Frank Matera, in his Galatians commentary (SP) writes that the alleged calm between Protestants and Catholics on Galatians has been broken by the New Perspective on Paul. He says: “[A] new storm has broken upon the Galatian sea, a storm so powerful that it is tossing both Tridentine and Reformation ships, laden with their traditional exegesis of Galatians, to and fro” (p. 27). That is a nifty way to put it, but I wouldn’t go with Matera when he says... Read more

Was Jesus remembered in Islamic tradition? To what end was his memory used? What can be learned of the Jesus from the Qur’an? These are interesting questions particularly in our diverse pluralistic world today; but one to which, admittedly, I’ve given little to no thought. A few months back however I was having a conversation with a colleague and he mentioned that a book called Jesus and the Muslim by Kenneth Cragg was a useful source for information. There are... Read more

The wonderful people at Textual Criticism House, whoops, I mean, Tyndale House, are developing their own edition of the Greek New Testament. It will be called Tyndale House Edition of the Greek New Testament (THEGNT) and will be based on Tregelles’ edition with revisions. Here’s the full news: Tyndale House plans to release the electronic text of THEGNT freely in late 2013 to accompany its forthcoming interlinears of the Scripture Tools for Every Person (STEP) programme. At first the text,... Read more

My former Ph.D student, Danny Zacharias (Acadia Divinity College), has a cute little ebook out called: Surviving and Thriving in Seminary: A Practical Guide for the Wide-eyed and Mystified. I have to confess that I wish seminary students would come to college with a little more awareness of what they are going to do and how they can make the best of it. Means a lot less pain later down the track, mostly for me! Read more

For those interested, my novel Iskandar, is now available as an ebook for Kindle. Anyone into fantasy novels heavily embedded with religious themes, might actually like it. Read more

In a couple of weeks, I’m visiting my alma mater, Malyon College, to do an M.A. intensive on Critical Issues in Paul (link here). It is scheduled for 8-12 July, I think places are still available, and audit students are welcomed. Should be a great week looking at topics like Paul and Empire, Paul and Sexuality, Paul and Spirituality, and some exegesis of Galatians as well! Even better, the following week in Melbourne, N.T. Wright is visiting for a couple... Read more

Thanks to Nijay Gupta for collecting these endorsements on Wrights PFG: “N. T. Wright’s long-awaited full-length study of St. Paul will not in any way disappoint. From the very first sentence, it holds the attention, arguing a strong, persuasive, coherent, and fresh case supported by immense scholarship and comprehensive theological intelligence. It is a worthy successor to his earlier magisterial studies, laying out again very plainly the ways in which the faith of the New Testament is focused on God’s... Read more

I’m spending a lot of time in Romans 2 recently as part of some commentary writing. It’s really a case of deja vu, as I’ve been here before (see Saving Righteousness of God, chap. 7), but there is always so much to mull over. Along the way, I was struck by an interesting comment made by Francis Watson (Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles, 211) that: “A comparison between Cranfield and Kasemann shows the Reformed commentator to be more at home in... Read more

Brian Rosner delivered the first annual Leon Morris Lecture on NT studies this week. It was on “Paul and the Law: Keeping the Commandments of God.” I’m glad to say that it is now available in audio. Brian has good some great ideas on the law as wisdom and prophecy. Read more

The Harper Collins Christian Publishing wing (i.e., Zondervan and Thomas Nelson) has just launched a new initiative called Faith Gateway. FaithGateway is an online community for readers to discover great content and engage with their favorite Christian authors. FaithGateway brings together content in many different forms: daily blog posts, book excerpts, devotionals, free downloads, videos, giveaways, contests, webinars, and more. Looks interesting, not quite on the academic side, but definitely interesting for Christian living and Church resources. Read more