By kind permission of Carey Newman, the director of Baylor U. Press, I am reprinting the responses at the SBL session to Feldmeir and Spieckermann’s ‘The God of the Living’ in the next four posts. I will then return to my detailed analysis of the book. First up to bat is Richard Hays. —— Critical Response to Feldmeier and Spieckermann, God of the Living Richard B. Hays SBL Meeting, San Francisco, 20 November 2011 Introduction: In 1975 the eminent NT… Read more

(House of the Fishermen in Bethsaida— where Peter and Andrew lived) I did an interview on radio the other day on the historical Jesus. Here is a link to it. http://eternityimpact.blogspot.com/2012/01/historical-jesus-da-vinci-code-bart.html BW3 Read more

Names and naming in modernity and in antiquity are two different things in entirely. Names in antiquity often reveal or connote something about the nature of the one named. In Feldmeir and Spieckermann’s Biblical Theology, it is both interesting and important that they start with the issue of the names of God. To begin with the authors stress that in the paradigmatic prayer of Jesus, both the proximity and the distance between us and God is stressed. On the one… Read more

Here is a helpful clarifying summary by Larry Hurtado of his use of the term binitarian worship. BW3 “Dyadic” Devotional Pattern by larryhurtado En route to the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (this year in San Francisco) in November, I stopped for to give invited lectures in Loyola University (Chicago) and Baylor University (Waco, Texas), on “Jesus in Earliest Christian Prayer”. I enjoyed these visits and am grateful for the interest and interaction of staff and students…. Read more

Here is the latest inside scoop from my Hobbit sources in New Zealand…. “As we near the year out mark of the most anticipated movie of 2012, The Hobbit, here is some information to keep you salivating. The studios released an in depth synopsis of exactly what the first Hobbit installment, An Unexpected Journey, will be about. There has been a lot of confusion about just how the book will be integrated into the two movies and how Lord of… Read more

Here is a useful discussion by Larry Hurtado that makes clear the importance of early Christian worship practices in evaluating early Christianity. —— Words, Actions and Meanings by larry hurtado In discussions after my lectures in Chicago and Waco (in which I focused on the place of Jesus in earliest Christian prayer), I tried to clarify why I have placed emphasis over many years on the importance of early Christian devotional practice. I have done so both because devotional practice… Read more

(The following is a post by Larry Hurtado my colleague and friend. I whole-heartedly agree with Larry’s assessment of him). Celebrating a Scholar: Edwin A. Judge by larryhurtado At the recent annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature Alanna Nobbs kindly presented me with a gift copy of a collection of essays (edited by her) by the important Australian scholar of early Christianity and its Roman-era setting, Edwin A. Judge, Jerusalem and Athens: Cultural Transformation in Late Antiquity (WUNT… Read more

(This is the last pre-Christmas post in this series. We will pick up the thread again on Dec. 26th). RETHINKING NT THEOLOGY AND ETHICS AND POST-MODERN EPISTEMOLOGY In a provocative essay, Leander Keck suggests that tracing a history of ideas and their development is not really doing theology. He puts it this way: NT theology as theology cannot be pursued simply by extending, correcting or refining the history of early Christian theologies even when limited to those in the NT…. Read more

The following is a re-post of a blog post by Peter Berger. My own observation would be that while Wesleyan theology does owe something to Jacob Arminius’ thought, it does so in the same way that Brahms owed something to Beethoven, while producing new creative works of art (or in the case of Wesley, works of theology). Wesleyan theology is certainly not a variation of Calvinism any more than the Anabaptist pacifistic ethic is a variant of Lutheran two realm… Read more

While the cognoscenti may not need this insider tip, for everyone else, I trust this post will be helpful. For some years now, I have been doing several series of small books. There was the sacraments series I did for Baylor— Troubled Waters, Making a Meal of It, and The Living Word of God. These books were meant to be read together to help conceptualize an overall approach to the sacraments in the Protestant tradition. Another series of small books… Read more