As a rejoinder to my friend Jim Westfor my affection for Martin Hengel over Rudolf Bultmann, I’ll simply leave you all with a quote from Hengel himself. “After I became Stiftsrepetent [i.e., a student instructor] in 1954, my colleagues at the instructors’ table (with the exception of my friend Otto Betz, who had already then recognized the significance of the Qumran texts) appeared to me to be “ drunk from the sweet wine from Marburg”. In hearing the new theses... Read more

Congratulations are in order to my good buddy Constantine Campbell of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School for winning a Christianity Today Book of the Year Award in Biblical Studies for his superb volume Paul and Union with Christ. Well done Con! Goes to prove that Aussies make the best biblical scholars!! If you haven’t already read this volume, then you should buy it for yourself for Christmas. They used to have a saying at Moore College where Con used to teach. “Is... Read more

In the blogsphere, I feel behind the times already as I have only just now gotten hands on Tom Wright’s Paul book Paul and the Faithfulness of God. My initial impression of the book, having now held it in my hands and brought it up to my face, is it smells so good! More to come! Read more

This time of year we celebrate the birth of Jesus, a birth which, according to the biblical witness, is based on a virgin conception. Over at Jesus Creed, Scot McKnight posts on Why a virgin birth? and gives a summary of my chapter on the topic in Evangelical Theology. An interesting thread of comments follows thereafter. For an approach to the virgin conception that is pretty much at odds with what I argue for, read Doug Wilson’s How Important is... Read more

Over at Politico Magazine, Candida Moss has a good piece on Time’s decision to make Pope Francis, “Man of the Year.” Wednesday’s announcement of Pope Francis as Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” came as small surprise to anyone watching events in the Catholic Church over the past year. This pontiff is a media darling. His charismatic and photo-op friendly ministry has won the hearts and minds of both the Catholic faithful and, clearly, the global press. Time’s editors couldn’t be more correct when they... Read more

Over at Koinonia, there is a round up of the Evangelical Theology blog tour with a host of reviews listed. Some good interactions and comments given, very interesting for me to learn about the stuff people like and don’t like about the book.   Read more

It is that time of year where New Testament scholars have to fight an uphill battle to keep the nomina sacra in Xmas! Happy papyrological abbreviations to you all this advent season. HT: John Byron Read more

I introduced a nice book about Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology by Andrew Louth. In the first post I was describing the Eastern tradition’s view of sin, death and destruction. The two most important elements of this perspective I want to highlight now. Death First, Orthodox theology considers the question of Adam’s sin and its consequences from the perspective of the resurrection of Christ. It is almost as if the emphasis is placed on the resurrection over the cross. This is surely... Read more

I explain in this video the approach we take in the Introduction to Messianic Judaism: Its Ecclesial Context and Biblical Foundations that can be called evangelical post-supersessionism. Supersessionism names a theological view whether explicitly or implicitly which believes the church has replaced ethnic Israel covenantally. Whereas evangelical post-supersessionism asserts that an evangelical view of Scripture demands we hold a view of God’s continuing covenantal love and commitment to ethnic Israel in the age of the church and beyond. There are... Read more

Many scholars (e.g., Scot McKnight) are  now pushing back on the whole historical Jesus project because it entails a rejection of the Gospel story of Jesus in favor of the Scholar’s Jesus as a kind of fifth and definitive Gospel. In terms of what they are objecting to, consider the following quote: The church, by claiming faith in Jesus as the unique occasion of divine revelation, thus lays upon itself the obligation to do history. And to “do history” means... Read more