Edited by Crossley and Keith. But that’s not the important part. The important part is that Helen Bond and Amy-Jill Levine have written chapters in it. That makes it more than worth the cost of admission.
After a decade of stagnation in the study of the historical Jesus, James Crossley and Chris Keith have assembled an international team of scholars to renew the quest for the historical Jesus. The contributors offer new perspectives and fresh methods for reengaging the question of the historical Jesus. Important, timely, and fascinating, The Next Quest for the Historical Jesus is a must read for anyone seeking to know the real Jesus of Nazareth.
And, as an aside, thank God it isn’t another book about Paul. Anyway, very excited to read it when it comes out.
The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that God is trustworthy—that we can trust in Jesus’s defeat of death to lead us to eternal life. Complicating this crucial message, the letter’s enigmatic origins, dense intertextuality, and complex theological import can present challenges to believers wrestling with the text today.
Amy Peeler opens up Hebrews for Christians seeking to understand God in this learned and pastoral volume of Commentaries for Christian Formation. Her fresh translation and detailed commentary offer insights into Christology, the relationship between Judaism and Christianity, and the letter’s canonical resonances. She pays special attention to how the text approaches redemption, providing consolation for the anxious and correction for the presumptuous.
Peeler explains the letter’s original context while remaining focused on its relevance to Christian communities today. Pastors and lay readers alike will learn how Hebrews helps them know, trust, and love God more deeply.
I’m looking forward to seeing what she has to say. More anon, as a review copy arrived today.
Micah spoke powerfully to the people of Judah millennia ago. His prophecy has the same power to change the minds and hearts of Christians today. As a volume of the New International Commentary on the Old Testament, James D. Nogalski’s fresh commentary on Micah is academically serious and pastorally relevant. Based on Nogalski’s original translation of the Hebrew text, this commentary takes seriously the historical and theological contexts of the book of Micah. The thorough introduction considers the book’s literary form, its composition, and its function in the canon, especially within the Book of the Twelve. Ample notes point readers to the most relevant, up-to-date critical scholarship. Nogalski explicates Micah’s major themes, including fidelity to Yahweh, abuses of power, and the intriguing juxtaposition of judgment and hope for God’s people. Combining scholarly rigor with an evangelical point of view, The Book of Micah serves as the perfect companion for scholars, students, and pastors seeking to understand this essential prophet.
The New International Commentary on the Old Testament series is the Evangelical (in the old, good sense of the word) answer to the esteemed International Critical Commentary series. The ICC, as is probably well known, features volumes written by what can only rightly be called, in most instances, scholars of anything but a Fundamentalist mindset. That is, they could never be accused of Fundamentalism.
The NICOT is not Fundamentalist in outlook either and it fairly examines the important issues of authorship and historical circumstances, etc. The tools of Historical Criticism are brought to bear. As they should be.
But the authors of the NICOT also have a faith commitment and that commitment is obvious on every page. Those, then, wanting dispassionate disconnected detached analysis of the biblical text apart from a faith perspective will need to look elsewhere (and they won’t find it there either. Even the most radical critic is ideologically informed).
Nogalski’s work does what most commentaries do. It introduces the Book of Micah (in this instance), discussing the historical background, the composition of the book, the authorship of the work, textual issues, its place in the canon, and its message for today. It also offers a fresh translation of the Hebrew text.
Being a commentary it also spends the great bulk of its time commenting. The text is arranged into sections which are then further divided into subsections and each is carefully analyzed and, surprising no one, evaluated.
The work includes an index of authors, subjects, and ancient texts.
In terms of the content itself, it offers solid, stable, sound guidance for readers of the biblical text. There’s neither anything earth shattering or controversial in Nogalski’s reading. It’s simply sensible and sensibly presented. It, in short, is just downright good work.
Those looking for a useful commentary on the prophet Micah have found it when they open this volume. Nothing more can be asked of a commentary than that it be helpful. This is.
