First Set of Xmas Books!

Happy Christmas to all! So far, it has been a good Christmas for my family as we have traveled from Seattle to Ohio and Indiana.

We watched a nice documentary on TV called “After Jesus” on CNN, narrated by Laim Neeson and scholars interviewed include Bart Ehrman and Judith Lieu.

I got a few books for Xmas (some are for Journal review, but they are virtually “presents”!)

God in New Testament Theology (Hurtado, Abingdon, 2010)

Since I read Dunn’s Christology book recently, I am now interested in hearing more from Hurtado. Truth be told, I have not read any of Hurtado’s Theology/Christology books (just his excellent, though brief, commentary on Mark). Jimmy Dunn actually invited Hurtado to write this book!

Matthew: Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the NT (Grant Osborne, 2010)

I was quite skeptical of a new commentary series, but I read that Zondervan asked pastors what they want from a good commentary and used this data to design the series. Thus, there appears to be a good blending of exegetical discussion of historical and grammatical issues, but also a focus on structure, flow, basic meaning, and application. Of course I am excited to see (eventually) Howard Marshall’s volume on John and Thielman’s treatment of Romans.

Joshua in 3-D (Daniel Hawk; Wipf & Stock)

I am working on a project on Joshua. Dan wrote a commentary sometime ago on Joshua, but this is a more political and ideological reading with a view towards American conceptions of Manifest Destiny. Should be an interesting read! Dan is also a friend of mine – I learned some key pointers about writing papers from Dan when I happened to sit in on a class he was teaching several years ago.

Well, more books (hopefully!) to come. Again, merry Christmas to all.