Here’s a helpful post by my friend Larry Hurtado on the early history of the Codex. Typology of the Early Codex, Turner by larryhurtado A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that Wipf and Stock were bringing out a reprint of the classic study by Eric G. Turner, The Typology of the Early Codex (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2011; ISBN 978-1-61097-008-2; orig. ed., 1977), and at an impressively cheap price ($22 US). My own copy arrived yesterday, and I’m... Read more

One of my favorite GCTS course ever was Gordon Fee’s class on Revelation. Here’s a link to his take on this complex piece of apocalyptic prophecy. See what you think…. BW3 http://www.wcg.org/av/_lib/PlayVideoYI.asp?program=YI072 Read more

Two of the most controversial additions to the Gospels are the long ending of Mark (after Mark 16.8) which most scholars believe originated no earlier than the second century A.D, and the famous woman caught in adultery story found at John 7.53-8.11 which also is not in our earliest and best manuscripts. In his recent reflections on all this my friend Larry Hurtado suggests, rightly I think, that it is a mistake to think everything was in flux early on,... Read more

My friend Larry Hurtado has had a running debate about whether Justin Martyr used the word Gospel to refer to a particular book with a named author or not. Here is the gist of his argument, which I agree with. See what you think— BW3 “The first thing to note is (as I noted in my posting) that Justin does refer to what he calls “memoirs” as “those which are said to be [ἄ φημι] written by the apostles and... Read more

There have been recent news reports about a piece of papyrus reported to have the Koran on it, and underneath that, a portion of the Bible. I would say— not so fast my friend. Here is one of those reports—- https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/25/passages-from-the-bible-discovered-behind-quran-manuscript-christies First of all, what is a palimpsest? It’s a do over. It’s a manuscript that has been used more than once, with a later text written over an earlier one, usually after an erasure of the first one, but... Read more

Last year, after the recapture of Mosul, archaeologists discovered that ISIS had been tunneling in and under the ruins of a famous ancient Babylonian Palace. Here’s what came to light, according to alert reporter Josie Ensor….. “Archaeologists documenting Isil’s destruction of the ruins of the Tomb of the Prophet Jonah say they have made an unexpected discovery which could help in our understanding of the world’s first empire. “The Nebi Yunus shrine – containing what Muslims and Christians believe to... Read more

(An eight century panel painting in iconic style of Christ and St. Menas) Here is a review of recent publications of relevance to the study of the origins of iconography by noted art historian Robin Cormack (the spouse of the equally illustrious Mary Beard) kindly sent to me by Philip Jenkins. See what you think. My view would be that we don’t have second century evidence of the creation of icons by Christians. Graven images ROBIN CORMACK Open any art-historical... Read more

One of the mistakes often made in studying controversial words in the Bible is a failure to consider the entire semantic range, the range of meanings a word can have. This becomes all the more problematic when you are dealing with a hapax legomena— a word that appears exactly once in the NT, like the verb AUTHENTEO. And the mistake is not merely failing to look at the full range of meanings of this word, but also failing to even... Read more

(Yes that’s me in the hot seat of a vintage Sting Ray) Recently my friend Larry Hurtado commended the Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek (ed. F. Montanari), and with good reason. It gives coverage other dictionaries don’t both from classical Greek literature and the early church fathers as well as the LXX and the NT itself. Now Brill books are hardly ever cheap, but you know the old saying— you get what you pay for. That is very often true... Read more

Perhaps some of you have seen the recent Netflix movie Come Sunday and the subsequent TV interviews with the Pentecostal minister who was defrocked for his denial of Hell, based on his belief that the Holy Spirit told him there wasn’t such a place, that in the end ‘Love Wins’, to borrow a familiar phrase. The movie raises the question about the universal love of God, and the universal atonement of Christ, and how anyone could end up in Hell... Read more