I am a big fan of the St Johns Nottingham Timeline Project, which offers segments of accessible scholarship on Youtube. Periodically, they upload more video segments, about Scripture, church history, and particular theologians and philosophers. Recently, they uploaded a nice little introduction to John’s Gospel by Paula Gooder. Paula is a gifted communicator and these kinds of videos are really helpful to use, for example, as supplements in an undergraduate or seminary introductory course (on the NT, or just the... Read more

Well, friends, time for a special announcement. This summer I will be moving to Portland, OR where I have accepted a New Testament teaching position at George Fox Evangelical Seminary. A part of me is very sad to leave Northeastern Seminary. I have had a great experience in Rochester and my Northeastern colleagues and students have been wonderful. Whoever eventually ends up replacing me is in for a treat! I have no hesitation in telling anyone interested in teaching there... Read more

The point of declaring ‘Jesus is Lord’ [according to Paul] was not…that one might feel happy about having made a crucial dogmatic confession. The point was to sign up under the banner of this kyrios, implicitly at least against all other claimants of that title, for the kingdom-work in which Paul and his colleagues saw themselves engaged. As I have said elsewhere, incarnational belief is the key in which the music is set, but the tune is the great, swelling theme... Read more

William Cowper (18th century poet) wrote this poem on Christian hope. Anthony Thiselton cites this poem as an appropriate rendition of Paul’s theology of hope as expressed in 1 Thessalonians 1:3 (Blackwell  Bible Commentary: 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 35). These shall last when night has quench’d the pole, And heav’n is all departed as a scroll: And when, as justice has long since decreed, This earth shall blaze, and a new world succeed, Then these thy glorious works, and they... Read more

I resonate with Larry Hurtado’s brief statement about N.T. Wright’s Paul and the Faithfulness of God project. Hurtado first mentions his admiration for Wright (which I would echo). But he also expresses surprise that Wright could not find a way to speak his mind, as it were, with less words and pages. I agree with this concern. I am afraid that, in fifty years when students want to read up on this “N.T. Wright” figure that the professors keep mentioning, few... Read more

I am going to teach a 6-week course on Galatians towards the end of the semester and I am reading a number of commentaries (esp Hays, Dunn, and Moo, as well as a new monograph by Rosner and a short book on justification by Westerholm). One contested issue in the more recent study of Galatians is the legitimacy of using clues within the letter to “mirror-read” the motivations and arguments of the third-party missionaries (or agitators, teachers, etc…). Some interpreters... Read more

Craig Blomberg (Denver Seminary) has authored a book called Can We Still Believe the Bible? An Evangelical Engagement with Contemporary Questions (Brazos, 2014). Baker/Brazos has arranged for a “Blog Tour” for this book and I am fortunate to be participating in this alongside a number of evangelical magnates like Dan Wallace, Lee Martin McDonald, Darrell Bock, Mike Bird, David Capes, and Craig Keener – and presumably Craig Blomberg himself! My focal point is chapter five of the book: “Aren’t Several Narrative... Read more

I wish to bring two items to your attention today, both in relation to J. Ross Wagner (Duke) and Septuagint hermeneutics. The first item is that Creig Marlowe and I, as co-chairs of the program unit on the Relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament, have invited Dr. Wagner to be the main speaker for our meeting from 4-6PM Friday evening (Nov 21, 2014). This is under the auspices of the Institute for Biblical Research which is an... Read more

This week I received the first volume in the new Zondervan OT commentary series “Hearing the Message of Scripture.” Daniel Block, the general editor, is also the first author. The launch volume is on…Obadiah? One might have liked to see Genesis or Isaiah. At first I was a little disappointed. But! It makes a lot of sense when you learn that the series is designed to make the message of each OT book easy to understand – even a book like Obadiah!... Read more

We are looking at a September 2014 release of Thinking through Paul, an introductory textbook by Bruce Longenecker and Todd Still (Zondervan). There are already a number of pretty good books that help folks to understand Paul (e.g., books by N.T. Wright, Mike Gorman, David Capes et al., etc.), but having a contribution from Longenecker and Still is very welcome in my opinion. These are two of the sharpest minds in New Testament studies and both reputations as excellent communicators. Believe it... Read more