I am excited to following the earliest releases of the new commentary series from Baker called “Teach the Text.” This series focuses on directing pastors and Bible teachers regarding the interpretation, basic message, and potential illustrations for biblical texts. The late Dick France did a fantastic job on Luke. Recently, the volume on 1 Corinthians was released (authored by Preben Vang). I am not going to go into a detailed discussion (see my discussion of the series here).I will briefly mention... Read more

After a couple weeks away from Doug Moo’s commentary, I am back again to discussion his notes on Galatians chapter 3. 3:1 (“evil eye”) – is Paul being rhetorical or is he being serious about the Galatians being bewitched? For Moo, “The truth probably lies between these views.” I think this is a reasonable proposal. (181) 3:2 (“hearing accompanied by faith”) – I like Moo’s translation here, but even better I like one of the options he mentions in his discussion... Read more

In a couple of weeks I am gearing up to teach NT Greek. I have generally just defaulted to the Mounce approach to keep things simple when it comes to the meaning and significance of tense, but the whole Porter-Fanning Debate has attracted my interest in the last few years. I am curious how all of you approach and think about the tense-form issues. Take the poll and let’s see where folks stand. Which of the following best represents the... Read more

Brian S. Rosner should be a name that is familiar to many of you. He is one of the editors of the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology and has co-written the 1 Corinthians commentary in the Pillar series (with Roy Ciampa). His areas of specialty include Paul’s ethics and Paul’s use of Scripture. Thus, I was very excited to read his latest offering, Paul and the Law: Keeping the Commandments of God (IVP, 2013). Even though many scholars have made an attempt to... Read more

Check out this enjoyable recent lecture by Luke Timothy Johnson on the subject “Learning the Living Jesus in the Life of the Church.” Here is the basic description of the lecture: How can we incorporate the spirituality and teaching of Jesus into our lives? Noted biblical scholar Luke Timothy Johnson addresses this issue in this video from the March 4 session of Newman Nights   Read more

In Bart Ehrman’s seventh chapter of his book How Jesus Became God, attention is given to this subject: “Jesus as God on Earth: Early Incarnation Christologies” (pp. 247-282). Ehrman gives the lion’s share of attention in this chapter to Paul. Ehrman wishes to make the case that Paul saw Jesus as basically “an angel who became a human” (hence incarnation). From where does Ehrman get this idea? He already introduced (in the first couple of chapters) how divinity in the ancient... Read more

Apparently my reflections on Kyrios Christology in the New Testament has led to some further discussion here, here, and here. I have to move on in my discussion of Ehrman/Bird, but this is all good food for thought for my fall term NT Christology course. As I reflect on the ideas and counter-arguments from the above-mentioned blog postings from my dialogue partners, I want to make some clarifications and further arguments about Kyrios Christology. (1) I am sorry if my appeal to... Read more

We are now up to chapter five in the Zonderbird response book How God Became Jesus, edited by Mike Bird. Today, we are going to review Simon Gathercole’s chapter on “What Did the First Christians Think about Jesus?” Gathercole responds to Ehrman’s arguments that, as Ehrman thinks, there is evidence in the NT that pre-literary traditions embedded in Luke and Paul point to the first Christians believing that the man Jesus was adopted/exalted to divinity after his death through the resurrection.... Read more

Since my buddy James McGrath decided to respond to my response to Ehrman, I thought it necessary to briefly respond to James’ response to my response to Ehrman! In my critique of Ehrman’s approach to the earliest Christology (which Ehrman calls an “exaltation” Christology), I suggest that we have better evidence (if you want to try and dig down to “earliest” layers) for what I call a Kyrios Christology – where Jesus is associated with the identity of Yahweh himself... Read more

At the risk of coming across as a N.T. Wright web-stalker (!), I want to draw your attention to a nice youtube video I found the other day – Wright was invited to speak at Oklahoma Christian University about his book Paul and the Faithfulness of God, and somehow they also managed to get three exceptional respondents to his lecture and tome: Richard Hays, Jerry Sumney, and James Thompson. Wow and wow and wow! Enjoy   Read more