The collection of essays in this book represents more than twenty years of research on the history and archeology of Judah, as well as the study of the Biblical literature written in and about the period that might be called the “Age of Empires”. This 600-year-long period, when Judah was a vassal Assyrian, Egyptian and Babylonian kingdom and then a province under the consecutive rule of the Babylonian, Persian, Ptolemaic and Seleucid empires, was the longest and the most influential in Judean history and historiography. The administration that was shaped and developed during this period, the rural economy, the settlement pattern and the place of Jerusalem as a small temple, surrounded by a small settlement of (mainly) priests, Levites and other temple servants, characterize Judah during most of its history.
This is the formative period when most of the Hebrew Bible was written and edited, when the main features of Judaism were shaped and when Judean cult and theology were created and developed.
The 36 papers contained in this book present a broad picture of the Hebrew Bible against the background of the Biblical history and the archeology of Judah throughout the six centuries of the “Age of Empires”.
The Commentary is worth looking into. It can be yours, in PDF, for a lowly $75. That’s right- get the only complete commentary on the Bible written by a single person in the last 100 years or more for a ridiculously low price and feed your soul and your mind.
It is highly respected for a lay readership. Check out some of the reviews:
***
These highly readable, but commendably erudite, commentaries are more than worth the full price. — Heather Anne Thiessen, M.Div., Ph.D.
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The best commentaries. – Kevin Wilkinson, Singapore
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I got the commentaries Memorial Day weekend and started with Genesis 1:1. This week I started the Book of Joshua. Never have I ever read the books of the Bible with such understanding. It has opened the scriptures in a way I’ve never before experienced. Lois told me about the commentaries ages ago. I wish I had gotten them sooner. Thank you Dr. Jim West for making them available. – Judy Byrge
***
Jim West is a man of very decided opinions. However, and this is much to his credit, in the Commentary I’ve read he does not advocate his opinions about Scripture. What he does is explain and simplify, working from the original language, without being simplistic. And this is to be commended. – Athalya Brenner
***
“Seriously, … It is a really great commentary, and I’m enjoying and learning quite a bit from it.” – Ken Leonard.
Through Old Testament Eyes is a new kind of commentary series that illuminates the Old Testament backgrounds, allusions, patterns, and references that saturate the New Testament. These links were second nature to the New Testament authors and their audiences, but today’s readers often cannot see them. Bible teachers, preachers, and students committed to understanding Scripture will gain insight through these rich Old Testament connections, which clarify puzzling passages and explain others in fresh ways.
The Gospel of Matthew contains both overt and subtle connections to the Old Testament, capitalizing on the scriptural literacy of the work’s original, first-century Jewish audience. These complex and multifaceted connections are not always recognized by today’s readers, meaning significant ideas can be easily missed or misappropriated. David B. Capes elucidates these extensive backgrounds, echoes, quotations, ways of thinking, and patterns of living, showing how God’s plan–introduced in the Hebrew Scriptures–is revealed through the very person, work, life, and ministry of Jesus.
Avoiding overly technical discussions and interpretive debates to concentrate on Old Testament influences, this book combines rigorous, focused New Testament scholarship with deep respect for the entire biblical text.
This volume is a massively useful work showing how indisputably important it is to look at New Testament texts through an Old Testament lens (rather than the awful eisegetical practice of so many who read the Old Testament through the lens of the New). Without the Old Testament there is no New. And without a very, very good grasp of the Old Testament, any understanding of the New is both short sighted and inaccurate.
Mike Bird says (in his cover blurb) that Capes has shown how the Old Testament is the ‘substructure and scaffolding’ of the Gospel of Matthew, and he is correct in that evaluation. That is exactly how the Old Testament functioned for the author of the Gospel. Indeed, the Old Testament serves as the bones, internal organs, and tissue over which Matthew has laid the skin of his proclamation of the Christ.
Verse by verse and segment by segment Capes shows how the Old Testament is present at every turn and how Matthew, as a superior theologian, has drawn from those texts and utilized them to ‘preach Christ’. And yet Matthew does it without decontextualizing the Old Testament. Instead, he sees and hears theologically and he allows those theological insights to inform his understanding of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.
The volume, besides being a commentary on Matthew, also provides readers with tables and informative asides aplenty along with a bibliography, endnotes (blerg), and a scripture index.
