On this blog I’ve shared quotes from Michael J. Kok’s book The Gospel on the Margins: The Reception of Mark in the Second Century (Fortress Press, 2015). As a lover of the Gospel of Mark and an amateur in the field of biblical studies, I have gleaned so much from reading Kok’s book that I had hoped to tell him so on Twitter. But I couldn’t find him there! Dejected and disappointed, I abandoned any hope of seeing if Kok had a social media presence.
Then the other day The Biblioblog Top 50 came out with a list of recommended websites covering biblical studies. There are some good ones on there you should check out including Bart Ehrman’s, Larry Hurtados’s, and more. As I went down the list I got to #50 and lo-and-behold I saw “Michael Kok – The Jesus Memoirs.” So I quickly added it to my WordPress reader and dived into his site. He has some fantastic material.
Kok has a blog that he appears to regularly update and the few posts I’ve read so far are great. But the best part of his site is the tab “Academic Resources (Internal).” I got lost in there for about an hour. It is highly organized, contains great quotes and analysis, and covers a large swath of the Bible. Kok seems to be an expert in New Testament but he has a pretty good section on the Hebrew Bible as well.
Bookmark his site and add his blog to your reader. You won’t regret it! Also, check out The Biblioblog Top 50‘s “Complete List of Biblioblogs” for more sites to follow.
The Amateur Exegete 