Over at the Marginalia Review of Books are two reviews of N.T. Wright’s Paul and the Faithfulness of God by Douglas Campbell and Michael Thate. Campbell thinks that Wright’s view of Judaism remains skewed as “an account of Judaism that is imposed, monolithic, and yet internally incoherent — a classic instance of othering.” But even so, he says that “at the end of the day, the wheat that Wright asks us to harvest is a comprehensive, scripturally informed, and theologically engaged reading of... Read more

Over at TGC, Michael Jensen has a great post on Nine Things You Really Should Know About Anglicanism, which I highly recommend. That said, Doug Chaplin attempts to chime in with a response over at his blog, Catholicity. Though I don’t detect any of the rhetoric that Chaplin alleges as Jensen is not claiming to be the only manifestation of Anglicanism. Read more

My good friend Joe Mock brought to my attention an article by Edwin Christian van Driel on Gospeling: Paul, Protestant Theologians, and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. I liked van Driel’s book Incarnation Anyway as an argument for supralapsarianism. In this essay, his professorial lecture at PTS, he provides an argument for integrating academic learning and Christian faith. He sets forth his vision of a seminary as a place where “the church sets aside and fosters an academic community; an academic community invited to a common life;a... Read more

There are some nice reviews of my The Gospel of the Lord by TEDS student Jennifer Guo and Philip Long of Readings Acts has a three-part review. Michael Barber and Patrick Schreiner include it among their top reads of the year. Read more

Just before Christmas a Sydney Ph.D student named Raphael Lataster wrote an article on Weighing Up the Evidence for the ‘Historical Jesus’ which basically argued for Richard Carrier’s version of the view that Jesus did not exist. The problem is that appeared in a reputable Aussie ejournal called The Conversation and it attracted a lot of press. Any ways, my buddy Rev. Dr. John Dickson does a take down job on Lataster over at ABC Religion and Ethics, while I offer my own... Read more

G.K. Beale, Daniel J. Brendsel, and William A. Ross (eds.) An Interpretive Lexicon of New Testament Greek: An Analysis of Prepositions, Adverbs, Particles, Relative Pronouns, and Conjunctions Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014. Available at Amazon.com This volume provides a mostly helpful analysis of the prepositions, adverbs, particles, and conjunctions in the Greek NT. In a nutshell, the purpose of this miniature lexicon is to provide “an aid for discerning the logical relationships between prepositions in order to enhance exegesis” (p. 6).... Read more

John Goldingay The Theology of the Book of Isaiah Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2014. Available at Amazon.com It was good to take into some serious Isaiah studies for once and this book did not disappoint. Goldingay’s book works in two parts, first, looking at the “theologies” of Isaiah, particularly Isaiah 1-12, 13-27, 28-39, 40-55, 56-66. Then, second, looking at the theology that emerges from Isaiah. So a serious attempt to grapple with the theological diversity and unity of the book.... Read more

Walter Brueggemann  Reality, Grief, Hope: Three Urgent Prophetic Tasks. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014. Available at Amazon.com Walter Brueggemann’s recent book, Reality, Grief, Hope, draws a parallel between the fall of Jerusalem in 587BC and the disaster of 9/11 when terrorists destroyed the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and attacked the Pentagon. In each case, the self-understanding of the nation was called into question, including assumptions of exceptionalism, entitlement and privilege. In the US, argues... Read more

R.W.L. Moberly  Old Testament Theology: Reading the Hebrew Bible as Christian Scripture. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2013. Available at Amazon.com Old Testament Theology: Reading the Hebrew Bible as Christian Scripture provides an engaging and accessible contribution to the methodology of Old Testament Theology. Walter Moberly is professor of theology and biblical interpretation at Durham University. He is concerned to develop appropriate hermeneutics for the reading of the OT, to situate exegesis within theology, and to draw out the relevance... Read more

Check out this provocative exposition of Mark 7 by Daniel Boyarin. Read more