus and the parting of the ways').

2. On the NT and Chrisitan Theology, see Scripture's Doctrine and Theology's Bible: How the New Testament Shapes Christian Dogmatics edited by Markus Bockmuehl and Alan Torrance.

Books, Books, Books

On the book front note the following:

1. Tim Chester (a church planter in Sheffield, England) has written a new book about sanctification called, You Can Change: God's Transforming Power for Our Sinful Behaviour and Negative Emotions with endorsements from Tim Keller and Paul Tripp. This page has an excerpt of the book plus a short video of Tim introducing the book.

2. Scot McKnight is blogging his way through The Consolations of Theology edited by Brian Rosner and written by the faculty of Moore Theological College in Sydney. Six studies of human realities — anger, obsession, despair, anxiety, disappointment, and pain.

3. Daniel Harrington has an introduction to Paul out called, Meeting St. Paul Today: Understanding the Man, His Mission, and His Message. The subtitle sounds strangely familiar!

4. Andy Naselli points to D. A. Carson’s review of Roland Boer’s Rescuing the Bible. Carson gives no quarter and much to say has he. I have to include a quote from the review:

This book, a fascinating mix of dogmatic left-wing self-righteousness combined with rich and scathing condescension toward all who are even a tad less left than the author, is rich in unintended irony. Boer cannot see how implausible his arguments become. While nominally allowing “religious” people to believe in the supernatural so long as they support his left-wing agenda and join forces with him in a “worldly” secularism, what he says about the Bible and about biblical scholarship is so blatantly committed to philosophical naturalism and historical minimalism that even the most mild supernaturalism is ridiculed: no allowance can be made for divine revelation, anyone who thinks Moses existed is not really a scholar, biblical studies can be called “scientific” only if the scholars themselves do not preach, and so forth. Boer consistently damns everyone on the right by ridiculing the obvious targets, but probably he would not appreciate it if a counterpart on the right ridiculed those on the left by skewering Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot. It turns out that Boer wants to “rescue” the Bible not only from what people on the right say that it means but from what the Bible itself says, for whenever the Bible, in all its multivalence, disagrees with Boer’s vision of the summum bonum, it is to be undermined, set aside, and mocked—not even wrestled with. Readers are repeatedly told that those nasty right-wingers have “stolen” the Bible. Boer never considers the possibility that quite a few left-wingers have simply abandoned the Bible, leaving the terrain open for those who at least take it seriously. What will satisfy Boer, it seems, is not the liberation of the Bible but the liberation of the Bible from any agenda he considers right-wing, so that it can be locked in servitude to a left-wing agenda. Boer’s dismissive arguments to prove the Bible is hopelessly multivalent—a commonplace among many modern and postmodern readers today—is spectacularly unconvincing because he does not interact with any serious literature (and there is two thousand years’ worth of such literature) that argues, with various degrees of success, how the Bible does hang together. But perhaps this is not too surprising from an author who cherishes chaos precisely because chaos undermines God’s authority—and all authority save Boer’s must be overthrown. I think that many biblical writers would call that choice idolatry. At the end of the day, Boer is trying to rescue the Bible from God.

One Down Five to Go!

Today I received my copy of A Bird's Eye-View of Paul and it looks swish. My thanks to IVP for doing a cracking good job of getting it out. I owe this book to James Crossley since it was written while waiting for him to finish revisions on another book we're doing together - so here's to you James! I sincerely hope this blesses whoever reads it and their faith in God and vision of God's kingdom is refocused and re-energized as a result. This is one book where my humour goes kinda rampant so be warned! A new book always feels like (well kinda sorta) a child going off to college: you send them out into the big bad world and hope they'll handle the reviews that come their way. I shall be celebrating tonight with some of Livy's Lives and a bottle of Wolf Blass Yellow Label Cab-Sav! Other books coming out in the next twelve to fifteen months include:

1. How did Christianity Begin? A Believer and Non-believer Examine the Evidence (with James Crossley). London: SPCK, Sept 2008. This is now at copy editing stage. James Crossley has been great to work with (despite his incessant "you're distorting what I'm saying"). Rebecca Mullhearn is a great editor with good ideas and even when she sent us back to formulae she was a great encouragment the whole way. Maurice Casey gives me a bit of slap down in the end, but the highlight of the book IMHO is Scot McKnight giving James Crossley six of the best trousers down! Might be out in time for BNTC, but probably not!

