The 200th Biblical Studies Carnival Extravaganza!!!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome to the 200th Biblical Studies Carnival!  Here you’ll find all the best posts from October, 2022 from all your favorite biblical studies bloggers and tweeters and youtubers and the rest of social media.

And yes, I’ve stepped outside of the usual carnival parameters and included stuff that isn’t on blogs alone.  This because just as biblical studies changes over time, so have the means by which biblical studied discussions are promulgated.  Blogs are supplemented by videos and tweets and facebooks and tiktoks and other methods and all serve the grand purpose of getting the word out concerning the field we love.

The Carnival is divided into sections so that you can quickly locate your field of interest and then move on to the other parts.  Links are ‘curated’ (people love that word these days don’t they.  Even sandwiches are curated now…) with appropriate (and sometimes inappropriate) commentary by your host.  Me. Enjoy!  And if you have complaints, do see the management.  Me.  Your complaint will be filed immediately.

Miscellaneous

An international conference on Otto Dibelius was held in October.  There will doubtless be a conference volume forthcoming.

Wido van Peursen shared his thoughts in a post titled Impressions of the Tenth Meeting of the International Organization for Targumic Studies. A good time was had by all.

SBL is looking for a new Executive Director.  It could be you!  Or it could be Michael Kok, who here divulges moment by moment his SBL 2022 plans.  I hope he plans to eat a couple of times.

David Stark wants you to use Unicode when you type Hebrew or Greek (and honestly, he couldn’t be more right).  I like David.  He seems like a nice kid.

One of the original bibliobloggers, Torrey Seland, offered his readers a snippet of info on three Philo related essays.

100 years of excavations at Ur will be the topic of a 2 day conference in November.  All the details and how to sign up (it’s online) can be found here.

The Katz Center is sponsoring a series of lectures on messianism and the one on Nov 1 is titled Jewish Messianism in the Time of Early Christianity.  Go sign up now.  It’s at noon!

On 9 Nov at 13.30 GMT @CamDivinity is pleased to host a pubic debate between Simon Gathercole (Cambridge) and Francis Watson (Durham) from their recent books on canonical and noncanonical gospels, discussing ‘What’s the Difference?’ You can tweet the tweeter directly for the link.

Roberta Mazza had a genius discussion of the sale of the Colker manuscript collection.  Do not skip it.  She brings her usual brilliance to the task.

James Crossley will be chatting about Jesus in November.  It’s a live, in person event, so if you want to attend, you’ll have to register.  Explainers talks return this November with a new topic- The Historical Jesus. Speaker: CenSAMM Academic co-Director James Crossley. The talk begins at 1.30pm in the Chapel, in the museum Gardens.

Brent Niedergall reviewed Logos 10.  The main takeaway for me of his review is- it’s faster than Logos 9.  But there’s a lot more to the review, so give it a read.  Brian Davidson reviewed it too.  So did one J. David Stark.  Doubtless others did as well as Logos seems to have carpet-bombed the interweb with review copies (dotting all the t’s and crossing all the i’s I reckon).

Do you like the Bible?  Do you like violence?  Well then this project on the Bible and violence may be just the thing to make you happy.

And speaking of violence, Steve Wiggins runs a blog with the title ‘sects and violence in the ancient near east’.  He posts a lot about horror and stuff mostly, but every now and again, on a blue moon, he’ll have something related to biblical studies.  I mention it merely because it’s a good one to drop in once a month or so to see if he’s produced a text with a theme we care about.  (His blogroll, though, is sadly nearly totally out of date.  Most of the links are dead or deactivated or haven’t produced anything for years).

Nijay Gupta has some advice if you want to be a writer.  My advice if you want to be a writer?  Be yourself and find your own process by discovering what works for you.  Everyone is different and one size definitely does NOT fit all

Peter Gurry had a nifty post (from May) on the strangulation and burning of William Tyndale, which anniversary took place on 6 October (which is why it is appearing in this Carnival).  He also points out that the last thing Tyndale requested were several Hebrew volumes so he could continue his work on translating the OT.  See, that’s scholarship.  No video games for Tyndale. He worked till they choked the life out of him.  Go be like Tyndale!