The best thing about the work, though, is the clarity and sensibility with which the text is dealt. For instance, when Capes discusses the ‘fulfillment quotations’ (this was to fulfill the scriptures) he not only lists the passages in which they occur, he names their topics, lists their Old Testament sources, and tells who was doing the prophesying. He notes that there were 12 of these Matthew included in his work. 12. That’s not an insignificant fact.
Which brings me to my final observation regarding this volume: it’s right. Capes is right. He’s right in his comments and he’s right in his methodology and he’s right in his understanding of both the Gospel of Matthew and the Old Testament.
I wish more people who wrote books about the bible were right. But those people are too few and too far between. So when I encounter someone who is right, I appreciate their work and heartily and happily commend it to others. As I do now, here, concerning this volume.
To the premier Biblical Studies discussion group on Facebook (or anywhere). Actual scholars answering actual questions and discussing actual issues. Dilettantes are Verboten.
Welcome to the (real) March Carnival! Below we’ll take a look at the best posts of the month from blogs, twitter, and other online social media sources. Carnivals no longer focus simply on blogs but instead draw biblical studies posts from pretty much everywhere they appear, thus broadening their usefulness.
Only the best posts are included. Many were called on to be included, few were chosen. Hence, the quality of the posts is surpassing superior. And don’t worry, the amateurs, the ‘Coleman Banks-es’ of biblical studies, are banished so there won’t be any of that moronic ‘Jesus mythicist’ garbage or the like to contend with either.
I also need to thank the dozen or so folk who sent along recommendations. It’s always nice to see what others are seeing that I may not.
Regrettably there was no Carnival last month. I guess it fell through the cracks. It happens. Were there, I’d reference it here.
So, all that prefatory stuff out of the way- off we go.
Hebrew Bible
The Prophet’s Bible. One of the most significant contributions to the scholarship of the Old Testament is described here.
The Intertextual Bible has some pretty cool things for you to look at and consider. It’s a nifty site, even if not always on the mark. More often right than wrong. Thankfully. Add it to your bookmarks.
Yahweh and Zeus. A tale of assimilation, murder, intrigue, death, betrayal, and two hockey players. Or just a tale of assimilation.
Fr John Breck has a nifty post on reading the Story of Adam and Eve. For the Catholics and the Episcopalians, that’s a story in the biblical book of Genesis…
Kenny Akers has some thoughts about the Ethiopic Bible and you’ll definitely want to take a look at them.
Have you got leprosy? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe what you think is leprosy is just eczema. Something called the ‘biblical time machine‘ talks about it.
Laura Robinson posted a piece on Judges 19 (a very gruesome text indeed) in film. Give it a read.
Ken Schenck (a new person to the field of biblical studies) has a video on Ruth 2 on the you tube. I didn’t watch it because when it was sent to me I was watching Cops. Seeing people get arrested is a joy.
Archaeology!!!!! Everyone loves it! Too many know too little about it. This is your chance to change that.
New Testament
When it comes to New Testament studies there are few events more important than the publication of Erasmus’s edition of the Greek New Testament. That epoch making event was described here in March, the month of the appearance of that seminal edition.
Peter Gurry, a newcomer to Greek New Testament studies, has a post on the verb in Eph 5:22 over at Particularly Evangelical Textual Criticism.
Phil Long shared some thoughts about the Last Supper. Give it a read. It wasn’t computer generated like proggie stuff is.
The weirdest edition of the Greek New Testament yet published is reviewed by Peter Williams over at ETC. Computer generated texts… i.e., texts that never existed in the ancient world but that some absurd algorithm thinks must have. Stephen Carlson had it right when he opined on the twitter- I find it weird that some people think that critical judgment, obtained after years of study and hard work, is “subjective” and to be discarded for a mathematical model with an arbitrary selection of coefficients that are tuned against the critical text est’d by said judgment.
After a long hiatus of 11 seconds, yet another book about Paul has hit the playground of the theologians like a drop of water hits the ocean. Whatever would we do without a book on Paul every single minute of every single day….
