As many of you Paulinistas are aware, John Barclay’s long awaited volume Paul & the Gift (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015) is now out. This is thought to be a landmark volume in the whole question of Jewish and Pauline soteriologies. A review has been posted at TGC-Australia’s website by Peter Orr, which you can read here. Orr writes: For Paul, writes Barclay, God’s activity in Christ is the ultimate gift which overturns and reconfigures allconcepts of worth: all conditioning of God’s gift in Christ is... Read more

In February 2016, Valentine’s Day weekend, at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, is the Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum debating aspects of Christology and Christian Origins. Speakers include Larry Hurtado, Simon Gathercole, Michael Bird plus Bart Ehrman, Dale Martin, and Jennifer Knust. See details here. ****** Also, in 6-8 June 2016, is the St. Andrews Symposium  on Son of God: Divine Sonship in Jewish and Christian Antiquity. Invited addresses will be given by Menahem Kister (Hebrew University), Reinhard Kratz (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen), Jan Joosten (University of Oxford),... Read more

Great quote from Bruce Longenecker on salvation-history: In effecting salvation in Christ, God has not avoided, neglected, trivialized or rendered irrelevant Israel’s situation. Instead, the situation of Israel is the arena wherein God’s transforming power has initially been operative before extending to universal proportions. The rectification of Israel’s predicament, rather than its abandonment, stands as the prerequisite for the inauguration of the new world. Israel’s own situation has been the place where God had already been at work (e.g., giving... Read more

I have always thought that my country of Australia was a tolerant place for people of all faiths and none. However, two recent events in the last 48 hours have convinced me that this might no longer be the case as the political left is flexing its muscle to gag and persecute Christians who publicly express views contrary to left-wing orthodoxy. First, American pro-life campaigner Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, was due to speak at Right to Life Australia, yet had his... Read more

Over at the Ridley Website, I have a short piece on what Protestants, Evangelical Anglicans in particular, should make of Pope Francis and his whirlwind tour of the USA. Here is my introduction: It’s hard not to like Pope Francis. On the one hand, he remains religiously and ethically conservative, while on the other hand, he is speaking out on topics like global poverty, climate change, and religious freedom that Anglicans can relate to. What is more, he seems to... Read more

John Byron and Joel N. Lohr (eds.) I (Still) Believe: Leading Bible Scholars Share Their Stories of Faith and Scholarship Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015. Available at Amazon.com This is a refreshing and inspiring read about Christian scholars who have retained a vibrant and earnest faith throughout a career in biblical scholarship. The many biographical vignettes covers how each person got into biblical studies, how they understand biblical criticism in light of their faith, and describes some of the personal... Read more

If you are wanting to read stuff on the NT and the Imperial Cult, wrestle with the counter-imperial Paul, and the whole “Jesus is Lord, Caesar is Not” thing, well here’s my recommended reading: 10. Denny Burk, “Is Paul’s Gospel Counterimperial? Evaluating the Prospects of the ‘Fresh Perspective’ for Evangelical Theology,” JETS 51 (2008): 309-37. One of the first articles to push back on the counter-imperial Paul, raises some good points, esp. parallelomania, and the political Paul looks suspiciously left-wing. 9.... Read more

I’ve been reading through Luke Timothy Johnson’s The Creed and found this provocative statement: [T]he most remarkable evidence for Christianity’s confusion – at both extremes [progressive and conservative] – is the fact that since the time of the Enlightenment, the longest-running of all Christologies heresies has deeply infiltrated the church with scarcely any protest or controversy, much less the calling of a council of bishops to clarify and defend the faith of the church. I mean the replacement of the Christ... Read more

Logan Williams has a nice piece over at The Two Cities on Why Did Jesus Use Alcohol for Communion? As a wine lover, I was already convinced, but loved his conclusion: “Oh Death, where is your sting?!” cries the prophet! The ascetic taste, the sting of the alcohol in wine impresses upon its consumers a special meaning when used in the context of communion. Jesus experienced the final sting of death through his blood, and we, embracing his death, will never feel the final sting of... Read more

Coming out either late 2015 or early 2016 is this beast of a book: Michael F. Bird, Christoph Heilig, J. Thomas Hewitt (eds.) God and the Faithfulness of Paul: A Critical Examination of the Pauline Theology of N.T. Wright WUNT 2; Tuebingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 2015. Pre-order at Mohr Siebeck. N. T. Wright’s Paul and the Faithfulness of God is the culmination of his long, influential, and often controversial career – a landmark study of the history and thought of the Apostle Paul, which attempts... Read more