It is not always necessary to write a large scholarly tome to write a good one, and Gary Hoag’s Wealth in Ancient Ephesus and the First Letter to Timothy. Fresh Insights from Ephesiaca by Xenephon of Ephesus (Eisenbrauns, 2015, $49.00, 266 pages), is a good book. It approaches 1 Timothy with an attempt to read the letter in light of its likely social and religious context in a city dominated by its main temple, which was also its main bank… Read more

In 1953 a movie came out entitled The Robe which was a sand and sandals epic about a Roman centurion who had been one of the ones who crucified Jesus, and won his robe on the toss of the dice, and was thereafter haunted by the man on the cross. Unlike, Hail Caesar (which draws upon some of the premise of that earlier movie, but is a satire), the Robe, starring no less an actor than Richard Burton, was a… Read more

Maybe you did not notice, but the only references at all to actual rock n’ roll/soul/funk bands in the Grammys last night was in tributes to now deceased musicians: 1) Glenn Frey of the Eagles; 2) Maurice White founder of Earth, Wind, and Fire;3) B.B. King, the best of the tributes, with Bonnie Raitt and Gary Clark and Chris Stapelton (from Ky.) doing ‘The Thrill is Gone’; 4) an homage to David Bowie by the irrepressible Lady Gaga. There was… Read more

Witherington_44145_Excerpt Here you will find a little excerpt of our newest novel, by kind permission of Wipf and Stock. By all means enjoy….. and then get the whole thing on Kindle or in paperback. BW3 Read more

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Here is an interesting article about the discovery at Sepphoris, near Nazareth, of bi-lingual (Aramaic and Greek) inscriptions. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/01/27/israeli-archaeologists-find-inscriptions-in-the-galilee-in-the-language-of-jesus-these-are-the-words-theyve-deciphered-so-far/ What should be noted about this is the following: 1) Galilee was a mixed language milieu. Probably both Jesus and the disciples knew some Greek as well as their native Semitic languages Aramaic and Hebrew. Jesus would have spoken Greek to Roman soldiers and Pilate; 2) these are burial inscriptions from the second or third century, and they refer to the… Read more

The term Lenten comes from the English word ‘lengthen’ referring to the lengthening of the days as one progresses towards Easter. Here is the first of several meditations for your reflection during Lent, this one for today, Ash Wednesday. RSVP To move from fast to feast, From ashes to riding an ass, From wilderness wandering God’s willingness wondering To follow the way of the cross To find what was utterly lost All this was Lent to us. The cup not… Read more