Can’t wait to listen to Janet Soskice teach on Augustine in this sample video. The two parts  combined amount to nearly an hour of instruction. There are several other wonderful videos (samples) from St. Johns Nottingham’s timeline project. I recommend, especially, the ones on Luther, Bonhoeffer, and the OT/NT. I tend to listen to them while I cook. I would consider buying the whole set of lectures (by various scholars in church history, theology, and Biblical studies), but apparently the project... Read more

Northeastern Seminary (my new institution of employment) is sponsoring a conference in the fall on the theme of “New Creation.” The list of speakers includes folks like Richard Middleton, Gerald Janzen, and C. Clifton Black. Check out the website for the full list of presenters. If you live in the area, this will be a wonderful event. Read more

The latest issue of the Scottish Journal of Theology has been published online. The ToC is listed below. For this issue, I wrote a review on the lecture collection by E. Kaesemann called On Being a Disciple of the Crucified Nazarene. It is an inspiration read (the book, not my review!), if you are interested. TOC: “Ezekiel’s Awkward God: Atheism, Idolatry and the Via Negativa” (Andrew Mein) “The ‘Sophiological’ Origins of Vladimir Lossky’s Apophaticism” (Brandon Gallaher) “Actualism and Beauty: Karl Barth’s Insistence... Read more

Recent months and years have seen the production of some fine introductions to the New Testament (Powell, Boring, Hagner). Perhaps one that did not make it on the radar of many folks is Ben Witherington’s Oxford University Press textbook entitled Invitation to the New Testament: First Things (2013). I think this text is aptly titled, because it is not so much a survey of the New Testament, but more of an orientation to the New Testament. In over 400pp, Witherington does... Read more

Recent months and years have seen the production of some fine introductions to the New Testament (Powell, Boring, Hagner). Perhaps one that did not make it on the radar of many folks is Ben Witherington’s Oxford University Press textbook entitled Invitation to the New Testament: First Things (2013). I think this text is aptly titled, because it is not so much a survey of the New Testament, but more of an orientation to the New Testament. In over 400pp, Witherington does... Read more

Greetings from Rochester, NY! I am blogging for the first time from my office desk at Northeastern Seminary (of Roberts Wesleyan College). So, now that I am getting more settled in, I hope to post regularly. Part of my summer reading has been Mary Healy’s commentary on Mark in the new series “Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture.” While one might have a hard time justifying “yet another” commentary series, this one fits an important niche and the editors (as well... Read more

Once in a while, I look at a so-called consensus in scholarship and roll my eyes. Such is the case with the pervasive and surprisingly resilient perspective that when St. Paul used the word Christos, he did not mean “messiah,” but rather used it as a name. I have always found this a hard pill to swallow, and it is high-time that somebody brewed a strong enough coffee to help folks wake up from this nonsense. So, many thanks to Matthew Novenson who percolated... Read more

Once in a while, I look at a so-called consensus in scholarship and roll my eyes. Such is the case with the pervasive and surprisingly resilient perspective that when St. Paul used the word Christos, he did not mean “messiah,” but rather used it as a name. I have always found this a hard pill to swallow, and it is high-time that somebody brewed a strong enough coffee to help folks wake up from this nonsense. So, many thanks to Matthew Novenson who percolated... Read more

JSNT has posted its yearly “booklist” online (for SAGE subscribers). If you are not familiar, the booklist is a long series of short book reviews organized by book theme. Each review is extremely brief (usually 2-3 paragraphs). While the reviews are not substantial, they do offer nice succinct evaluations. These reviews are particularly helpful when it comes to the many non-English books reviewed. Read more

Earlier this summer I had a chance to read Graham Twelftree’s forthcoming monograph entitled Paul and the Miraculous (Baker). It is a very stimulating work that deserves wide attention and interaction. Here is my endorsement which, I believe, will appear on the back cover of the book: “Modern Western biblical interpreters tend to view Paul primarily as an academic–a theologian and writer. Twelftree reminds us that he was far more than a writer, and his religious world was not only philosophical... Read more