2. Crossing Over Sea and Land: Jewish Proselytizing Activity in the Second-Temple Period. Tuebingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 2008. I'm currently finishing this off right now. It is a prequel to my Ph.D thesis. I'm trying to build on the work of Scot McKnight and Martin Goodman and say some original stuff about Jewish missionary activity in Colossae and how Paul's Judeo-Christian opponents relate to Jewish proselytizing efforts.

3. The Faith of Jesus Christ: Exegetical, Biblical, and Theological Studies (with Preston Srpinkle) . Milton Keynes: Paternoster, Jan/Feb 2009. I just got the last essay for this today and it will be at proof and copy editing stage in the next couple of weeks. If you are into Pauline studies this will be THE book of 2009 as we have a cast of all-stars going head-to-head and mano-e-mano. The Pistis Christou debate will never be the same.

4. Are You the One Who is to Come? The Historical Jesus and the Messianic Question. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2009. This is at proof reading stage before it goes to Baker. Alas, I must sadly part company with Father Fitzmyer and Jimmy Dunn on this one and throw in my lot with Hengel, Evans, and Wright as I believe that the historical Jesus' career was "performatively messianic". This book is the attempt to prove so!

5. Colossians: A New Covenant Commentary. Oregon: Cascade, July 2009. This will be my summer project (along with writing a course on "Reformed interpretation of Romans from Calvin to Cranfield"). I'm longing to write a commentary on my favourite epistle of the New Testament and dive into Markus Barth's own commentary as well as recent commentaries by M.M. Thompson, Ben Witherington, and Doug Moo too. It is part of a new commentary series edited by myself and Craig Keener with a line-up of great scholars from around the world (I mean Asia, Africa, America, Australia). I'll blog more on that in the future.

As J.S. Bach wrote after all of his works: SDG!

A Forthcoming Paul Book

Above is the front cover for my forthcoming new book entitled: A Bird's-Eye View of Paul: The Man, his mission, and his message published by the excellent people at IVP. It should be available in a couple of months.

Michael Gorman has written a nice commendation:

"Michael Bird offers an insightful, readable, and serious (yet occasionally witty) introduction to Paul in conversation with the best scholarship on the apostle. It will be especially useful for those who think they know Paul well but have the courage to take a fresh look and have their assumptions challenged. Particularly important are Bird's discussions of justification and of the gospel itself. Let those who have ears to hear listen to what the Spirit--via Paul and Bird--is saying to the people of God in a world that seems increasingly similar to Paul's".

Update:

Here is a TOC as requested.

1. What is Paul?
2. A Funny Thing Happened on the Road to Damascus
3. The Stories behind the Story
4. Reading Somebody Else’s Mail
5. The Royal Announcement
6. The Crux of the Gospel
7. The Return of the King
8. One God, One Lord: Monotheism and the Messiah
9. Living a Life Worthy of the Gospel: The Ethics of Paul
10. Gospelizing 101: Paul’s Spirituality
11. Epilogue

The Ultimate Christmas Presents

My ultimate Christmas presents would have to be:

Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism by Menahem Stern.
Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaicarum by J.B. Frey
Corpus Papyrorum Iudaicarum by V. Tcerikover and A. Fuks.

Why are all the best books out of print or too expensive!!! Does anyone know where to find these books?

Book Buying List for ETS-SBL

This year my shopping list for SBL is:

Charles H. Talbert - Ephesians and Colossians (Paideia).

D.A. Carson & Greg Beale - Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament

M. Eugene Boring - Mark (NTL)

A.Y. Collins - Mark: A Commentary (Hermeneia)

Jacob Myers - 1 & 2 Esdras (AB)

Erkki Koskenniemi - The Exposure of Infants among Jews and Christians in Antiquity

Any one of these books would make a great birthday present for someone (with red hair and from Australia) who just happens to be celebrating their birthday at SBL (18 Nov 07).

New Books from Eerdmans

New books from Eerdmans include these titles:

Greed as Idolatry: The Origin and Meaning of a Pauline Metaphor by Brian S. Rosner

Jesus and Paul Reconnected: Fresh Pathways into an Old Debate edited by Todd Still

Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles: Beyond the New Perspective by Francis Watson

The New Perspective on Paul by James D.G. Dunn

Recovering Paul's Mother Tongue: Language and Theology in Galatians by Susan G. Eastman.

HT: The newly married Matt Montonini