The July 2015 issue of Interpretation is now online and contains my review of NT Wright’s Paul and the Faithfulness of God (subscriber-access only, sorry!). I thought PFG was a beast to read, but Wright is quite brilliant on many points and especially wrestled with first-century Greek religion and philosophy as new material he has not published elsewhere. I am not convinced by his reading of justification, but I do think that his defense of anti-empire rhetoric/theology in Paul (esp over and against Barclay’s critiques)... Read more

In the first part of this review series, I talked about what I really liked about this book. Check that out. Now I am going to explain my concerns with this book. Goldingay is Wrong! Despite my overall appreciation for how Goldingay advocates for the ongoing authority and importance of the Old Testament for the believer, I think Goldingay goes too far, arguing for almost no “newness” to the New Testament. Put another way, I think he is right in what he denies, but... Read more

Richard Hays was recently at Lanier Theological Library giving some lectures on his new book Reading Backwards. So far, one of the sessions has been uploaded to Youtube, a discussion that Hays has about figural reading in the Gospels. Hays is joined by Lynn Cohick, David Capes, and Carey Newman. For those that have read the book, there is not a lot of “new” stuff here, but I did catch that Hays does identify his understanding of “figural reading” with typology, though he... Read more

John Goldingay is one of my favorite OT theologians. So, I had to get my hands on his latest book, Do We Need The New Testament: Letting the Old Testament Speak for Itself (IVP, 2015). I would like to do a two part review of this interesting little book; in the first post, I am going to highlight my favorite parts of this book. In a second post I will delve into my concerns with Goldingay’s book. Two preliminary items to... Read more

The Association of Theological Schools has produced recordings of several fantastic webinars to help new seminary faculty and young scholars. Webinar #1: Susan Garrett (Louisville Seminary) – “What They Tell You and What They Don’t: Conversations with the Dean on Promotion and Tenure” Webinar #2: Carey Newman (Baylor University Press) “Publishing 101: What to Expect, What to Do” Webinar #3: Andrea White (Candler): “Establishing a Research Agenda” I listened to the first two (Garrett and Newman). Even though I just... Read more

Since it is the summer and I just sit around all day doing nothing (just kidding!), I did some browsing and discovered some forthcoming books on Jesus and the Gospels. I got very excited about the following: Joel Green, Conversion in Luke-Acts: Divine Action, Human Cognition, and the People of God (Baker, Dec, 2015). Green is an expert on Luke-Acts and has also spent the last several years linking Scripture and theology to insights from neuroscience. This should be an interdisciplinary feast!... Read more

In April, Prof. John M.G. Barclay (Durham, UK) gave a plenary address at Houston Baptist University’s theology conference on early Christianity. His paper was entitled: “‘The poor you have always with you.’ Why it mattered to the early church to give to the poor” HBU graciously posted the lecture on Youtube. This is, no doubt, part of Prof. Barclay’s wider work on grace and gift-giving in the Greco-Roman world and in Paul. (see his soon-coming book, Paul and the Gift). Enjoy! Read more

Recently, Zondervan published another volume in the Counterpoints Series, this time on the genre of Genesis 1-11, called Genesis: History, Fiction, or Neither?: The Bible’s Earliest Chapters. Charles Halton edited the book and the three essayists are as follows: James K. Hoffmeier: History and Theology Gordon J. Wenham: Proto-History Kenton L. Sparks: Ancient Historiography [Unfortunately all of the viewpoint titles are either misleading or unhelpfully ambiguous!] The volume focuses on the interpretation, in particular, of three passages: the Nephilim (6:1-4), Noah... Read more

Over the past few years, I have collected about two dozen commentaries on 1-2 Thessalonians for my research. Some of them are good, some are mediocre. A few are truly excellent – for example, Howard Marshall’s NCB volume is a classic. Also, F.F. Bruce’s work never gets old for me. Still, many commentaries come and go and few leave a lasting impression on scholarship. Well, the case is quite different with Jeffrey Weima’s 2014 BECNT commentary on 1-2 Thessalonians (Baker).... Read more

This past weekend, I got a fun little book in the mail, Gary M Burge’s A Week in the Life of a Roman Centurion (IVP, 2015). A few years back Ben Witherington wrote A Week in the Life of Corinth, a fictional story that drew the reader into the world of St Paul as an entertaining form of learning about the New Testament. I guess this genre showed potential and has expanded into a little series, so Burge’s offering would be the... Read more