No, this is not the beginning of a joke. Yesterday, I went with a few of my students to the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia where the IAA is running a six-month exhibition. While it was fun to see actual scroll fragments, there were only 10 small portions and it was overcrowded so you only had a minute or two to see each one. Also, they keep the scrolls under very soft light (for preservation,... Read more

At the blog run by the fine folks of Wipf & Stock, Chris Spinks gives some very mature advice regarding publishing your dissertation. Check it out. Read more

Editors Bruce Chilton, Anthony Le Donne, and Jacob Neusner recently put together a fantastic volume on perspectives on Jesus and Jewish-Christian Dialogue called Soundings in the Religion of Jesus: Perspectives and Methods in Jewish and Christian Scholarship (Fortress, 2012). The twelve chapters are divided up into four parts: Part One: The New Testament Jesus and Exclusionary Boundaries (contributors include Leonard Greenspoon, Joel Lohr, and Anne Lapidus Lerner) Part Two: Early Jewish and Gentile Perspectives on Jesus (Michael Cook, Donald Senior, Eyal Regev)... Read more

The October (2012) issue of Interpretation is a special one, commemorating the 200th anniversary of Union Presbyterian Seminary. Some interesting essays that look at the history of the seminary and also the relationship between church and seminary in general. I found particularly interesting Joel Green’s review of Christian Smith’s Bible Made Impossible. While Green supports Smith’s overall interest and shares his concern, he finds the book to lack the kind of research and care he had hoped for. It is worth a... Read more

Check it out. Includes a nice little piece on an ecological reading of John by Susan Miller. Read more

A new book from Eerdmans (2012) caught my attention recently and I think it is an outstanding volume: A Companion to Biblical Interpretation in Early Judaism (ed. M Henze). You may recall that in 2004 Henze edited a book called Biblical Interpretation at Qumran (also Eerdmans). Now, he has collected essays from experts of early Judaism on a range of techniques applied by Jews and Jewish communities in antiquity. This is an extremely valuable collection of trenchant essays – up-to-date, balanced, incisive treatments... Read more

If you did not read the first post on this book, I am referring to David deSilva’s The Jewish Teachers of Jesus, James, and Jude: What Earliest Christianity Learned from the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (Oxford, 2012). In the first couple of chapters in the book, deSilva makes the case that we do hear the voice of Jesus and his half-brothers (James and Jude) in the NT and there is good reason to believe that the Messiah and the earliest Christian leaders... Read more

I happened to come across an advertisement at CBD stating that they are selling the New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible on CD for $99, which is 75% off. Let me say, I own the first three volumes (of 5) and I regularly lament not having the other volumes. They are outstanding resources – they are up-to-date, written by the finest scholars, and very easy on the eyes. While I don’t have $99 on hand, I am tempted to by... Read more

The Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity conference is anon, so now would be a good time to sign up! It is in Dayton, OH from Oct 4-5 and features the “who’s who” of Jesus scholars. Sadly, I cannot make it, but especially if you live in Ohio or Kentucky, this is sure to be a great event. The “Jesus” dastardly duo Anthony LeDonne and Chris Keith have posted the speaking schedule (drool, drool, drool!) on their blog. See... Read more

This past weekend, Mumford & Sons were on SNL singing their debut song from their new album Babel: “I Will Wait.” It was an awesome performance and if you want to watch a video of them singing the song live this is incredible. I want to think about the eschatology of Colossians with Mumford & Sons in a minute, but it would help if we were all on the same page about the song, so read the lyrics below. And... Read more