The proverbial late night college dorm room question, “Could Jesus have sinned?” (the question of Jesus’ impeccability), is one that I recently came across in a section of theology written by the preeminent Orthodox theologian Bishop Kallistos Ware of Oxford, who by the way gave lectures at North Park last year. In an essay entitled “Salvation and Theosis in Orthodox Theology” Bishop Ware writes How far was Christ subject to temptation? The testimony of Scripture is explicit: ‘in every respect... Read more

Michael Licona interviews Dan Wallace about new manuscript discoveries by CSNTM including an apparent fragment of Mark from the first century. Big claim, very tantalizing for textual-critics, mouth drooling really, an apologist’s fantasy coming true, skeptics are skeptical, and it creates more suspense than the last episode of Lost. C’mon Dan, show me the money!   Read more

Justin Taylor does a superb interview with Peter Williams (Tyndale House) and Simon Gathercole (Cambridge Uni) about faith, scholarship, apocryphal Gospels, and Tyndale House. Do check it out! Read more

Over at The Punch, journo Miles Heffernan has a piece on Our Churches Should Not Be a Law Unto Themselves, which raises concerns how (in Australia) religious groups can discriminate against employees in non-core areas of their work. His main target is the company Sanitarium owned by the SDAs who only hire “Christians”. But what stood out for me was his observation about who actually does the major of charity work in Australia. Read this: This weekend one of the... Read more

I must admit I’ve never celebrated Ascension Day; that is until this week. How unfortunate is that?! The ascension of Jesus is the ultimate culmination of his work on the cross on behalf of the world. He died to be resurrected, he was resurrected to be exalted at the Father’s right hand. We celebrate Easter, but Easter culminates with the Ascension. Ascension is celebrated by the Church on the Thursday between the sixth and seventh Sunday’s after Easter. It is... Read more

Brian Tucker provides a nice review of Paul and the Second Century which is edited by Joey Dodson and Michael Bird. Reading the review may save you from reading the book! Read more

John Howard Yoder penned these words in 1972. But they are as true now as they were then. My experience in working with college students is that young people inclined toward social justice and human rights find Jesus powerfully attractive. It may be a meaningless coincidence that some young men wear their hair and their feet like the Good Shepherd of the Standard Press Sunday school posters; but there is certainly no randomness to their claim that Jesus was, like... Read more

Thanks to IVP, there is an excerpt available of Kevin Giles’ new book The Eternal Generation of the Son: Maintaining Orthodoxy in Trinitarian Theology (see here). This is a fun topic and Kevin Giles is one of the key protagonists for a particular view on christological subordination and divine ontology. Together with my former colleague Robert Shillaker, we’ve engaged Kevin Giles on the subject of intra-triune relationships, subordination, and the gender debate in a couple of articles in Trinity Journal a few... Read more

Larry Hurtado has a post discussing the prospects of the Marcan Community, particularly in light of critiques by Dwight Peterson and Frederik Wisse on the idea of communities behind texts, in preparation for an SBL session in November. Hurtado concludes: Given the widely-shared (and entirely understandable) desire to link early Christian texts with particular provenances, it is inconvenient to have such critique and warnings [i.e., Peterson and Wisse].  But that’s no excuse to ignore them.  The credibility of the field... Read more

I am definitely one or more of these! HT: Joel Watts. Read more