James, an interview

July 9, 2011 By Scot McKnight

Mike Bird who, along with my colleague Joel Willitts, blogs here at Patheos at Euangelion, interviewed me about the James commentary (The Letter of James (New International Commentary on the New Testament)), and now that he’s published it I thought I could post it here.

What was your first experience with James as a Christian and as a Teacher?

I read James in high school, but it was in college – as a sophomore – that I took a serious interest in James. I memorized in the KJV and read it – with my Greek text next to me (which I could barely read) – with Lenski’s commentary. It was an exhilarating experience for me.

When I was a young professor at TEDS I asked permission to teach James as the second course in exegesis, got that permission, and began teaching it then – and taught it annually for about a decade. Those first few years involved concordance work on everything, careful sorting of commentary options, and constant chasing down of questions that occurred to me and to my students.

I’ve not taught James as a book study since leaving TEDS, though I’ve sketched every year in our survey courses.

There’s a story about this commentary. I was scheduled to write the Baker commentary on James but, when I couldn’t meet the deadline – and had actually missed it and knew that it was going to be more than a few years down the road before I could get to it, I felt the honest thing to do was to tell Moises Silva that I couldn’t meet the deadline. He accepted my resignation, assigned it to someone else, and Dan McCarthy, as it turns out, did complete it – and it was actually in print before mine was. Several years later after failing to meet the deadline for Baker, after dinner with Gordon Fee, he asked me if I was interested in writing James for the NICNT … and I said to him, “Yes, I can do it now because I have nothing on my schedule for the next few years of that magnitude.” So, I took up the NICNT after not being able to meet the deadline for the BEC James. (more…)

Converting our Imagination 1

November 23, 2010 By Scot McKnight

In the next two years Americans will be bombarded by political rhetoric. I am not alone in decrying the politicization of our culture, and neither am I alone in urging followers of Jesus to refocus. Political rhetoric is not only filling our imaginations with hope, hope that can’t be delivered by a President, but it is reshaping Christian thinking so much so that intelligent studies show that the Church in the USA has been politicized. That’s a sad commentary on us.

I begin a series today on Converting our Imagination, and at the bottom of this is an examination of the Book of Revelation. The book is Resistance Literature pure and simple. It is theo-politics. It is anti-empire. It is for Christ, but the Christ who Reigns is the Lamb.

What does this book teach us to imagine? What movies are most like Revelation? What literature is most like Revelation? (I suggest Flannery O’Connor. What say you?)

To assist us in this study of Revelation, and I won’t be writing a mini-commentary but probing themes, I will be using Michael Gorman’s new book, Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Following the Lamb into the New Creation. The topics will be set by the order of Gorman’s chapters.

We begin today with polarization. To be blunt, some people think this book is awesome and inspiring — like Eugene Peterson and Michael Gorman and Richard Bauckham — while others think it is a disastrous piece of violence. Thus… (more…)

Weekly Meanderings

March 13, 2010 By Scot McKnight

We’ve been on Spring Break, and this is what I found this week … including a picture of Safety Harbor:

My links aren’t as complete as usual, but I have a few, and I want to alert you to a post coming later today by Matthew Elliott about Christians and emotions. (And thanks to IVP for the ad above: click on “Likewise” and check out the offerings.)

Sad news about World Vision in Pakistan.

A good pastor, a good author, and a good blogger — moves to Beliefnet. Check out Jazz Theologian.

Speaking of good theologians and scholars, Richard Bauckham now has a website for his stuff.

Yet another great theologian, and one of my favorites: John Stott story.

Tony Jones ran a series on his paper for the Society of Pentecostal Studies: Part one and the Conclusion (you can access the rest at this site).

Derek Leman has a nice collection of links for Passover.

Mother knows best … (HT: JT)

Ted Gossard on testing by the fruit.

David Opderbeck’s post at our site drew a response from Jay Richards.

Meanderings in the News

First read this: Ignoring the news. (HT: AR)

1. On building better teachers.

2. If your books get soaked … what to do? Freeze them!

3. Nick Kristof’s suggestion will appeal to the younger set.

4. Trends in insurance coverage?

5. Victor Davis Hanson on Obama’s foreign policies.

6. Biden, Obama, and Israel: “Bibi, you heard me say before, progress occurs in the Middle East when everyone knows there is simply no space between the United States and Israel,” Biden said. “There is no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel’s security. And for that reason, and many others, addressing Iran’s nuclear program has been one of our administration’s priorities.” And then it happened.

7. Prostate cancer PSA testing, by the one who discovered PSA: “Even then, the test is hardly more effective than a coin toss. As I’ve been trying to make clear for many years now, P.S.A. testing can’t detect prostate cancer and, more important, it can’t distinguish between the two types of prostate cancer — the one that will kill you and the one that won’t.” And, if that wasn’t enough, Ablin closes with this: “I never dreamed that my discovery four decades ago would lead to such a profit-driven public health disaster. The medical community must confront reality and stop the inappropriate use of P.S.A. screening. Doing so would save billions of dollars and rescue millions of men from unnecessary, debilitating treatments.”

