The latest Scottish Journal of Theology issue has a nice debate concerning Richard Burridge’s Imitating Jesus book. The first respondent is Richard Hays, then Francis Watson, and finally Ian Markham. Afterwards, Richard offers his own response. I was at the SBL session when this discussion took place and it is a very helpful conversation. Burridge attacked Hays a bit in his book and it was nice to have Hays offer his own response. Watson’s comments were also useful. In additional,... Read more

WJK has some very attractive titles coming in late summer and early Fall. 1. Canon and Creed (Robert Jenson). I look forward to seeing this contribution to the Interpretation series’ resources for use of Scripture in the church. Previously I gave a sterling review of Patrick Miller’s work on the Ten Commandments – truly an excellent launch volume for the series! Now, Jenson offers reflections on the relationship between Scripture and historical church confessions. Given recent interests in the Regula... Read more

The review essay I wrote concerning Douglas Campbell’s Deliverance of God (Reviews in Religion and Theology) has now been published.  It is about 8 pages long and is called: “Douglas Campbell’s Startling Alternative to Traditional Paradigms of Pauline Soteriology.” The website is here (If the link doesn’t work for you, google-search on “Reviews in Religion and Theology” and navigate to the link “View Content Online” – you will only gain access to my article if you have approval through a subscription) Without... Read more

I am preparing lectures for a course next summer on the Gospel of John and I wanted to get my students familiar with ancient expectations of what the messiah would be like. One way to teach about how early Jewish traditions of Messianism were interpreted is to point students to Messianic pretenders and their followers. I found THIS website which offers lists by time period and also the sources that refer to such people.  Priceless! (If the link doesn’t work,... Read more

I have recently come into some stipend money to build up reference materials that I can use to prepare a course on John’s Gospel. Aside from commentaries, what other “must-have” resources on the Fourth Gospel would you recommend (specifically things that I can find on Amazon marketplace and Half.com, not OOP)? Read more

It is nice to have reached the 200,000 mark in terms of blog hits (thank you wordpress for the stats!). I have thoroughly enjoyed blogging, despite my sparse postings in the last couple of months. I am in the middle of moving from Ashland, Ohio to Seattle, WA. I am currently teaching a hermeneutics course at Ashland and that is taking up significant chunks of my time. Otherwise, my time is spent training as Virtual Campus faculty for Asbury Seminary... Read more

I love my gadgets. I have an old Windows laptop, an older Mac laptop (donated to me from my dad), and an ipod touch. I have been looking for a way to easily share files between these platforms. One option is to use a USB drive, but what about the ipod touch? What about Google-docs? Ok, but always opening a browser is a hassle. Dropbox is the solution! AND ITS FREE! It is a program that sets up a special... Read more

I have always liked to use art in my Powerpoint slides when teaching on the Bible. I recently discovered an excellent resource that has collected pieces of art and codified it according to which Biblical text it would be associated with. The pictures come from a variety of places and time periods. Check it out here. Read more

Of course every month I try to point out a new Expository Times – July issue is online now. Lena Sofia-Tiemeyer has a nice article on reading Ezekiel as Christian Scripture (which originated as a paper at the Tyndale summer conference last year). Also, I don’t know how new this is, but I have benefited from reading Stan Porter’s article in McMaster Journal of Theology and Ministry called “The Future of Theology and Religious Studies from a Confessional Standpoint” which... Read more

For the next few months, I am excited to occupy my thoughts reading the new book of previously untranslated essays and lectures from the late Ernst Kaesemann entitled: On Being a Disciple of the Crucified Nazarene (Eerdmans, 2010). I will be reviewing it for Scottish Journal of Theology, a publication that I think is quite fitting for a review of the work of such a legend in NT theology. I will, of course, check in from time to time here... Read more