Can you decline the decline And still keep learning? Is aging ‘maturing’ Or just fantasy’s yearning? Do you mind when your mind Keeps on wandering? Or is that exploring, Not really time squandering? What about senior moments When you know that you know it, But the recall is stalled And the lapse will show it? Or you recognize a face But you can’t place the name You stall and stutter And you blush from the shame? Or your running has... Read more

The New Introduction by Wright and Bird comes with a Workbook. This particular one involves straightforward questions, to test how well the reader has taken in the material in a given chapter. But there are also Multiple choice items included, matching, and opportunities to agree or disagree, and say why, about some of the fundamental issues raised in a chapter. The Workbook is set up to correspond to both the order of chapters in the book and the order of... Read more

The following letter just arrived from my Cambridge editor—– Hello Ben I am delighted to report that your book Biblical Theology is the co-winner of the PROSE Award in the field of religious studies.  Congratulations! (Your book tied for the prize with N.T. Wright’s History and Eschatology.)  The PROSE awards, administered by the American Association of Publishers, are considered the non-fiction equivalent of the Booker Prize, or the publishing industry’s equivalent to the Academy Awards. Winning a PROSE award is, therefore, a significant achievement. Let... Read more

There are many positive things that can be said about this Introduction to the NT. It is beautifully produced and carefully proof-read. It has excellent quality pictures and good bibliographies. It gives us the analysis of two mature scholars on top of their discipline. It is written in an appealing and inviting way. One of the best features of the volume is that it tries to do justice not just to the theology of the NT, or just to the... Read more

As I’ve already suggested, the quality of the production of this Introduction to the NT, and also its DVDs is second to none. It’s excellent. This post will be mainly about the 37 lessons on the DVDs. The first, and lasting, impression is there is a lot of telling, and not enough showing, by which I mean that while some of this material is filmed in Israel and elsewhere in the Lands of the Bible, there is not a lot... Read more

992 pages, $38.00 in hardback, plus DVD and Workbook. This is not the first time we’ve had a kind of NT Introduction from Tom Wright. But this one is clearly the largest, most comprehensive, and most attractively produced one (kudos to Zondervan. All the pages are printed on photo quality paper in the hardback edition). In this first post, we will have a dialogue with Michael Bird about the book, and his role in its emergence. —– BEN: It would... Read more

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David Yaffe has done us a great service and writing this moving biography of one of the great artists and song-writers and musicians of the late 20th into the 21rst century— Joni Mitchell. Here is the official summary of this study— “Joni Mitchell may be the most influential female recording artist and composer of the late twentieth century. In Reckless Daughter, the music critic David Yaffe tells the remarkable, heart-wrenching story of how the blond girl with the guitar became... Read more

I’ve been watching a fair bit of stand up comedy lately, some of which is quite good (see some of the previous posts), but for some reason there are a lot of comedians (and apparently a lot of persons in the audiences) who think using four letter words is funny. No, it just shows a lack of creativity, and a rather deficient vocabulary. Of course, there are four letter words worth using— like love, or hope, or trust, and I... Read more

General safety First place: If you miss your exit it’s okay, we made more up ahead. Second place: Better late than never. Third place (tie): Drive like your momma is watchin’. Third place (tie): You are allowed to use turn signals. We checked. Third place (tie): Drive safely or we call your mother. Distracted driving First place (tie): You look great but the selfie can wait. First place (tie): Looking at the road is a great way to stay on... Read more