Over at The Deep Waters podcast is an excellent interview by Nick Peters of Larry Hurtado about his forthcoming new book Destroyer of the Gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016). Click “podcast” to listen on-line or else subscribe via iTunes. Read more

RTS Houston is hosting a conference on 12 November called Confessing the Triune God: Retrieving Nicene Faith for Today’s Church, with a great panel of speakers lined up: Dr. Michael A. G. Haykin | Biblical Exegesis in Fourth-Century Trinitarian Debates Rev. D. Blair Smith | Trinitarian Relations in the Fourth Century Dr. Scott R. Swain | “God from God, Light from Light”: Retrieving the Doctrine of Eternal Generation Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III | The Doctrine of the Trinity and Complementarianism in Recent Discussions I... Read more

I’m currently writing a chapter on 1 & 2 Corinthians for an NT Introduction. While I’ve always felt like I had a good grip on 1 Corinthians (its argument and scholarly conversation), but generally I haven’t been as familiar with 2 Corinthians, so I’m always learning more here. There is an interesting point 2 Corinthians 6 where Paul has some really dense intertextuality going down: 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple... Read more

The latest issue of Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, includes these articles: Anthony Le Donne Editorial: The Third Quest in Retrospect James Crossley Editorial: Some Future for Historical Jesus Studies Dale C. Allison Memory, Methodology, and the Historical Jesus: A Response to Richard Bauckham Richard Bauckham The General and the Particular in Memory: a Critique of Dale Allison’s Approach to the Historical Jesus Robert J. Myles The Fetish for a Subversive Jesus Simon J. Joseph Jesus and the... Read more

L. Daniel Hawk Ruth  Apollos Old Testament Commentary. Downers Grove, IVP, 2015. Available at Amazon.com By Jill Firth L. Daniel Hawk (PhD, Emory University) is professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Ashland Theological Seminary in Ashland, Ohio and an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church. His work on narrative and identity formation includes Evangelical Postcolonial Conversations (as co-editor and contributor), Joshua in Berit Olam and Joshua in 3-D, which engages with the American master narrative of Manifest Destiny... Read more

Stephen B. Chapman  1 Samuel as Christian Scripture: A Theological Commentary Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016. Available at Amazon.com By Jill Firth Stephen B. Chapman (PhD Yale) is associate professor of Old Testament at Duke Divinity School, director of graduate studies in religion at Duke University, and an ordained American Baptist minister. He is author of The Law and the Prophets: A Study in Old Testament Canon Formation (2009). An outstanding feature of 1 Samuel as Christian Scripture is its bibliography,... Read more

Joy A. Shroeder (trans, ed) The Book of Genesis  The Bible in Medieval Tradition Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015. Available at Amazon.com By Jill Firth Joy Shroeder (PhD Notre Dame) is holder of the Bergener Chair in Theology and Religion at Trinity Lutheran Seminary and Capital Seminary in Ohio. Schroeder works in feminism in medieval thought and Old Testament studies. She is the author of Deborah’s Daughters: Gender Politics and Biblical Interpretation (2014) and Dinah’s Lament: The Biblical Legacy of Sexual... Read more

A couple of great articles about the Septuagint (LXX) that you need to know about are: W. Edward Glenny, “The Septuagint and Biblical Theology,” Themelios  41 (2016). This article is an excellent survey of scholarly views on how the LXX relates to the biblical canon and its uses for biblical theology. This article addresses the question: How does the LXX relate to the Christian Old Testament, and more specifically, what role does the LXX play in Christian biblical theology? The first part of... Read more

Soong-Chan Rah  Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times Downer’s Grove, IVP, 2015. Available at Amazon.com By Jill Firth Soong-Chen Rah (DMin, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) is Milton B. Engebretson Associate Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois. He is the author of The Next Evangelicalism (2009) and Many Colors (2010). Rah founded the Cambridge Community Fellowship Church (CCFC) in Massachusetts, a multi-ethnic, urban ministry-focused church committed to living out the values... Read more

My thanks to Kyle Greenwood for a great review of What Christians Ought To Believe. It was for guys like him and for churches like his that I wrote it! So, how did I underestimate the value of this book? It’s not just for my teenagers who are lacking formal theological education. It’s for pastors, needing a refresher on why they do what they do. It’s for church small groups and Sunday School classes. It’s for church membership and baptism classes.... Read more