BEN: One of the salient points you make early on in your new book, is that genre is not merely a matter of form, or indeed an identity marker unto itself but rather the genre of a work affects how the reality and truth being dealt with in the work is presented. Form affects not only function but content and meaning. Why do you think it is that various previous discussions of the genre of Mark have been satisfied with... Read more

BEN. In the wake of the work of Richard Burridge and others, what was it that prompted you to write this book now? It must have taken a considerable period of time to do this book as it reflects a lot of detailed and helpful interaction with classics and ancient historical scholars. What fresh contribution do you see it making to an already ongoing discussion? HELEN: What prompted me to write the book in the first place was actually my... Read more

(Eerdmans, 360 pages) Helen Bond is a first rate Gospel scholar who has published important monographs on Pontius Pilate and Caiaphas among other helpful studies. Her most recent book entitled ‘The First Biography of Jesus‘ makes a detailed case that we must read Mark’s Gospels in light of ancient biographies and their conventions, as Mark’s Gospel fits well in that genre. Bond builds on the earlier important work of Richard Burridge among other NT scholars, but what really distinguished this... Read more

Valerius Maximus, an important Roman historian, whose writing career seems to have mainly transpired during the reign of Tiberius and a bit beyond (in this case A.D. 14-37) was a contemporary of Jesus, and the original eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life. Like various other Greco-Roman writers he stresses the following about evaluating the character of important historical figures: “The condition of human life is chiefly determined by its first and last days, because it is of greatest importance under what auspices... Read more

It’s too bad this show which Jeff hosted, didn’t last long. Read more

A lustrum by definition is a period of five years. Yet it also can mean an expiatory sacrifice offered once every five years by the censor. Oddly, it can also mean debauchery, or in the plural the lair of a wild beast. All of these definitions come into play in this novel, the second of the three volumes of Robert Harris’ trilogy about Cicero, for at the end of tale Caesar is going off to serve five years in Gaul,... Read more

This song speaks for itself. I remember the day vividly JFK died. I was a sixth grade patrol guard at Northwood Elementary School in High Point N.C. standing at the top of the circle near the end of the school day, waiting to help kids cross the road, when Dot Easter came into the driveway in her car, ‘yelling the President’s been shot’. And we were all herded back into our classrooms and we were made to watch the horror... Read more

Simply click on the picture and it will turn right side up. Here’s a podcast I did for World Methodist Evangelism and Rob Haynes…. see what you think. http://realfaithrealworld.libsyn.com/where-is-jesus-in-the-midst-of-suffering Read more

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Above you will see the top of one of the bookcases in my study in the morning light with a reflection from the study window. It would be impossible to tell you how important books have been in my life– mainly the one’s I’ve read, secondarily the one’s I’ve written. There is truth to the statement you are what you read (and believe). But alas, I live in the new world of the internet, where people mainly read and believe... Read more