As 2024 is quickly coming to an end, it’s time for the most wonderful blog posts of the year from my column “In Christ.” I base these top 10 picks on the amount of views each of them received. So, in essence, these are your picks:
Even though this post is now 2 ½ years old, it still continues to attract many viewers, so many in fact that it made the top ten again this year! It was my most frequently viewed post in 2022. Maybe that’s because I can speak with expertise on this subject as a biblical scholar and translator. I wrote it for laity, though even those well-educated in Scripture might learn a thing or two in it.
This year provided me with the unique opportunity of taking my sabbatical at Asbury Theological Seminary during their Winter-Spring semester. I attended both the Hughes Auditorium at the university and the Estes Chapel at the seminary to experience the one-year anniversary of the Spirit’s outpouring (Feb. 8, 2024). I reflect on the experience in this post. A year earlier I also wrote a blog about the outpouring when it was actually taking place in February of 2023, entitled, “The Current Revival at Asbury University: Sensing the Presence of God and 4 Principles from the Past”.
The second-most viewed post last year makes the top 10 again this year! Readers are hungry to know about this rare Qumran find among the Dead Sea Scrolls that is seldom discussed. My other posts on the giants and Nephilim also did extremely well last year (2023), holding the #1 and #6 positions. For the top picks last year, see “2023 in Review”.
The Apocalypse of Weeks covers 10 weeks of world history from the perspective of 1 Enoch, some of which still appeared to be future-oriented when it was first written. I discuss these 10 weeks and the prophecy’s ramifications.
6. A Jewish Paul: Matthew Thiessen on His New Book
This is a three-part interview with Matthew Thiessen on his recent book, A Jewish Paul: The Messiah’s Herald to the Gentiles (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2023). Part 1; Part 2; and Part 3. Many scholars and biblical students alike have been interested in knowing more about the “Paul within Judaism” perspective in recent years. Thiessen’s book is a readable work in that vein. Part one of any interview I’ve done in the past does the best in a trilogy. However, part three of this interview interestingly received the most views. The larger portion of our discussion centers on pneuma and resurrection. I toss in some dimension theory, too.
5. New Testament Use of the Old: Quotes, Allusions, and Echoes
Interestingly, as Matt Thiessen and I continued our interview exchange, at one delayed point I decided to add another blog as a type of “intermission.” Little did I know at that time that this post would take on a viewership of its own that would even surpass that of the interview! The best way I could describe the post is as a re-written “bare essentials” version of the way I define quotations, allusions, and echoes as a recognized intertextualist. For my more intense scholarly article on these issues, see what I wrote in Practicing Intertextuality, a work Max J. Lee and I edited for Cascade Books (2021).
This is another post I wrote while doing my sabbatical at Asbury seminary. As I was doing my research on Paul and the gospel, Dr. Craig Keener had recommended an old book for me to read entitled, The Gospel According to St. Paul by A. M. Hunter, once a Professor of New Testament at Aberdeen University in Scotland. I centered this blog on what I read and my response to it.
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Paul and Eastern Orthodox Tradition: New and Old Perspectives
Years ago I had met Athanasios Despotis at an International Society of Biblical Literature conference in Europe. I was recently able to reconnect with him for this interview on his book, Participation, Justification, and Conversion: Eastern Orthodox Interpretation of Paul and the Debate between Old and New Perspectives on Paul, WUNT 2/442 (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck). The interview has two parts: Part One he discusses the relationship and differences between the new perspective on Paul and Eastern Orthodoxy. In Part Two we discuss works of the law and union with Christ, among other things.
This is a perennial favorite that has pretty much remained in the top ten of my posts every year since I first posted it during the covid crisis in 2020. I argue against a biblical connection between Satan and the name “Lucifer.”
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Paul and the Resurrection of Israel: A Restoration Viewpoint
This post is a three-part interview with biblical scholar Jason Staples on his recent book, Paul and the Resurrection of Israel: Jews, Former Gentiles, Israelites (Cambridge University Press, 2024). This is the first time that an interview received the prize of most views in a year for my blog, which tells you something about the interest in the subject and author. Part 1 covers gentile relationship and the new covenant, among other things, Part 2 covers Jewish identity and the Law in Romans and Part 3 covers Jer 31, Rom 11:25-26, and pneuma.
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If we omit posts from previous years and limited the top 10 posts to ones that were created this year (2024), then “Joanna & Chuza in ‘The Chosen’: A Bad Marriage in the Bible?”, “Was there 400 years of silence between Old & New Testaments?“, and “What Christians Can Learn from Philo on Faith… or Trust?” would have made this list. My own choice for 2024, however, did not make the list. The name of that article is, “When Paul Met Jesus on the Road to Damascus: 3 Views.”
Happy Holidays!
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