Below you’ll find a whole midway of Biblical Studies learning. Check out the Hebrew Bible Hoop Shot, The New Testament Nacho Stall, the Archaeology Arcade, The Miscellaneous Mouse Coaster, and the Book Bumble Bee! There are enough thrills here to delight even the most stoic scholar or student. Or even the most angry of the angriest angry atheists.
At the Gate
Before you proceed one step further, you HAVE to read Dan Wallace’s post on the importance of the biblical languages in theological education. Go do it now.
The Hebrew Bible Hoop Shot
It’s time to try your skills with the round ball and see how many points you can score by reading the posts described. To start off, give a read to this essay which is over on Travis Bohlinger’s blog on teaching Hebrew Bible outside of your confessional boundaries if you aren’t Jewish.
There’s some Hebrew Bible stuff noted by Jose here. 3 points.
Mid October be sure not to miss the Annual Genizah Lecture if you are in or around Cambridge. If you attend, you get three points.
John Rogerson lectured, shortly before his death (on 4 September, 2018- may he rest in peace), on the forgiveness of sin. Give it a watch. Deane has also assembled other lectures by Rogerson on things like the Kingdom of God and the Prophets.
James Tabor (my best friend from olden times) posted an interesting snippet on the Messiah before Jesus. Give it a read.
The LXX readers edition editors are very excited about pre-publication endorsings. You may be too. Personally I’m very excited about the volume’s appearance. In spite of the fact that I haven’t seen it…
Semitica is out with a new volume, number 60, edited by Langlois and Römer.
Did you know that Song of Songs was the most popular book of the Bible in the Middle Ages? Yup. Thanks, weird ‘Jesus is my boyfriend’ mystic loons. Read the post. It’s good.
The New Testament Nacho Stall
Time for a snack, on New Testament cheesy nachos. First up, the British New Testament Society annual meeting was held at St Mary’s, Twickenham. There was plenty of tasty tacos and buttery biscuits and cotton candy to be had by all who attended. The conference, open to all who are duly qualified, meets every September somewhere in the UK.
Christian Brady has some observations about the Syro-phonecian woman. Spicy!
Nympha, anyone? Nympha and the letter to the Colossians? Well here’s your post! Give it a read. It’s spicy!
Michael Jones has some great stuff (jalapeno-esque) to say about Schweitzer and Paul and suffering. Michael has been friends with Timothy Bertolet for a long time, so he’s something of an expert on suffering.
For pity’s sake… stop with the goat talk. Richard Goode is behind this. Richard *The Goat* Goode is a bad, bad, bad, bearded, bad man.
Conrad Gempf (LST) gave a 20 minute talk on Jesus and the Scriptures. Enjoy. It’s got a bit of onion but cheesy onion nachos are super.
Lauren Larkin on Luke. Lovely. Look. It’s laudable.
Did you know that Mark’s use of the Old Testament is important for understanding his Christology? Wow. Next, we discover that water, when liquid, is wet, and we then learn that a bullet to the head can be seriously injurious!!!!! More cheese please!
Christian Brady did a video lecture for a group and even though it posted at the tail end of August, I’m including it here, because I know you never saw it:
Phil Long did a series of posts on the Sermon on the Mount. Here’s the kickoff. And you can find the rest on his blogge.
Here’s a recap of the BNTS annual meeting. Nice work, Travis… Travis seems like a nice person though he may well not be. I don’t know. I’ve not met him. He may be a serial killer. Who knows. Anyway, read his post. It’s not like he can reach through your screen and strangle you.
Luke 23:46… in music…. Okie dokie. That’s nacho-esque right there. Very nacho-esque.
Jimbob Snapp has some interesting comments about Mark 7:3f. It’s a load of nachos without too much cheese. (But I wish he had a better blog layout. I don’t like the aesthetics of it. That’s just me, and I’m not being judgy, but it reminds me of the 1st generation America Online style and it hurts my soul and senses).
Mike Bird has some interesting things to say about the book of Revelation and the doctrine of revelation. Give it a read. It’s just mildly cheesy.
The Archaeology / Dead Sea Scrolls Arcade
Test your skills and see if you can tell the fakes from the real thing. One thing’s certain; the articles from Dead Sea Discoveries and made freely available to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the journal are anything but fakes.
Israel Finkelstein lectured in Zurich and the three lectures have been posted on the University’s theology department YouTube page. Enjoy. There’s lot’s of wisdom there.
Michael Langlois was in Australia talking about forgery stuff. If you missed it, you missed it.
