No this is not a post by Chris Skinner (even though he is the “John” expert). My day job is Pauline studies, but I moonlight reading up on Johannine studies and I was excited to get the chance to review Jey Kanagaraj’s John commentary. It was a little weird reviewing a commentary in the series in which I am producing a volume (1-2 Thessalonians), but I tried to be generous knowing that my commentary will face reviewers as well! Check my review... Read more

If you hadn’t heard yet, the SBL 2014 program is now online. I am going to do a series of blog posts on highlights, but because the program is getting huge I will do just one day at a time. So, here is what’s going on on Friday. [FYI: I hate to tell you to leave the “Paul and Apocalyptic” session early, but you won’t want to miss Ross Wagner’s paper on the Septuagint! I suggest you have someone bootleg “Paul and Apocalyptic” after... Read more

We are continuing our conversation about Dr. Michael Gorman’s new book The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Covenant (Wipf & Stock, 2014). You can find the first part of the interview HERE. Crux Sola: You have talked at length about “cruciformity” in Paul, but have only recently begun discussing the cruciform teachings of Jesus as remembered by the evangelists.  Gorman: While it’s true that I’ve not written much before about cruciformity in the Gospels and in the... Read more

If you are like me, Richard Hays (Duke) transformed your understanding of Paul’s theological imagination with his Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul. Well, I am excited at the prospect of his work doing this again in regards to the evangelists with the soon-coming release of his latest work, Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness (Baylor Univ Press, 2014). This is a rather short work (less than 200 pp.), so I suspect there is a bigger one coming.... Read more

Only a handful of months ago, Chris Skinner was kind enough to accept my invitation for him to co-blog with me here at Crux Sola. One of the reasons I approached Chris regarding this “merger” is that we both are interested in cruciform discipleship and we both hold our mentor Dr. Michael J. Gorman in the highest esteem as a teacher, scholar, and friend. When we heard about Gorman’s new book, we jumped at the chance to read The Death of... Read more

I love Bibleworks  – I use it everyday. But a few years ago I wanted to have my students buy Bibleworks and they had to pay more than $300. For a researcher like myself, it is a no-brainer to invest in heavy-duty software, but I did feel bad having my seminary students fork over so much when they would not end up using all the features. Last year I was very excited to discover www.stepbible.org – a new *FREE* Greek software program... Read more

A few months back, I published an article with Canadian Theological Review called “Beholding the Word of Christ: A Theological Reading of Colossians.” It is now available for free online from the publisher (thanks!). This is my crack at theological interpretation of Scripture and a reading of Colossians especially sensitive to its socio-historical context, its canonical context, and its reception. I am especially interested in a Word/Torah vs. Idol dynamic in Col 3:16 and a righteous hearing vs. idolatrous seeing motif... Read more

Last night I watched a great documentary on Netflix called Pompeii: Back from the Dead. It is from 2011, but it is new to me and the film is produced very well. The documentary talks about a (then) new discovery of a group of skeletons in a cellar that tells us scores and scores about these people’s diet, social customs, relative wealth, and even sex life. Some of the insights are summarized here. More info here. If you have Netflix or... Read more

According to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc., N.T. Wright’s ICC volume on Philippians is slated to be released this November (2014). Could that be possible given the recent release of Paul and the Faithfulness of God and the upcoming publication of his Paul and His Recent Interpreters? (funny sidenote: stores were given as description copy for Wright’s Philippians volume the description from a summer 2014 release on Ecclesiastes by Stuart Weeks, but they forgot to change the wording, so the Philippians description actually... Read more

Logos Bible Software is great at creating innovative and helpful new content, not just books but now also video-based courses. This new line is called “Mobile Ed” and boasts an excellent array of instructors (people in New Testament like Craig Evans, Lynn Cohick, Darrell Bock, Jeannine Brown, David deSilva, David Garland, Joshua Jipp, Doug Moo, Jonathan Pennington, Joel Willitts, and Ben Witherington). Here are five things you need to know about these courses: Well-produced – Logos has pulled out all... Read more