The Bible and Culture

In his discussion of Gnosticism in Chapter 14,  there is not much to quibble with in terms of the actual analysis of Gnostic thought and, to the degree we can tell anything about it,  Gnostic praxis. Johnson is right that "however diverse the respective Gnostic systems are in detail, they are remarkably consistent with regard to their basic soteriology." (p. 215).   One is saved by what one knows, not who one believes in.  The key to salvation is revelatory knowledge, and if you don't have … [Read more...]

On the Colbert Show, Bill O'Reilly provides us with irrefutable proof of the existence of God!   Check it out about 3:38 seconds into this Colbert Monologue at the following link. http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=373367 … [Read more...]

In various ways, what the church became after the NT era is of less importance, than what its foundational NT documents say it should be. There has always been a gap between Christianity on the ground, and the beliefs and behavior and praxis called for in Scripture.  No one, I think, would debate this.  Nor do I think there is much debate that Christianity became increasingly more like other established religions as time went on.  It began to have buildings, it began to have priests,  it … [Read more...]

Let us say from the outset of this post that Luke Johnson is right about a wide variety of things.  For instance, there can be no doubt at all that many Gentiles who became Christians under the aegis of Paul or others brought with them into their Christian communities certain Greco-Roman ways of being religious.  You can see this for example in the reference to proxy baptism for the dead in 1 Cor. 15.  Their approach to Christian initiation rites was no doubt affected by their previous … [Read more...]

In his seminal discussion of the relationship between Judaism and Hellenism (two volumes with that very title)  Martin Hengel showed a very long time ago that the only sort of Judaism that really existed in Jesus' day was Hellenized Judaism,a Judaism enough indebted to the Greek language and culture that it had even translated its sacred texts into Greek.  There was of course a sliding scale between more and less Hellenized forms of Judaism, but one would be hard pressed to find a form of … [Read more...]

In a very real sense, where one starts in an intellectual inquiry will determine where one ends up.  If you pursue a particular line of logic and discourse, there are only so many places such a pursuit can lead.   Luke Johnson in this important book, tired of the analysis of the polemics of early Christian writers bent on demonizing paganism, tries to come up with a paradigm or modus operandi that allows one to compare and contrast Christianity, Judaism and ancient Greco-Roman religion … [Read more...]

There have been many Christians, sadly, who have violated the basic Christian rule of 'in all things charity'  when it comes to evaluating the Christian faith of our President.   It continues to be questioned,  unfairly, again and again, perhaps because of his name, perhaps because of his race, perhaps because of who his father was.  Whatever the reason,  any person who self-identifies persistently as a Christian,  and at personal cost to him with various audiences (there were actually … [Read more...]

L.T. Johnson, Among the Gentiles: Greco-Roman Religion and Christianity, (Yale/Anchor, 2009), 480 pages. There are books which catch a rising tide of interest and scholarship in a subject and become seminal studies.   There are books which go against the tide of general scholarly opinion, and sometimes they survive because of their excellence.  And then there are books which float along calmly downstream and people recognize them for what they are, not timely tomes  or decent dissents but … [Read more...]

In a previous post I have talked about lectors, and the reference to them in Mark and Revelation, now I want to focus on one particular, and particularly important Pauline text--- 1 Tim. 4.13.    The translation of this verse varies widely from one English translation to the next, and that is in part because of the lack of understanding about oral texts and how texts function in oral cultures.   Paul is giving succinct advice of what Timothy should be busy doing in his absence when it comes … [Read more...]

Constantine bashing has become an art form since Dan Brown's The da Vinci Code, so much so that some Christian theologians have taken to defending the man (see now Leithart's  Defending Constantine).   Sigve Tonstad must be clearly placed in the category of the bash brothers when it comes to Constantine, seen as the instigator of the downward spiral that led to an imperial church, not merely a Christianized Empire. On p. 446  Tonstad says  an emperor is a ruler answerable to none. “The … [Read more...]