There was an excellent article in the NY times recently on the decline of the humanities on campuses all over the U.S. Indeed the article suggests it has reached crisis proportions. And partly it is because of the de-emphasis on teaching basic grammar, syntax, and even vocabulary to the young in elementary and junior high schools. When’s the last time you ran into a ‘humanities high school’ as opposed to a math and science high school? And we are paying... Read more

Perhaps the most famous poem to come out of WWI was by John McCrae and begins this way…. In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie, In Flanders fields. 1917 was indeed a terrible... Read more

Chris Martin has gone through a lot in the last twenty years. He married Gwen Paltrow, had two kids, then got divorced. Then found Dakota Johnson. His ups and downs have certainly affected his music, as his recent double lp– Everyday Life shows. What you may not know is that Chris grew up in Devon in a Christian household, and went to church. Along the way after he went to boarding school, as the recent excellent article in Rolling Stone... Read more

This was done the last day I saw my old friend Larry Hurtado alive, having stayed with him in his home. Read more

Here is a very disturbing article which should give all eager antiquities buyers pause….. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/jan/09/a-scandal-in-oxford-the-curious-case-of-the-stolen-gospel Read more

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GENE: Ben, thanks for the conversation. It’s been delightful to speak with you about our brother, Peter. Let me ask you a final question, if I may. Could you give us your thoughts about the new Tyndale House Greek New Testament that places the seven Catholic letters by the three pillars – James, Peter, and John, along with Jude the brother of James (and Jesus) – after the Gospels and Acts and before the Pauline corpus? They’re following early Christian... Read more

BEN: One of the real strengths of this book is the detailed treatment of the theology in 1 Peter, and I especially appreciated the highlighting of Peters focus on the stone language, the suffering servant language, and his ecclesiological language. I suspect that Peter is not using the term ‘ekklesia’ because he can use the OT language easily since he is mainly addressing Jews not Gentiles, whereas Paul, who may be the first to talk about the ‘ekklesia of God’... Read more

Guy Ritchie has a certain style of putting a script and movie together (see e.g. his Sherlock Holmes). And when it comes to something like a film about ‘bad boys’ posing as English Gentlemen of a sort, he is in his element. The new movie, ‘The Gentlemen’ of the same sort of ilk as The Kingsmen, presents us with an all star cast of rogues who are in top form, including Matthew McConaughey, Henry Golding (of Rich Young Asians fame),... Read more

BEN: I do very much appreciate your bringing Peter back into the foreground of our theological discussions as he has indeed been sadly neglected especially by those of us who are Protestants. And you are right that Peter was apparently the first one to receive the divine kick in the pants to go and make a disciple of a Gentile and his household— Cornelius. But I really don’t see Peter as inaugurating a Gentile mission by this one off kind... Read more