Oh there’s another one! Paul Within Paganism. Now count to 11 and there will be another. Or maybe sooner…
Mark Goodacre drew our attention to a new essay on Morton Smith (who was, let’s admit it, a weirdo) and his ‘secret gospel’ magic mushroom Jesus and the naked young man *wink wink nudge nudge* rubbish. It’s a very fine essay. Poor Morton. Yet another ‘Jesus scholar’ who made Jesus into his own image.
Ick. Optimism. Blerg. I don’t get optimists. Are they just not paying attention?
Nathan MacDonald’s book on The Making of the Tabernacle was reviewed by William Brown. He’s new to me. So he’s new.
Paul Middleton calls it a huge achievement. It? Ben Fulford’s book. The book? ‘God’s Patience and Our Work’. Fortunately for God I do so little that he doesn’t even have to be patient. He can just attend more important things.
Athalya Brenner-Idan and Gale Yee have a new commentary on Psalms. They’re both awfully sharp. It’s bound to be a great book.
Jose posted something. I don’t read Brazilian so I don’t know what it’s about. But maybe some of you do. I do know that there are a lot of people with Brazilian among Biblical Scholars. One year at SBL in fact I overheard Tom Wright and his minions talking about how much they enjoyed getting Brazilian.
George Athas’ new book Bridging the Testaments is reviewed, brilliantly, here.
Ken Schenck talks about books and amazon and other related things here. Keep in mind, he’s a Wesleyan. So he’s trying to earn his salvation.
JN Darby you say? Roots of Fundamentalism you say? Word of this book was sent along in a comment by a long time friend and reader. So I’m more than happy to share it with you.
Christian Nationalism is only a smear if you aren’t a Christian nationalist. For those that are, it is a badge of honor. In that light, you owe it to yourself to read this and the book it is based on.
This sounds like an amazing book so I ordered it. Looking forward to reading it: The book explores the history of Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) and what that industry reveals about white evangelical culture in the United States.
If you ever wanted to know what important stuff happened in the world of Biblical and theological scholarship in the Month of March, here’s a handy guide.
In sad news, the inestimable Sara Japhet died on the 27th of March. Word shared of that fact by the SOTS Secretary. Her work is incredibly helpful. May her memory be for a blessing.
Want to work in Texas? Best not if you’re a woman or a person of color. But if you’re a white male then you might want to apply to teach Koine Greek at a University there (while Texas still allows higher ed to exist) – @JAndrewCowan tweeted Job: Open Rank Professor of Greek (Koine Greek) at Houston Christian University in Texas.
March saw the anniversary of the passing of the great biblical scholar E. Earle Ellis. His specialty was the relationship of the Old Testament to the New. Or rather, how the Old was utilized by the authors of the New. He was a genius whose work still matters long after his death.
Whenever you feel positive about the state of the world, just come back down to earth by looking at what the unhinged evangelicals are up to in John Fea’s ‘Weekly Roundup’. You’ll quickly realize that nonsense is afoot and be back to good old fashioned pessimism within minutes.
Michael Bird posted on Vlad the Putin’s execution of Navalny. In answer to his question, yes, the tyrants always win. Unless someone else owns a guillotine. Ask France.
And, the award for the weirdest tweet by a biblical scholar goes to this lad-
What? What does that mean???????????? Anyway… that one for the win.
JSEC Conference Photos
So March 21-23 the Jewish Scriptures in Earliest Christianity Conference was held in Birmingham, UK. I was happily in attendance. Susan Docherty knows how to organize a lovely gathering of scholars who examine the intersection of Jewish biblical texts and their utilization in the early Church. Below is a slidewhow of selected photos.
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Finis
Be sure to contact Phil Long if you would like to do a carnival yourself.
I’m hosting the March Biblioblog Carnival (posting April 1). Please send in your recommendations in the fields of Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament, New Testament, Books, and Miscellaneous stuff (like archaeology and Scrolls stuff and the like).
I promise you, you will NEVER have seen anything like this Carnival. NEVER! And you NEVER will again! Etc.
You know the drill. I’m particularly keen to help spread the word about lesser familiar bloggers, women bloggers, and bloggers who are anything but white men.
