Good news, everyone who pre-orders a copy of What Christians Ought To Believe: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine Through the Apostles’ Creed can get a free bonus e-book on “What Christianity Would Miss Without the Apostles’ Creed.” Info is at ApostlesCreedBook.com, but here’s the gist: Pre-order What Christians Ought to Believe now from any retailer and you’ll get free bonus content: Pre-order 1 copy to receive a free bonus eBook by Michael Bird: “What Christianity Would Miss Without the Apostles’ Creed.”  To get... Read more

My colleague Scott Harrower continues his series of reflections on Dante’s Inferno. Read more

The Gender Conversation is now available. This book is based on a multi-disciplinary conference held at Morling College in Sydney, and features a wide ranges of contributors, views, and topics, on all things related to gender, identity, and Christianity. The stuff on transgenderism alone by Justine Toh is worth the price of the book! What is more, if you order the book through the Morling website, and use the coupon code GENDERCONVO16, you can get a 20% discount! My own essay... Read more

Over at the Marginalia Review of Books is a review by Susan Eastman titled Grace and Transformation about John Barclay’s volume Paul and the Gift. Eastman raises some good questions about Barclay’s articulation of divine and human agency. For instance, does the efficacy of grace cancel the need for a human response or work immanently to evoke and sustain the human response, and how does one balance judgment as whether one is a fitting object of divine grace match with a sense of assurance in divine... Read more

There is an excellent piece in The American Conservative by Bonnie Kristian (a Bethel Seminary grad) on The Idolatry of Donald Trump where she resources Michael Gorman’s book Reading Revelation Responsibly and his critique of dictators masquerading as divine, and uses it as a sober warning against Trump: Americans might rightly protest that we don’t ascribe divinity to the presidency, but the office is undoubtedly sacralized. Its successes—notably in foreign policy—are attributed to divine blessing. Conventional politicians may be more politic... Read more

In addition to Justin Bass’ awesome monograph on the descent of Jesus to the underworld in light of Rev 1:8, in latest issue of WTJ is a great article by Jeffery L. Hamm on “Descendit: Delete or Declare? A Defense Against the Neo-Deletionists,” WTJ 78 (2016): 93-116. Hamm writes: Finally, in view of the history of descendit, there yet remains the most monumental justification for the clause’s inclusion in the Creed. That is, Christ’s descent was indisputably and unanimously believed in the ancient church. Ubiquitous... Read more

I had a great time being interviewed by Kurt Willems on The Paulcast on an episode called “Michael Bird on Paul, the Mafia, and Integrating Old & New Perspectives.” In the interview I talk a bit about my background, my Romans commentary (Zondervan) and my forthcoming essays on Paul called Anomalous Jew (Eerdmans), how to have the best of the old and new perspectives on Paul, the Paul within Judaism school, Israel in Romans 11, and Paul and modern race relations. If... Read more

A very interesting lecture by Rowan Williams on John Calvin as Greek Father as part of the Hulsean Lectures in Cambridge on Christ and the Logic of Creation. Read more

John J. Collins Apocalypse, Prophecy, and Pseudepigraphy: On Jewish Apocalyptic Literature Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015. Available on Amazon.com This book is a collection of essays by John J. Collins, long time scholar of the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple literature, specializing in apocalyptic writings. The best chapter is the first one on the genre of the apocalypse reconsidered where Collins reflects on the famous 1979 Semeia definition of “apocalypse” in light of more recent studies of genre and apocalyptic writings. His... Read more

Here is the latest episode of the Ridley College Vodcast The Now and the Not Yet hosted by Scott Harrower and Mike Bird. In this episode we: – Review James Dunn’s Neither Jew nor Greek. – Talk about the Oxyrhynchus Papyri translation project. – Teach you the “Anglican Word of the Day”: Episco-pal! – Interview Bishop John Harrower on Being a Christian Leader Oh, and don’t forget to watch until the very end, where there is a surprise musical item! If you... Read more