Did they find the church where the First Council of Nicaea was held nearly 1700 years ago? Maybe. The evidence sure seems to be there. If they did, well that’s just pretty cool. And I can’t wait to see how BAR exaggerates it! Fun times!
On the other hand, 9 Dead Sea Scrolls ‘discovered’ in recent years are obviously fakes. Well, I mean obvious to everyone but BAR readers. But, speaking of the Scrolls, T&T Clark published what will be a standard volume for study of the Scrolls on the 20th. It’s a massive volume with massive amounts of information.
If you would like to learn archaeology from an actual archaeologist- take Aren Maeir’s MOOC – coming soon! It looks fantastic.
The Miscellaneous Mouse Coaster
Sit back, relax, and prepare to be turned upside down and lose all the change in your pocket. Michael Bird has some thoughts on dealing with predatory priests drawn from Basil. If only the Romanists would follow Basil’s guidance.
Ready to be really horrified? Then hop on the academic publisher paywall exploitation express! Yeah, I’m looking right at you JSTOR.
There’s still time for you to make plans to attend the Mowinckel Memorial Lecture, given in November by the brilliant Anne Katrine Gudme.
The Museum of the Bible… some don’t like it. Peter talks about how Alexander talks about it. It’s worth talking about their talking about it but it itself is something each person on their own has to decide their feely feelings about without having their sentiments dictated to them from Iowa or Yale or Birmingham. Make up your own minds, sheeple.
Get your calendar (or diary, if you’re a Britlander) and take note of the dates of the 2019 meeting of IOSCS. And if that meeting doesn’t make your heart pound maybe Syriac Bootcamp will… Man that sounds terrifying. I don’t know, but I think they make you eat Syriac and drink Syriac and carry around big heavy bags of Syriac and sleep on Syriac and it all seems so cruel. But maybe you’re into that…
Randy B. takes a look at the Golden Mouth and Calvin. Sure, it’s not something related to the Bible but it’s a good post so I’m including it. If you don’t like it, be sure to comment below….
Interesting lecture here about those who like and those who don’t like Semites, in biblical studies. And thanks, Deane. Speaking of Deane Galbraith, he wins the post title of the month with this one: An Assmannian Global Spirituality Index. Germans have such funny names. And talk about a roller coaster stomach churning plunge…
There was a lot of discussion of Nike this month. Randy did the best job of discussing it. You should read it. Strictly speaking, it’s not a biblical studies post- but it does have to do with biblical interpretation/application and that’s a good enough reason to include it here.
Hey, go work at Emory! If your thing is New Testament, that is. They already have Jacob Wright, so they don’t need anyone else for Hebrew Bible.
The Book Bumble Bee
Welcome to the stinging (of your bank account).
First up, the Logos free book of the month for September was Walter Kaiser’s ‘Preaching and Teaching the Last Things’. It’s a different one now, because the free book for October is up. And I don’t know what it is. Because this post went live before the posting of the new free book of the month. So go find out what it is. And avoid Kaiser’s book because it’s fundamentalist rubbish.
Don’t miss Paula Fredriksen’s review of Matthew Thiessen’s book on Paul.
Michael Jones is sharing news of a 40th anniversary edition of Sanders’ ‘Paul and Palestinian Judaism’. Go ahead and get a copy if you don’t already have one. It’s quite a large book (which means it says far more than we know) and it is a real sleep aid / door stop / deadly weapon when hurled at an annoying person’s head! It’s multi-purpose!
Evidently one or two people who read something called ‘Credo’ magazine must be mildly interested in actual biblical scholarship (I know, it shocked me too), because they convinced Will Ross to write something about the LXX. I’m sure in their heads they read that ‘El, ex, ex’ and don’t know what it means. Hopefully Will can help them.
Don’t read this terrible interview by the terrible Travis Bowlinger of the equally terrible Chris Le Keith. Don’t do it. It’s about a good series but the two principles of the post are terrible. Terrible……..
Interested in the history of scholarship? German scholarship? German Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship? If you answered yes, this will be of interest to you.
Do take a look at the post on the OUP blog about a new book on Darwinism. You won’t regret it as much as you would a bee sting.
Exit
We hope you had fun. But, really, it doesn’t matter. Because we did. As you leave, make sure you haven’t forgotten your children. And here’s our final word, brought to you by Terry Eagleton:
“Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology.” Terry Eagleton
Hahahahaha. Dilettante owned.
See you next time!
Zwinglius Redivivus 
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