Hugo Méndez (Chapel Hill) wrote a provocative article on “Did the Johannine Community Exist?” JSNT 40.3 (2020) where he questions the existence of a Johannine community because the Gospel of John and the Epistles of John are a forgery! You can read the article at sage in hypertext format. The abstract reads: This article challenges the historical existence of the ‘Johannine community’ – a hypothesized group of ancient churches sharing a distinctive theological outlook. Scholars posit such a community to explain the... Read more

Laura Everett Holy Spokes: The Search for Urban Spirituality on Two Wheels  Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017. Available at Eerdmans. Available at Amazon.com. By Dr. Jill Firth When I received this book a year or two ago, I placed it at the bottom of my review pile. I had fallen off my bike years ago, and my last bicycle has already gone to bicycle heaven. I thought Holy Spokes would be a niche book for cyclists, a coterie to which I... Read more

The COVID-19 pandemic is having a big impact on religious practices and religious communities all over the world (see a great Wikipedia summary here). I’m hearing a lot of news about American churches and pastors openly flouting state requirements for social distancing, lockdowns, and the cessation of public gatherings. The best example is South African-born Pentecostal prosperity preacher Rodney Howard-Browne who’s Florida Church openly flouted lockdown restrictions. Howard-Browne was subsequently arrested, read report at CNN. Fox News reports that NY... Read more

Thanks to Eerdmans and Zondervan Academic, here are my two latest books, simultaneously released next week, one about Abraham in Romans and another one about the Bible and Red Heads. Romans: Following in the Feet of the Foreskinned Faith of our Forefather (Eerdmans) – If the title weirds you out, then please read Rom 4:12 in Greek, I had to fight the Eerdmans editorial and marketing team for the title, but I got my way (after a very big dummy... Read more

David J. Shepherd and Christopher J.H. Wright. Ezra and Nehemiah THOTC Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018. Available at Amazon.com By Dr. Jill Firth The authors share an interest in Ezra-Nehemiah, the canonical location of the text, and leadership. The commentaries on Ezra and Nehemiah are by David Shepherd, who also writes a thematic essay on ‘Leadership and Ezra-Nehemiah.’ Christopher Wright contributes two essays, “Reading Ezra-Nehemiah Canonically’, and ‘Reading Ezra-Nehemiah Theologically Today.’ The authors co-write the Preface and Introduction. The THOTC format... Read more

Jarvis Williams is an Associate Professor of New Testament Interpretation at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He has just published a commentary on Galatians in the NCCS edited by myself and Craig Keener. Here’s an interview I conducted with Jarvis about Galatians. Jarvis, tell us about your earlier studies on Paul and the atonement. My previous work on atonement in Paul’s theology relates to comparisons with the Jewish martyrological texts found in 2 Maccabees and 4 Maccabees, the... Read more

Mignon R. Jacobs. The Books of Haggai and Malachi. NICOT. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017. Available at Eerdmans. By Dr. Jill Firth Mignon R. Jacobs is professor of Old Testament studies at Ashland Theological Seminary (Ohio), and was formerly Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible at Fuller Theological Seminary (Pasadena). Her books include Gender, Power, and Persuasion: The Genesis Narratives and Contemporary Portraits (Baker Academic, 2007), and The Conceptual Coherence of the Book of Micah (LHBOTS, 2009). She co-edited Israelite Prophecy and... Read more