James Barr was born in 1924 in Glasgow, Scotland, and received his schooling in
Barr at SBL one year
Edinburgh. In 1941 he entered the University of Edinburgh as an undergraduate to study classics, but left after one year for wartime service. He resumed his studies in 1945, at which time he met a fellow student of classics, whom he later married. Barr went on to obtain a doctorate from the University of Oxford, and from 1955 to 1961 he served as a professor of Old Testament at Edinburgh. In the course of his career, he also held professorships at Princeton, Manchester, Oxford and Vanderbilt. He is widely acknowledged as one of the leading biblical scholars of the twentieth century.
Barr first made his name in the arena of biblical scholarship with the publication of The Semantics of Biblical Language (1961). This book was a devastating critique of certain linguistic theories associated with the ‘biblical theology’ movement, such as the then-popular notion that vocabulary and structure of the Hebrew language reflect an underlying theological mindset distinct from, and at odds with, that indicated by the Greek language.
In the years following, Barr further developed his critique of prominent themes in the biblical theology movement, before turning his critical eye in the 1970s and 1980s toward the scholarship of Christian ‘fundamentalism’ and its approach to biblical interpretation. In a series of hard-hitting publications, Barr sought to expose what he took to be naïve and irresponsible handling of the Bible within such circles; even so, his assault was raised from a standpoint sympathetic to traditional Christian convictions about the authority of the biblical canon.
In February 1982 Barr delivered the Sprunt Lectures at Union Theological Seminary under the title ‘Holy Scripture: Canon, Authority, Criticism’, in which he presented a critique of the notion of ‘canonical criticism’ in opposition to the view propounded in Brevard Childs’s Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (1979).
He subsequently turned his attention to the question of natural theology, a topic first addressed in his Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh in 1991. Striking a blow at the foundations of the view that Christian theology must have nothing to do with natural theology (a stance propounded most famously by Karl Barth), Barr sought to construct a case for natural theology on the basis of Scripture and biblical scholarship.
James Barr died 14 October, 2006.
His works include: The Semantics of Biblical Language (1961); Old and New in Interpretation: A Study of the Two Testaments (1966); Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament (1968); Fundamentalism (1977); Escaping from Fundamentalism (1984); Biblical Faith and Natural Theology (1993); The Concept of Biblical Theology: An Old Testament Perspective (1999). See also Samuel E. Balentine and John Barton, eds., Language, Theology, and the Bible: Essays in Honour of James Barr (1994).
We are pleased to inform you that the ninth delivery of the „Biblia Hebraica Quinta“ (BHQ) series, Volume number 16 titled „Job“, will be released in May.
Bridging the end of the Old Testament period and the beginning of the New Testament period, this book surveys the history and theological developments of four significant eras in Israel’s post-exilic history: the Late Persian Era (465-331 BC), the Hellenistic Era (332-167 BC), the Hasmonean Era (167-63 BC), and the Roman Era (63-4 BC). In doing so, it does away with the notion that there were four hundred years of prophetic silence before Jesus.
Bridging the Testaments outlines the political and social developments of these four periods, with particular focus on their impact upon Judeans and Samarians. Using a wide range of biblical and extra-biblical sources, George Athas reconstructs what can be known about the history of Judah and Samaria in these eras, providing the framework for understanding the history of God’s covenant people, and the theological developments that occurred at the end of the Old Testament period, leading into the New Testament. In doing so, Athas shows that the notion of a supposed period of four hundred years of prophetic silence is not supported by the biblical or historical evidence. Finally, an epilogue sketches the historical and theological situation prevailing at the death of Herod in 4 BC, providing important context for the New Testament writings.
In this way, the book bridges the Old and New Testaments by providing a historical and theological understanding of the five centuries leading up to the birth of Jesus, tracking a biblical theology through them, and abolishing the notion of a four-century prophetic silence.
A review copy arrived a little over a month ago and I’ve been systematically working my way through it.
First, what is the goal here? There are plenty of histories of Israel and Judah and most of them, and all the better ones, discuss the periods of the Persians, Greeks, Maccabeans, and Romans. Is another needed?