8. Robert Jenson on the loss of story.

9. Did you see this about Kansas City public schools?

10. The Midnight Knitter.

Meanderings in Sports

The most notable story of the week was the UConn’s women basketball team, now with a winning streak of 72 games. One writer thinks they’re too good, but I don’t recall that being said about Johnny Wooden’s great teams. Gino has done an incredible job finding talent and coaching the talent into a unified team. One of the greatest sports teams ever.

Scholarships for PhD Studies in Scotland

November 15, 2009 By Scot McKnight

I received this notification of six new scholarships at the University of St Andrews in the School of Divinity, which involves teaching a language class in the second and third year of the scholarship.

St Mary’s College, The School of
Divinity

Six New
Scholarships to Celebrate 600 Years of Divinity in St Andrews

The School of Divinity at St Mary’s
College, St Andrews, Scotland is offering six PhD scholarships to be taken up
in the Autumn of 2010–or as soon as possible thereafter–to work in the
following fields:

The Matthew Black Scholarship: for a student interested in Old
Testament / Hebrew Bible

The Donald M. Baillie Scholarship: for a student interested in
Theology;

The Richard Bauckham Scholarship: for a student interested in
New Testament;

The Emanuel Tov Scholarship: for a student interested in Old
Testament / Hebrew Bible Textual Criticism;

The Queen Margaret of Scotland Scholarship: for a student
interested in any field of Divinity;

The Lady Kenmure Scholarship: for a student interested in any
field of Divinity.

The scholarships cover home fees for a UK or
EU student, or a contribution of around £3500 per annum towards overseas fees.
An additional stipend of £3000 (or £1000 for the fourth scholarship) is offered
to the recipients. Recipients of the scholarships (1-4) will be asked to teach
one language class in their second and third year of residency or do equivalent
work.

The successful candidates will join a
rapidly expanding School of Divinity postgraduate program.

Candidates for these scholarships are
required to fill out the normal post graduate application forms. Special
attention will be given to the PhD proposal.

Further details can be obtained from: Ms
Margot Clements, Postgraduate Liaison, School of Divinity, St Mary’s College,
St Andrews, Fife KY16 9JU, Scotland, Email: Mc41@st-andrews.ac.uk

The closing date for applications is January
15, 2010.

First Day is Goldingay

March 3, 2008 By Scot McKnight

We come to the 11th and final chapter of John Goldingay’s Old Testament theology — OT Theology: Israel’s Gospel. Goldingay takes cuts through the First Testament rather than building a synthetic theology; his books provide an excellent example of narrative or Story-shaped theology. The questions are different; the approach is different; and the result is different. And this chp is about Jesus as “God Sent” explores how Jesus fits into that Story. We will begin the 2d volume next month and I hope you can purchase this book and follow along with us (OT Theology: Israel’s Faith). His books are long so one chp per month is do-able. What do you think? |inline

What was it really like?

October 4, 2007 By Scot McKnight

That is, what what was it really like to be a Christian — a Jewish Christian — in the first few centuries. Here’s a fact: the Church shifted from its original Jewish roots with its Jewish story when it became increasingly Roman and Greek. The result: the dominant story of the Church has been the Eastern and the Western Church, and both of these show heavy influences from the Greek and the Roman worlds. So, what to do? I suggest the following book: |inline

Weekly Meanderings

November 18, 2006 By Scot McKnight

No speaking events until December.
I must say that Don Johnson, over at Jibstay, is becoming one of our favorite bloggers. He’s creative, clever, and — on top of that — wise. My top three pastor sites are Jim Martin, Mark Rogers, and Don Johnson.

Jamie Arpin-Ricci’s post on a missional pastor (HT: Bro Maynard).
|inline

Harper Collins Study Bible (NRSV)

November 4, 2006 By Scot McKnight

I’m not one to pay all that much attention to Study Bibles, but the Harper Collins Study Bible, based on the NRSV and edited by HA Attridge is a Bible that churches and pastors and others will surely want to have within arm’s reach. |inline

Do you believe in Mary’s perpetual virginity? 2

June 13, 2006 By Scot McKnight

Yesterday’s post provided a smattering of evidence, and drew some good response (especially from Dennis Martin and Jim Martin — no relations!) that anticipates where we have to go in this series, but the evidence is clear: there was an early and widespread belief in Mary’s perpetual virginity. Not only that she conceived as a virgin but that she remained a virgin after the birth of Jesus. There are three historic views in this issue, and I wish today to look at each: |inline

The Gospel of Niggle 2

May 30, 2006 By Scot McKnight

2.0 The Orthodoxy of Heresy
Ehrman, who relentlessly tries to unveil the truth about earliest Christianity in order to demonstrate that it was a suppressive machine of power-mongers, commits the very sin he castigates. If the “sin” of the proto-orthodoxy is suppression and intolerance, he aligns himself with their method for he never engages the traditional or even an alternative view of the general thesis in his entire book. |inline

St Mary’s College, The School of Divinity

St Mary’s College, The School of
Divinity