Be sure to download (free!) David Garland’s excellent commentary on Mark (Logos Bible Software). Garland is one of my favorite scholars and his work on Mark is worth reading. Enjoy! Read more

Check out this blog post from Eerdmans where several respected theologians give their advice on theological writing and research. I echo Keener’s appeal to learning – right from the start – how to organize and archive your notes and research. It has taken me over ten years to find a good system, and I am afraid I wasted many hours in the past re-tracking down information, or simply giving up on ideas where I could not find or remember earlier... Read more

Mike Bird challenged me to join the blog meme “A Book You’d Be Surprised to Learn that I Like,” so here I am. My book is: J. Christian Beker, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought In fact, I really enjoy several of Beker’s works, and it saddens me that his scholarship is not given much attention these days. I discovered Beker when I was in seminary and he was the first “apocalyptic” Pauline scholar I encountered.... Read more

Confession: there was a time when I scoffed at the idea of cultural-perspective readings of Scripture. It felt faddish and self-serving. It seemed little more than a distraction from “simple exegesis.” I somehow believed that my perspective was objective and pure, while others brought their own values and assumptions to the text. I have learned a lot since then, and I discovered (!) that I too bring my own cultural lenses to the Bible. I was taught to read Scripture by... Read more

Fortress Press has a nice new(ish) series called Ad Fontes: Early Christian Sources (ed. G. Kalantzis). The purpose of the series is to offer primary source readings on a particular theme with light introductory guidance. Already released volumes include Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church (Graves), Church and Empire (Doerfler), and Understandings of the Church (Ferguson). The latest volume is Wealth and Poverty in Early Christianity by Helen Rhee (Westmont). The source selections are about 5-10 pages per author/work. Rhee offers a wide range of readings... Read more

Previous posts: Part 1, Part 2 Chapter 5 The last main chapter focuses on both the 20th and 21st centuries (pp. 207-153). Here Gowler covers 9 people/groups including Thomas Hart Benton, the Blues, Flannery O’Connor, Martin Luther King Jr., Godspell, Latin American interest in the parables, David Flusser, Octavia Butler, and Thich Nhat Hanh. I will mention a few interpreters that were especially interesting to me. I love Flannery O’Connor. Her novel, The Violent Bear It Away, is considered to be inspired by the... Read more

  Confession: I was one of the few folks that did not read Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses when it first came out in 2006. So I felt compelled to wade through this 600+ page updated edition. Bauckham, as many of you know, is an incisive and interdisciplinary scholar, having made important contributions to the study of Revelation, NT Christology, and women in the Gospels, just for starters. In Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Bauckham makes his intentions clear. He argues that “in... Read more

Good news! A NEW book from Barth….Ok, since Karl Barth has been dead for almost half a century, he hasn’t been publishing much. But Baker just published a newly-translated-into-English book-version of Barth’s German lecture notes on Ephesians. Put simply, what we have now in English are Barth’s lectures on Ephesians. To be more specific, Barth’s extensive notes on Ephesians chapter one, with a brief overview of Ephesians chapters two through six. Putting all the caveats aside, this little book is exhilarating... Read more

This is a book I have been wanting for a long time. I teach a biblical hermeneutics and exegesis course where I want students to think through different modes of reading and also different perspectives. This is perfect -and I absolutely love the cover! From a variety of contributors, this book introduces everything from African and Asian biblical interpretation to Latino/a, Catholic, Orthodox, and Pentecostal readings. There are also handy essays on theological interpretation, and how Scripture relates to such... Read more

  A handful of years back, one of my senior colleagues told me this: “I have been hearing from people in the guild that you are ‘ambitious.'” I said, “Ok, thanks.” He said, “Ummm….that’s not a compliment.” That moment left me both surprised and disappointed. Some were interpreting the hard work I felt I had done as something off-putting and cocky. It made me feel guilty for being “ambitious.” Is ambition really that bad? I just finished reading Craig Hill’s... Read more