Slaves and Servants So how did Greek slaves become mere English (and German) servants? In English, we can in part blame the ghosts of Latin. When Greek was translated to Latin, doulos naturally and correctly became servus, with the same meaning of slave or unfree. In the Vulgate, Romans naturally begins by introducing Paulus, servus Christi Iesu. Memories of the Vulgate remained strong in the minds of the Reformers who translated the text into English, even if they were notionally... Read more

In this and the next two posts, I am retreading some excellent discussion of slavery language in the NT by Philip Jenkins of Baylor. For my own thoughts on this see my commentary on Colossians, Ephesians, and Philemon (Eerdmans). BW3 Slavery, Euphemism, and the New Testament Translation is a difficult and devious process. You can render the individual words used perfectly and precisely, but still fall short of conveying the underlying concepts, without using lengthy footnotes. Here, I will look... Read more

“Students are not pleased when I point out that there is no indication in Scripture that God has a plan for the life of each individual. God has a plan that we should come to maturity in Christ and to holiness, but there was no basis for thinking that God has a plan for who we should marry or what job we should have or where we should go to seminary. It isn’t surprising; wise and loving fathers [and mothers]... Read more

Ann and I with the Barretts, Penelope and Martin, the children of CKB at the celebration of his centenary in Durham, England. In the recent and enjoyable collection of testimonies entitled I Still Believe Morna Hooker, one of Barrett’s students, as was I tells the following revealing tale—- “It was while I was teaching at King’s that I found myself escorting my old friend Professor Barrett, who had come to lecture at the College, through the courtyard. Old buildings on... Read more

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The Green collection includes an extensive number of partial or whole Hebrew manuscripts, including some whole Torah scrolls, and below you will see one from the west (Ashkenazy torah scroll) and one from the east (Sephardic scroll). Also of the thousands of manuscripts in the Green collection, there are some genuinely ancient ones, for instance the prayer book below. The next to last image below of a scroll which was so large, I couldn’t save the image as vertical. Read more

Certainly one of the more spectacular displays on the Fourth Floor is the collection of numerous illuminated manuscripts of the Bible. Here for example is the Rice Psalter…. Or here is a French Psalter. Needless to say, the Psalms were a major part of medieval church and monastic life (and later), especially once the lectionary was set up which regularly would include a reading from the Psalms as well as elsewhere from the OT and a reading from the NT.... Read more

There are all sorts of videos one could sit and watch all day on the fourth floor of the Museum of the Bible, including videos of the key archaeological sites in the Holy Land. For instance…. Certainly, Tel Dan in the far north of the land, and the Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem are two of the most important archaeological sites that provide physical context to the stories in the Bible. Especially the work of Ronny Reich at the Pool... Read more

There are so many outstanding exhibits in the Museum and the Bible, it is difficult to know which ones to highlight. Here’s a shot of me filming on the fourth floor where we have the history of the Bible and many manuscripts exhibits— One of the technological marvels of the museum is that they were able to capture images of some of the great stained glass windows in French Churches, specifically Notre Dame and St. Chapelle in Paris. The latter... Read more