A-J Levine, one of my absolute favorites, discussed her latest book at this video link.  Join Dr. Amy-Jill Levine as she discusses with writer Rob Simbeck her new study, Signs and Wonders: A Beginner’s Guide to the Miracles of Jesus.  Do it!

The awful news that John P. Meier died on October 18th saddened all who knew him.  His work on the historical Jesus is unsurpassed (and sadly, even at 5 big volumes, incomplete).  He was a fixture at CBA and the funniest guy to talk to.  What a quick wit.  He will be sorely missed.  The CBA remembered him here.  Jona Lendering remembered him here.  He also was remembered by Jose Ayrton, Avvenire, MSN, some Spanish ‘Skepticism‘ site, Religion News Service, The University of Notre Dame, and Church Leaders.  Doubtless others have as well.  As is but right.  All should.

October also was the month during which Gordon Fee died.  (On October 25).  This is a sad loss for all who have been helped by his insightful work.  Peter Gurry shared his own feelings on the news.  So did Nijay Gupta.

Tweetings of Note

One of the benefits of twitter is that you can hear about books coming out long before they have a web presence on the publisher’s site.  To wit-

@alexichantz After a few big submissions yesterday, I decided to have a down day and read Martin Sanfridson’s PhD dissertation on gentile cults in 1 Cor 8 and 10 (@MattThiessenNT’s recent student). I’m really enjoying it! Congrats to Martin for his great work. Can’t wait to see it in print.

Another tweet about a book forthcoming-

@RowlandsJonny — So excited to see this arrive in the post today! My upcoming book, The Metaphysics of Historical Jesus Research, is now available to pre-order at 20% off! Release date 4th November.  

I know what you’re thinking:  ‘what, another historical Jesus quest????’  But who knows, this one may not end in participants gazing lovingly down a well where they see just what they’re looking for- themselves.  [Narrator: it won’t end with the historical Jesus].

And still another book was revealed.  This time it’s a commentary on Colossians.  It was tweeted by every Bible nerd’s best friend and every Bible nerd spouse’s worst enemy- @theologuide.

James Crossley tweeted this little gem-  @JGCrossley Replying to @bormann_lukas I still think Theissen and the Stegemanns were superior to Malina and his circle.  So say we all.

Joseph Scales tweeted this notice about his essay on Saul and ghosts.  On October 31.  So sort of appropriate.

In Sheffield

Sheffield’s Department of Biblical Studies along with Sheffield Phoenix Press are having a celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Bibs Studs Dept. at SBL in a few weeks.  You can still sign up to join in.

A tweeter worth following is this chap- he’s an Italian biblical scholar in the making. He tweets at @BenattiJonathan and remarks “I submitted a proposal for my thesis at the Waldensian Faculty. I would like to explore the theme of the “suffering God in a groaning world” and how the Old Testament informed the theology of the New Testament on this topic. Let us see if it makes sense.” Yes, lets!

@jnsbstn — Wonderful news, the Qumran Dictionary of the Göttingen team is online in alpha version. A huge thanks to Annette Steudel, Ingo Kottsieper and Reinhardt Kratz. This is the result of many years of incredible work. Thank you. https://lexicon.qumran-digital.org.   How completely cool is that?

T&T Clark tweeted Andrew M. Mbuvi destabilises dominant white Euro-American approaches to biblical studies, positing the need for biblical interpretation that is anti-colonial and anti-racist.

One of the best twitter threads that appeared in October is by Nick Posegay of Cambridge-  So there’s this box in the Genizah Research Unit at @theUL. It’s labelled “Worman Archive.” It’s supposed to be full of stuff associated with Ernest James Worman, a librarian who catalogued the #Genizah collection 120 years ago. Yesterday I found out that’s not all true.  Read the whole.  Nick also posted a great thread on a letter of Solomon Schechter on the discovery of the Hebrew text of Ben Sira.

Here is some really important news via the twitter-

@AbernethyOTProf — Check this out. I’m super grateful for the work of Every Voice, led by @drandrewmking, @charlie_trimm, @brittanydkim. They’ve created a database for bibliographies on works by Black and Arab OT Scholars…Asian and Latino/a are to come. https://database.everyvoicekingdomdiversity.org

Brilliant!

