Yes, the title is sarcastic. I stumbled onto a funny and insightful article on the not-so-bright present and future of a career in academia, “Academia and the people without jobs,” by “anthropologist, writer, debtor” Ryan Anderson. Here’s a taste: The reality is this: maybe we don’t want to accept reality. Maybe we simply don’t want to admit how bad things are. We don’t want to acknowledge that our prized possession—higher education—has run off the rails. We tell ourselves that the... Read more
Today’s “aha” moments post is by Chris Keith, Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity and Director of the Centre for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible, St Mary’s University, Twickenham. One of Keith’s interests is the application of social memory theory to the Gospels and historical Jesus. His most recent book is Jesus against the Scribal Elite: The Origins of the Conflict. His other books include Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity (edited with Anthony Le Donne) and Jesus’ Literacy: Scribal... Read more
It’s been a while since I passed on an Oswald Chambers quote from my rector, Father Dave Robinson of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church. He’s been slacking but I forgive him (because Jesus says I have to). The title of this reflection is “The Conditions of Discipleship,” the July 2nd reading at My Utmost for His Highest. It is based on Luke 14:26-27, 33. I reproduced the second part of that entry below (paragraph divisions are mine.) The Christian life is a life characterized... Read more
Here is a short video by Jacob L. Wright, professor of Hebrew Bible at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, Georgia. He is the author of King David and His Reign Revisited (see here) as an interactive iBook, and an expanded version with Cambridge University Press (David, King of Israel, and Caleb in Biblical Memory). This summer Wright taught the first Coursera course specifically on the Bible with the title: “The Bible’s Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future.” Coursera is part of... Read more
The 10th installment of our “aha” moments series is by Chris Tilling, Lecturer in New Testament at St Mellitus College and Visiting Lecturer at King’s College London. He is the author of Paul’s Divine Christology, co-author of How God Became Jesus, and editor of the recently published Beyond Old and New Perpectives on Paul. He appeared in the documentary, From the Dust: Framing the Debate and blogs at Chrisendom (which, I need to warn you, is a bizarre experience–I dare you). He is married to Anja who, everyone agrees, is stupidly... Read more
The 9th installment in our “aha moments” series is by Anthony Le Donne, assistant professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, OH, and formerly of Lincoln Christian University. He was terminated from that position as a direct result of his popular book Historical Jesus: What Can We Know and How Can We Know It? Le Donne, a widely respected New Testament scholar, has also written The Wife of Jesus: Ancient Texts and Modern Scandals and blogs at The Jesus Blog. **********... Read more
Michael L. Ruffin (MDiv and PhD, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is pastor of First Baptist Church of Fitzgerald, Georgia and former professor in the School of Religion at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. He is the author of Prayer 365, Living on the Edge: Preaching Advent in Year C, and Living Between The Advents. This is the first post in this series by someone whose career has been primarily as a pastor (hence the slight title change). ******** I was raised... Read more
Today’s “aha” moments is by Christopher M. Hays (DPhil, New Testament Studies, University of Oxford). After completing his degree, Hays was a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow for 3 years, and is now teaching at Fundación Universitaria Seminario Bíblico de Colombia. Hays thinks a lot about how early Christians believed that money ought to be used, a subject he calls “Christian wealth ethics.” He is the author of Luke’s Wealth Ethics: A Study in Their Coherence and Character (Mohr Siebeck, 2010), and his current... Read more
Today’s “aha” moment–the 6th in the series–is by Christopher W. Skinner (PhD, Catholic University of America), Associate Professor of Religion at the University of Mount Olive in North Carolina. Skinner is the author or editor of 6 books, including John and Thomas: Gospels in Conflict?: Johannine Characterization and the Thomas Question (Wipf and Stock), What Are They Saying About the Gospel of Thomas? (Paulist), and Characters and Characterization in the Gospel of John (T & T Clark). His current book project is Reading... Read more
Today’s “aha” moment is the 5th in our series and brought to you by Charles Halton (PhD Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion), assistant professor of theology at Houston Baptist University. Halton is the managing editor of Marginalia and just completed editing Genesis: History, Fiction, or Neither?: Three Views on the Bible’s Earliest Chapters (Zondervan, February, 2015). He is working on several other projects, one of which is with co-author Saana Svärd The First Female Authors: An Anthology of Women’s Writing from Mesopotamia (Cambridge,... Read more
Peter Enns
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