This is an unorthodox endorsement of Doug Moo’s Galatians commentary. Late last year, sometime in early November I think, I bumped into Doug Moo on campus at Wheaton (I’m you might say “moonlighting” at Wheaton College teaching as a guest professor here and there). I’ve known Doug for a number of years primarily as the father of my friend Jonathan Moo who now teaches at Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington. Jonathan is a great guy and good friend. The Moo’s did... Read more

I’m thinking of using one of these as my new business card: Thanks to Alistair Sterne: Thanks to Anthony Le Donne: Read more

Man, talk about sucker punch! This anti-trafficking video was shot in the red light district of Amsterdam. It is not what it first appears to be. The large gaggle of male on-lookers think that they are getting a free dance show by sexy ladies … then comes the twist! Read more

Over at The Jesus Blog, Anthony Le Donne has done up a series of hilarious business cards for biblical scholars. Here’s a few of my favourites:   I should probably design one for Joel Willitts and he can design one for me! Read more

I’ve been thinking lately a lot about the problem of historical particularity in our reappropriation of Scripture. What I mean is that in order for Scripture to be applicable to our lives today a Bible reader (or preacher) must deal with the fact that the text is not written to them. In order to apply it to my life, I’ve got to find an approach that bridges the text to my life. There are a few tried and time-tested approaches... Read more

When it comes to studying the Gospels, how should you do it? Should one begin with a study of the critical issues like the Jesus tradition, synoptic problem, and genre and then move onto the narrative and theological texture of the Gospels? OR Should one first begin with the final form of the Gospels, describe their story and theological dynamics, and in light of that, them move on to discuss all the historical critical issues? It comes down to whether one begins with... Read more

The Acts 29 network is a church planting movement that establishes Bible-believing churches in various places throughout the world, including in Australia. I recently came across a peculiar item in their doctrinal statement about love, Christ, leadership, and gender (HT: Megan Du Toit). You can read their doctrinal statement here, which is fairly straight forward, tries to be non-adversarial, but takes a stand on certain issues. Given who they are and what they are doing, that’s fair enough, even if... Read more

Brill’s 15 most downloaded journal articles in religious and biblical studies are available for access for free until 15th of April. See the website here. Here’s some of the biblical studies articles: The Oldest Interpretation of the Suffering Servant Author: H. L. Ginsberg Vetus Testamentum, Volume 63,No. 10, pp. 25‑28 Papias, Origen, and Eusebius: The Criticisms and Defense of the Gospel of John Author: T. Scott Manor Vigiliae Christianae, Volume 67,No. 1, pp. 1‑21 “Faith(fulness) of the Son of God”? Galatians 2:20b... Read more

I find Daniel Boyarin’s ideas always thought provoking, if not always convincing. This recent lecture on the term ioudaismos and its development in early Christianity is extremely important. The Lecture is a part of his current research for a book called Imagining No Judaism. The thesis of the book is “Judaism is not a native concept for Jews”.  Boyarin says, “Jews have no term for their religion until the 18th century.” The point is that what was represented by the... Read more

Aquila H. I. Lee From Messiah to Preexistent Son Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2005. Available at Amazon.com Aquila Lee’s book on the origins of pre-existence Christology is a quite a good book, though lesser known than Simon Gathercole’s volume of the subject in his The Preexistent Son. However, what I really like about Lee’s book is that it covers so many areas like Jewish views of intermediary figures like Wisdom and Principal Angels, the so-called Wisdom Christology, Jesus’ self-understanding as “Son,” early... Read more