Here’s something you need to keep an eye out for:  @HDayfani Proofs time! This will be out shortly and be available in #OpenAccess– (click to enlarge)

This is a bit of fantastic news for the Oxyranchus Papyrus project:  @Papyrus_Stories — The Oxyrhynchus papyri have a new online database! https://sds.ox.ac.uk/oxyrhynchus-papyri Images of papyri are included with links to other databases that provide further info. Hopefully one day translations of the material can be added to increase accessibility beyond non-Greek papyrologists.

And again, something noteworthy-  @WillKynes Proofs from a forthcoming chapter in Fifty Years of Wisdom: Gerhard von Rad and the Study of the Wisdom Literature (ed. Timothy Sandoval & Bernd Schipper; @SBLsite Press). I argue von Rad’s interpretation of Job was ahead of its time.

I absolutely enjoy the snippets posted by this tweeting account on New Testament manuscripts.  Always fascinating historical tidbits.  Most definitely worth following is @greekntestament.

Jeremiah Coogan has a new book coming out on Eusebius that will probably be of interest to students of the era.  We learn about it in the tweetings of @jstscu.

SBL/AAR meets in November and because there are so many boozy beer swillers who attend, there’s a craft beer get together.  You’re urged to bring along your favorite sort of Satan’s urine and enjoy an evening of swilling it with like minded swillers.  See, you thought twitter was pointless…

Twitter can truly be crap sometimes, but sometimes it’s also the source of very good things. You just have to claw through the manure to find the gold.

Books People Liked

Emily Gathergood recommends Grant Macaskill’s new volume on the New Testament and something called intellectual humility.  Wut?

Deane Galbraith enjoyed James Crossley and the Marxist radical Robert Myles’ new book on Jesus.  Which, I’m disgusted to say, isn’t even available here in the gulag of America until March of 2023.  What insanity.  I’m very keen to read it.

UPDATE on the previous paragraph:  Deane was kind enough to send a for sale copy of the Crossley / Myles book and I’ve been spending time reading it.  Enjoyable time.  It’s a great little book.  There’s good chunks that biblical scholars will be familiar with but there’s also lots to learn about seeing Jesus through their particular lens.  I recommend it.  (I didn’t review it because I paid for it; but I did make Robert sad by annoying him with a ‘why you should have sent a copy’ post).

The inestimable John Barton has a new book coming out (in November in the UK and not till May in the US… ugh….)  Nuff said really.  John is incapable of producing anything that isn’t superb.  He is the greatest scholar of our day working in Hebrew Bible.

Phil Long reviewed John Goldingay’s commentary on Jeremiah.  Few better exegetes than Goldingay presently exist and there just aren’t any books of the Bible better than Jeremiah.  Put the two together (with a generally skillful reviewer) and you’re bound to have a delight.

Heather Thiessen likes several books which she, thankfully, shares her thoughts concerning here.  I.e., the three volumes of A People and a Land (Vol. I The End of the Beginning; Vol. II The Road to Kingship; Vol. III The Land and Its Kings; 2019 & 2020, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company).   Give it a look.

Torrey Seland has a new book out on Peder Borgen.  Not sure who that is?  Well that’s a good reason to read the book isn’t it!

Very exciting news- a new volume on the fantastic work of Gerhard von Rad is out.

I reviewed a book about Julius Wellhausen’s dissertation that I want to make sure you hear about if you already haven’t.  The book is AMAZINGLY good.  I also reviewed a very differently organized volume titled Conversations on Canaanite and Biblical Themes.  You’ll have to see it to believe it.  Finally, I also reviewed Kenosis.  A genuinely great book with an assemblage of great essays (with the exception of one, which was rather weak because its author tried far too hard to be clever rather than helpful.  Consequently, the essay was only clever by half).

Candida Moss liked Jeremiah Coogan’s book on Eusebius (even if the headline is a tad click-baity).  The Daily Beast gotta get eyes on essays somehow.  The book itself sounds engaging enough.  Pity people can’t be urged to read things just because they merit reading and instead these days have to be ‘bribed’ to do it by excessively overstated headlines.  Candida also talked with the Jesuits about hell and death and demons and other fun stuff.  Excellently too.  She’s such a talented thinker.  Grateful for her every contribution.

Rachel Wilkowski is on a podcast thing talking about Children’s Bibles.  She’s a PhD student at Trinity College, Dublin, so she has to be smart.  Give it a listen.

