There’s a great video over at the Smithsonian channel on Crucifixion Became a Very Popular Roman Spectator Sport. The newly-discovered Lex Puteolana tablet helps us understand the ritual and economics of crucifixion in the Roman world. But it also reveals how it evolved into a spectator sport. In 2006, a construction team in Italy stumbled upon an isolated skeleton from a Roman-era burial. Experts believed it was the remains of a man who was crucified. If so, the skeleton would... Read more

Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m about to watch my church’s sermon on-line, do on-line Sunday school with my kids, then prepare for a “virtual classroom” for my campus students, curate my usual on-line classes, and then prepare for a live stream of a lecture on 2 Corinthians that I’m doing tomorrow night for St. Hillary. All this reminds me about a great talk that Guy Mason (Senior Pastor, City on a Hill, @Guy_Mason) did at the Ridley... Read more

Would Matthew (the author of the Gospel of Matthew) and the apostle Paul (author of all those epistles) find themselves in basic agreement or something of intra-Christian rivals? Scholarship has been fascinated (or plagued!) by the question. In my opinion, the dichotomy between an ostensibly “Jewish” Matthew and/or Matthean community against a seemingly “pro-Gentile” Paul with his Gentile communities is patently false. First, Paul’s self-identification, symbolic universe, religious habits, sacred texts and interpretation, and antagonism towards Hellenism remain indelibly Jewish.... Read more

If you are stuck at home or trying to cobble together some on-line resources for people, remember these: Ridley College is offering its lay-level Bible Overview for free. SBL’s Bible Odyssey project has great articles and videos. N.T. Wright on-line is offering temporary free access to Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. My own you.tube channel has some videos you might want to check out on everything from evangelical theology, to the apostles’ creed, to Romans and Philippians, to debates with... Read more

A couple of years ago I posted some remarks about Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician woman in Mark 7:24-30 largely in response to some things tweeted by the late (and much missed) Rachel Held Evans. There is a good piece on this recently by Matthew Malcolm, “Did the Syrophoenician Woman Change Jesus’ Mission?” BBR 29.2 (2019): 174-86. Here’s the abstract: Recent readings of Mark’s account of Jesus’s interaction with the Syrophoenician woman have frequently emphasized the woman’s role as an agent of change... Read more

If classes are canceled, if church is on hiatus, if you are quarantined, and if you’re just generally stuck at home, here are some tips for what to read, watch, and listen to while you’re cooped up at home. Read Nijay Gupta and Scot McKnight, The State of New Testament Studies, terrific volume that brings you up to date on what is happening in the various seminar rooms of NT studies, very informative, and highly recommended. Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton, fantastic... Read more