The Parable of Two Sons

Last updated on: August 3, 2016 at 5:02 am By James F. McGrath

My church building hosts not only the American congregation Crooked Creek Baptist Church (which is itself quite diverse in interesting ways), but also two other congregations, one Hispanic and one Congolese. There have been challenges related to the differing cultural assumptions of the various groups, and that has at times led to tensions. And so I thought it would be interesting to spend some time in my Sunday school class looking at culture as an aspect of Biblical interpretation. Last Sunday I started... Read more

SNTS: Simultaneous Short Papers

Last updated on: August 5, 2016 at 5:36 pm By James F. McGrath

The last afternoon of the SNTS conference was dedicated to simultaneous short papers. The first such session I attended featured Roger Aus speaking about Jewish traditions related to Ezekiel 16:9 and their connection to 1 Corinthians 10:2. The Targum reworks the text in Ezekiel, relating it to the Exodus, in ways that may have been known to Paul. Aus also noted the debates among the rabbis about the appropriateness of reading this text publicly, and the need for it to... Read more

SNTS: Fourth Main Paper and Seminar

Last updated on: August 5, 2016 at 2:13 pm By James F. McGrath

This is the last day of the Society of New Testament Studies conference in Montreal. There was a chapel service in German, followed by the last of the main papers, Jens Herzer speaking about the Pastoral Epistles “Between Myth and Truth.” The paper sought to revisit longstanding conclusions that are now taken for granted about these texts (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus). One of those assumptions is that the three letters hang together as a corpus, as essentially “one work... Read more

The Eye of a Needle

Last updated on: August 4, 2016 at 7:41 am By James F. McGrath

The page The Christian Left shared this image on Facebook, and a couple of comments that were made on it there deserve responses. First, you will sometimes hear that the Eye of the Needle was an actual gate in Jerusalem which a camel could indeed pass through, on its knees and leaving any goods it was carrying behind. This is simply not true. There is no evidence for there ever having been such a gate, no evidence whatsoever, and so... Read more

SNTS: Third Main Paper and Simultaneous Short Papers

Last updated on: August 5, 2016 at 2:21 pm By James F. McGrath

After lunch, Risto Uro spoke about the use of cognitive science in the study of early Christianity. He began by paying hommage to his own Doktorvater, Heikki Räisänen, who advocated a religious studies approach to New Testament studies. He then moved on to contextualize his argument against the backdrop of the study of the phenomenon of religion in recent years from the perspective of cognitive studies, biological evolution, neuroscience, and other interrelated scientific methods, and the diminishing of the gulf... Read more

SNTS: Second Main Paper and Seminar

Last updated on: August 4, 2016 at 12:39 pm By James F. McGrath

Today’s program started with a service in French. Very few members attend any of these chapel services, but today it was interesting to notice that almost everyone who was there was not a native speaker of French. Next on the program was the second main paper of the conference, by Paula Fredriksen, asking “How Jewish is God?” Gods were thought of in antiquity as sharing in the ethnicity of their worshippers, often indeed being viewed as the ancestors of the... Read more

Dilbertian Emergentism

Last updated on: July 31, 2016 at 11:00 pm By James F. McGrath

The above Dilbert comic strip came up in a recent discussion here about radically-emergent theism. The discussion that post generated was vigorous and interesting and in my opinion fruitful and illuminating. And so I thought I would share the cartoon and see what thoughts readers of this blog might have about it. Read more

SNTS: Seminar, Main Paper, Disputed Questions

Last updated on: August 3, 2016 at 5:38 pm By James F. McGrath

The rest of the day featured three major components. The topical seminars had their first meeting. I am signed up for the one focused on the Gospel of John. The first seminar paper in this section was by Anni Hentschel and focused on intertextual relationships between John and the Synoptics, with particular attention to the footwashing scene, but also John 1, 5, and 9. I found myself thinking about aspects of these stories that I had not before. For instance,... Read more

SNTS: Prayers and Presidential Address

Last updated on: August 3, 2016 at 9:31 am By James F. McGrath

One fascinating aspect of SNTS is the extent to which, because it is a European rather than a North American organization, it does not divide religious practice and critical scholarship the way an organization like SBL does. In the United States, there is a strong conservative Evangelical constituency that likes to do its own devotional and apologetical-scholarly thing, in a way that excludes others, and in turn even the liberal religious people who engage in critical scholarship keep their religious... Read more

SNTS Montreal: Business Meeting and Opening Reception

Last updated on: August 3, 2016 at 5:33 am By James F. McGrath

The start of the official SNTS program yesterday evening was with the first of two scheduled business meetings. Business meetings are not always emotionally moving, but two moments in this one were. The first was when the names of members who had passed away were read, and we were asked to stand to honor them. The list included quite a number of big names in the field of New Testament. Just as many of us have felt about the passing... Read more