Daniel Lynwood Smith Into the World of the New Testament: Greco-Roman and Jewish Texts and Contexts  London: Bloomsbury, 2015. Available at Amazon.com By Ben Sutton, Ridley College, Melbourne, Australia. Dan Smith has provided a companion to reading the New Testament. As such he has intentionally diverged from traditional textbooks that provide extensive discussions of authorship, date, genre, and literary conventions. Instead, his aim is to provide examples of Ancient texts that parallel the books of the New Testament. In this... Read more

This article is part of the new Head to Head debate feature at Patheos. This week, in concert with our Engaging Easter coverage, I’m debating Progressive Christian Channel’s Mark Sandlin of “The God Article”. The question: “Why Did Jesus Die on the Cross?” Mark Sandlin put up his surrejoinder to my rejoinder where he affirms my point of contention. Sandlin states: Bird intends …. to discredit my argument by pointing to its lack of connection to Christian tradition. Ultimately, that seems to... Read more

I just received Peter Oakes’ Galatians commentary (Paideia) which is a neat read. Its got some great stuff in it, esp. on historical backgrounds, and sociology. Here is a good Easter-esque quote for Good Friday from Oakes: Galatians 3:13 represents a radical Christian theological appropriation of the general social phenomenon of the cursed criminal. Christ fulfills this role for the whole community, drawing all the curse onto himself, leaving the community free. They are “redeemed,” that is, they have a freedom... Read more

How did the early preach about Jesus if they did not have a New Testament? The obvious answer is that they must have preached from the Old Testament! Of course, it wasn’t ‘old’ to them, it was the only Scripture they knew, the Law, the Prophets, and Writings were God’s Word to Israel. Even so, how do you preach Jesus’ cross and resurrection if you don’t have the Gospel of St. Mark, St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans, the epistle... Read more

This article is part of our new Head to Head debate feature. This week, in concert with our Engaging Easter coverage, Joel and I are engaging the Progressive Channel’s Mark Sandlin on “Why Did Jesus Die on the Cross?” Sandlin has given his answer to the question where he talks about what Jesus’ death doesn’t do (atonement) and then concentrates on what Jesus’ death does do (demonstrates that that love urges people to stand up to those in power).  The Cross as Political and Theological When I... Read more

Photo: RYGER / Shutterstock.com This article is part of our new Head to Head debate feature. This week, in concert with our Engaging Easter coverage, I will be debating the Progressive Christian Channel’s Mark Sandlin of “The God Article”. The question: What did Jesus’ death on the cross actually DO? Here is my opening post! The question  “What Did Jesus’ Death on the Cross Actually Do?” can elicit a range of answers depending on whether one is interested in models of... Read more

I’m proud to say that my Ph.D student, Brian J. Wright, has an article on TGC on A Prison Pastor’s Advice for Parents. It includes stories from a White Supremacist, a Native American Gangster, and a Black Drug Dealer. Plus some sobering advice for parents. A great read! Read more

One of my many “novel” interpretations of the letter of Galatians as I work on the text for my commentary is to take Paul’s statement about the “truth of the Gospel” (2:5; 2:14) to name the essential nature of the church as comprised of both circumcised and uncircumcised. In both cases where the phrase is found, Paul is concerned to protect this fundamental element of the gospel. I came across this gem from Karl Barth’s Dogmatics in Outline that eloquently makes the same... Read more

Over at Anvil, Chris Tilling reviews Paul and the Faithfulness of God, see here. He concludes: Only a few scholars have ever had Wright’s learning or brilliance, something most of us cannot pretend to imitate. At the very least he models an energy and determination to find Paul that the wider scholarly community should attempt to replicate. Plus, his “thick description” is a step in the right direction, towards concern for Paul’s full historical locatedness. Finally, Wright is very transparent about the... Read more

Recently David A deSilva’s Introduction to the New Testament (IVP) was translated into Arabic. To celebrate this project, David gave a lecture at Arab Baptist Theological Seminary on the Book of Revelation. It’s a great talk, listen to it below: Read more