Others may not be, but this one is. Because rather than simply relating the historical events of the period between the Old and New Testaments, Athas examines the theological significance of those events in their historical contexts. That is the great achievement of this book and the reason why it is uncategorically better than the others of the genre.
I wish this book had existed in the ancient past when I was a grad student and we were examining the history of the ‘Intertestamental period’. We all would have had a far better grasp of the subject than we did.
The book is made up of a series of tables which provide in a handy format such details as a timeline of events form 597-4 BC (Athas uses the BC nomenclature rather than BCE, although I don’t know why since the general scholarly consensus is to utilize BCE and CE instead of BC and AD. Maybe some editor forced him to it, or the wretched Reviewer 2), Persian Governors, The Hasmonean Dynasty and such like.
Part One covers the Persian Era (539-331 BC); Part Two the Hellenistic Era (331-167); Part Three the Hasmonean Era (167-63); and Part Four, the Roman Era (63-4 BC).
Excurses too can be found among the facts and details of the historical narrative. These can, however, appear to be anachronistic. For example, whilst discussing the Hasmonean Era in the chapter titled ‘The Road to Revolt’, Athas includes an Excursus on the Olivet Discourse (which is, as you’ll surely recall, not at all related to the Hasmonean era in any respect but rather has to do with the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE). I italicized the word ‘appear’ above because the Excursus, while seeming at first glance to be out of place, is yet another example of how Athas weaves together historical and theological information. Jesus ‘recycled’ the notion of the abomination which makes desolate first realized in the Hasmonean era and later realized again in the Roman period. Thus, the inclusion at this particular juncture of the Olivet Discourse.
He does the same kind of thing earlier in chapter two where, in the midst of a discussion of the Ptolemaic economy, he includes an excursus on ‘Economics and the Gospel.’
The excurses show, quite brilliantly in my mind, the way in which history and theology are quite simply inseparable and why it is genuinely unfortunate that few Christians today have a good grasp of the period between Malachi and John the Baptist. A period during which so much that laid the foundation for the life and ministry of Jesus and the Early Church was laid.
A failure to understand the period between the Testaments simply makes comprehending the message and ministry of Jesus impossible.
If I could see but one thing added to the work it would have to be a discussion of the understanding of ‘The Satan’ become ‘Satan’ in the Persian era. Alas, Satan is not to be found. The way Judean theology came to understand evil and its personification was, in my view, one of the single most important developments of the entire ‘intertestamental’ period. An excursus at the very least on the subject would have been super.
The font is lovely. And the paper is, different. In a good way. I’m not really sure how to describe it. It’s got a lovely texture. It’s thick enough so that words don’t bleed through (I hate it when books are printed on paper so thin you can see the words on the other side of the page). And it’s easy to turn. I’m sure the paper has a name but I don’t know what that would be. More books should be printed on that same kind of paper, I know that.
This is a genuinely well written volume. It’s clear from page 1 that Athas has spent decades thinking about the topic, and researching it. That time has been well spent. This volume, the fruit of that tree, is gloriously ‘edible’ and easily ‘digestible’.
The Carnival is coming to town on April 1. If you see any great posts on the topics of Hebrew Bible, New Testament, books, miscellaneous stuff, or the like related to biblical studies, do let me know so I can include them.
Especially if they are from lesser known blogs. So that they can be popular. Like me.
Biblical monotheism imagines God as a slave master who owns and has total control over humans as his slaves, who are expected to show obedience to him. The theological use of slavery metaphors has a limited value, however, and is deeply problematic from the perspective of real-life slave practices. Ancient authors already supplemented the metaphor of God as a slave master with other images and emphasized God’s difference from human slave owners. Ancient and modern experiences of and attitudes toward slavery determined the understanding and applicability of the slavery metaphors. This Element examines the use of slavery metaphors in ancient Judaism and Christianity in the context of the social reality of slavery, modern abolitionism, and historical-critical approaches to the ancient texts.
If you read this after March 8 I’m sure you can get a copy from the author. She’s on Academia.edu.
Edited by Crossley and Keith. But that’s not the important part. The important part is that Helen Bond and Amy-Jill Levine have written chapters in it. That makes it more than worth the cost of admission.
Zwinglius Redivivus 
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