I have taught introductory NT courses just about every semester of the last five years, and a few times I have taught a survey course on Paul. I have very happily used Michael Gorman’s Apostle of the Crucified Lord, which blends historical, literary, theological, and reception approaches in an accessible and informed way. Another very attractive option for an introductory course on Paul now is Bruce Longenecker and Todd Still’s new textbook on Paul called Thinking through Paul: A Survey of... Read more

I was pretty well-entertained for 8 minutes watching Mike Bird’s parody of the Kickstarter Campaign for the Bibliotheca “elegent” Bible project. In order to fully appreciate the cleverness of Bird’s performance, you need to watch the original. http://www.bibliotheca.co/#about One more thing: Mike, you have way too much time on your hands, but kudos for having a great A/V team!   Read more

I was very happy to get in the mail a copy of Mike Bird’s latest offering, The Gospel of the Lord: How the Early Church Wrote the Story of Jesus (Eerdmans). I have just read the first thirty pages or so and it is, as usual, not only well-argued and clear, but seasoned with wit and clever anecdotes. I will say a word about a few of the chapters in due time, but I thought I would note that Mike’s work... Read more

I have been very appreciative of a short work from 1992 by my Doktorvater Stephen C. Barton called The Spirituality of the Gospels. Barton does a lot of thinking and exploring out loud in this book. I found this canonical consideration very interesting. Mark comes in the canon after Matthew. Perhaps, from the point of view of Christian spirituality, that is appropriate. Read in sequence, we move from a gospel of certainties, evidences, proofs, instructive discourses and Christian casuistry to a gospel... Read more

The history of Markan studies up until the current period can be sketched in five eras: (1) the clumsy Mark (the church fathers until the rise of modern critical study), (2) the chronicler Mark (the source critics), (3) the compiler Mark (the form critics), (4) the clever Mark (the redaction critics), and (5) the creative Mark (the narrative critics). (p. 4, Mark Smyth & Helwys) Read more

Recently I did a blog post for Missio Alliance called “Did St. Paul Believe in Unity?” Check it out. Missio Alliance is doing a great series for the next few months on unity amongst the people of God. Read more

As I prep for new courses here at George Fox Evangelical Seminary, I am enjoying getting more acquainted with gospels-scholarship (I am teaching “Gospels and Acts” this term). I found this statement from Eugene Boring (An Introduction to the New Testament) fascinating.  There is no indication that the Christian community in Rome, during the period when it was becoming the leading church in the empire, accepted the Gospels into their collection of normative Christian documents until well into the second century.... Read more

When I was in seminary, “Bultmann” was almost a dirty word. He didn’t often come up in class, but if he did, what was said was usually not good. So, going into my PhD program, I had quite a negative impression of Bultmann. Things quickly changed when I audited a post-grad course with Prof. John Barclay on Paul and his interpreters. We studied all sorts of key Pauline interpreters throughout history, including Bultmann. Barclay did an excellent job contextualizing and... Read more

Recently I finished reading Chris Keith’s new volume Jesus Against the Scribal Elite: The Origins of the Conflict (Baker, 2014). I am not going to do a full-blown review (you can find Steve Walton’s helpful review here). But I do want to offer my own appreciation for Keith’s work, as it is clearly written and brings a nice contribution to the scholarly realm as well as some helpful thoughts about Jesus in his context to the classroom. First things first – the... Read more

Hi folks. I have a review recently published by RBL on Dean Deppe’s All Roads Lead to the Text. It is an exegesis primer with a special interest in connecting readers with how to use Logos Software. It is clearly written, loaded with examples, and uses some helpful analogies, but it enters a very crowded textbook market. Still, some may find that it fits their particular interest and needs for the classroom. Read more