A forthcoming volume that will be of interest to a large number of people titled Misusing Scripture: What Are Evangelicals Doing with the Bible?  I’ll tell you what they are doing: misrepresenting it.

Also forthcoming are two books by Konrad Schmid.  One on the Priestly writings and another a collection of his essays on numerous things.  Both from SBL Press.

Siebenthal’s Greek Grammar is now available, for free, to download in PDF and other e-formats.  (I bought a print copy last year.  I really like it).

Someone called Dean Flemming has a new book on Revelation titled Foretaste of the Future: Reading Revelation in Light of God’s Mission which he describes on Nijay Gupta’s blog.  Here.

Eric Van Den Eykel has a new volume on the Magi (it’s a reception history of the Magi since there isn’t enough material in the New Testament itself to actually write a book length treatment of a few guys who show up in a few verses).  A friend of his is thrilled to announce it here.  If you like wise guys, it looks like a book you’ll love.

Jennifer Guo reviewed a book titled A Spiritual Economy: Gift Exchange in the Letters of Paul of Tarsus.  It must be a real barn burner because she read it in two days!  What better endorsement could there be for a book than that it was literally unputdownable!

New Testament Stuff

I have a confession to make:  of all the posts I read in October this one by Elijah Hixson was my favorite.  It’s on the misrepresentation of Dan Wallace’s remarks in the preface to a fairly recent book on, you guessed it, Textual Criticism.  It is a carefully constructed very erudite and yet perfectly clear blogging.  Elijah is quite the explainer / investigator / clarifier / and misprision destroyer.  You simply must read it.  It is both art and science.  It is a thing of beauty.

Dan McClellan has some thoughts to share on a TikTok video about an Icthys Wheel.  Not sure what that is?  He’ll tell you.

Michael Barber continues to blog at The Sacred Page where he generally provides essays concerning the RCL each week.  Mike is an old time blogger like Tilling and Goodacre and Seland and Davila and yours truly.

If the issue of hapax in NT texts is an interest of yours, you’ll enjoy this: Death by a Thousand Cuts: Examining Biblical Hapax Legomena One Word at a Time.

Nice work over at ETC on the missing verses in the KJV.  Peter Gurry is a good and competent explainer.  And Peter Head is miffed at a problem with a manuscript of Mark 10:45.  And Elijah Hixson wants you to know that scribal scribbles in margins can find their way into the text itself.

Mike Bird talks about the Didache.  For 20 or so minutes. If you like Australian accents, this may be right up your alley.

Craig Evans wasted time spent some time debating the Jesus Mythicists on the Associates for Biblical Research site.  It illustrates perfectly why the entire ‘apologetic’ enterprise is a Sackgasse.  Barth was right about a lot of stuff (though not as right as Brunner); but his view of ‘apologetics’ as the defense of the faith against atheists and agnostics was spot on.  God doesn’t need people to defend him, and it’s hubris to think he does. Besides, Maurice Casey (may he rest in peace) obliterated once and for all the entire Jesus Myth rubbish.  PS- no one changes their mind because of such things.  On either side.

Lauren Larkin posted a sermon she preached on Luke 17:11ff.  Give it a listen if you are so inclined.  And she posted one she preached on Psalms.  Because she isn’t a Marcionite.  Ok, fine, it was on Luke too.  But she cited Psalms.  So she isn’t a Marcionite.

Stephen Carlson had good things to say about an unread uncited dissertation on the Majority Text that he thinks should get more notice.  It’s for the text crit people.

Ken Schenck talks about Acts 10.  Did you know that there are things about the passage you may not know?!?!?!  Ken says you don’t.  So he wants to fix that.

Someone named Will on twitter mentioned one of those podcast things.  This one’s about Paul using clay to make people or something.  I don’t listen to podcasts but you might.  The pod people weird me out, so I avoid all of them.  Rambling on like loonies in the bin to invisible ‘friends’.  So weird.

Another podcast On Early Christian Magic showed up in October.  Sounds like it was an intriguing discussion.  You may want to check it out.  It’s an interview with Shaily Patel.

Oh, speaking of podcasts… @CSNTM noted Our founder Dr. Daniel B. Wallace spoke with @PrestonSprinkle on his @RawTheology podcast. Check out their conversation on your favorite podcast platform!

And if you have a favorite podcast platform, repent!

The text and canon people took a look at the place Revelation found itself in in various manuscripts of the New Testament.  You’ll enjoy it (as much as one can enjoy anything by Clark Bates).

How did Jesus pronounce his own name?  Did he go with Yeshua, or did he deviate from the norm and use Yehoshua?  Well there’s a post that appeared at the end of September but which I didn’t hear about until it was tweeted in early October.  So since it showed up (for me) in October, here it is.  It’s super.

Hebrew Bible Stuff

The always gracious ever learned Claude Marriottini has a brief but cogent and useful introduction to the book of Joel on his blog this month.  Give it a look.  He also had a very interesting look at Job and his BFF Bildad.

Cynthia Schafer Elliott wrote a gem of a piece on the literary context of the Hebrew Bible on the ‘Bible for Normal People’ blog ( which is usually festooned with Peter Enns’ stuff but this time it’s an excellent post!)  Excellent!

Jim Davila had some thoughts on the implementation of the latest archaeological craze- paleomagnetic archaeology.  Who doesn’t like magnets?  They’re cool!  And if they help us learn that the Bible is a newspaper report of ancient doings in Israel, who are we to be skeptical?

Do you like illustrated manuscripts?  Do you like the Psalter?  Well then you’ll love both as they are discussed here.  Among the treasures housed in the British Library is the Luttrell Psalter. It is a lavishly illustrated early 14th century manuscript commissioned by Sir Geoffrey Luttrell.

Like witches?  Like Old Testament witches?  Like Old Testament witches who are nameless and are only known because they come from Endor?  Well Bible Odyssey posted a thing on the Witch of Endor you’ll enjoy.

Peter Williams directs your attention to a neat little video on the you tube discussing how Hebrew pronunciation has changed over time.

Yonatan Adler wondered when Jews started observing Torah.  Hint, it wasn’t under Moses…

The planet is mad at you!  Justifiably really.  To find out why, read this great piece titled Qoheleth: The Earth Versus Humanity.

Logan Williams is leading a reading group looking at unpointed Hebrew texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls.  Particularly, at the Damascus Document.  You can sign up and sit in on zoom., but it’s also in person if you’re in Exeter.

Yonatan Adler’s new book on the origins of Judaism has now been published.  He makes the announcement here.

Emily Gathergood announced the good news that the Nottingham Biblical Research Seminar was returning.  It kicked off mid October with a session on reading Jonah’s song intertextually, but more sessions are coming.  Sign up info is at the link.  You still have time.

There’s a new site called the Armstrong Institute of Biblical Archaeology.  AIBA’s mission is to showcase Israel’s biblical archaeology and to make it available to the largest audience possible, most especially to the people of Israel.

AWOL posted news of a new Open Access resource called Abgadiyat: Journal of Ancient, Modern and Digital Scripts and Inscriptions.  Surely something that will be useful to many.  PS- AWOL is one of the old guard blogs.  One of the few still operating (along with Jim Davila’s and my own.   Goodacre seems to have sadly moved away from it, having only posted in June of this year and way back in 2020 before that.  And Tilling too seems to have withered among the stones.  Both a great loss really.  They made academia a much better place).

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The End of the Matter…

Apparently no one posted Carnival 199 in October so I did by posting a previous Classic Carnival.  So I’m still counting this as number 200 because it is and should have been and should still be.  Phil writes

I still need a volunteer for November 2022 (Due December 1), and December 2022 (Due January 1).  Or, if you are into long term planning, any month in 2023.

If you have thought about hosting, now is the time to step up and contact me via email, plong42@gmail.com or DM on twitter (plong42) to discuss hosting a Biblical Studies carnival. If you are a new BiblioBlogger, this is a good way to get your blog some recognition. And, to quote Jim West, “They are fun to do!”

And, as an added bonus, if you do one, it makes it unlikely that I will!

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NB– Zwingli was butchered on October 11, 1531 by the papists at Kappel-am-Albis.  And since this carnival covers the month of October, I am duty bound to make mention of it.  Sure, it’s not ‘biblical studies’ per se, but daggnabbit it’s my carnival.  When you do your Carnival, you can include lesser persons.