“The dude really needs to sit down and read something beyond McDowell, because at the moment his knowledge of scholarly consensus and methodology (and the evidence at hand) is enormously dime store apologist level.”
– Chris Hansen on J Warner Wallace
- Over at his website Biblical Historical Context, blogger and Twitter user @bibhistctxt has a post up on whether the author the epistle of Jude used the apocryphal 1 Enoch in places like Jude 1:14-15. Virtually every biblical scholar except the ultra-conservatives (i.e. John MacArthur) agree that in the background of the text of Jude is 1 Enoch and @bibhistctxt shows why.
- Last week I tweeted out my appreciation for a video from @StudyofChrist that appeared on his YouTube channel on whether the Lukan genealogy of Jesus is about Mary’s line, a claim made frequently by pop-apologists to reconcile the Matthean and Lukan genealogies. But I wanted to include it in a Weekly Roundup also so here it is! It was great and as I related in a comment on the video, this is one I plan on keeping in my back pocket for any future discussions with pop-apologists using the argument.
- Chris Hansen (@thebiblicalath1) has begun a series briefly taking pop-apologist J Warner Wallace to task for his shoddy work in Cold-Case Christianity. In his first post, Hansen goes over some of Wallace’s outlandish material, including his suggestion that unbelieving scholars place the writing of the canonical Gospels in the second century. In the second post, Hansen deals with Wallace’s intrusion of his experience as a cold-case detective into investigating the nature of the Gospel accounts. These posts are relatively short and do a good job of nailing Wallace to the wall for his “terrabad” work.
- Bill Mounce asks the question everyone is asking – Why do translators use the singular “net” in Mark 1:16 when the word is plural in 1:17? I must confess, that is puzzling. My translation of 1:16 reads, “And walking along the Sea of Galilee he saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting nets in the Sea, for they were fishers.” As Mounce explains, there is no direct object that follows “casting” and so it is implied by the context. But considering the context includes 1:17 where the word for “net” is plural, it is strange that translations don’t insert a plural “net” in 1:16.
- In a paper that appeared two weeks ago in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Hans Moscicke discusses the exorcism of the demoniac of Gerasa from Mark 5:1-20 and its relationship to the scapegoat traditions of the Second Temple period. Interestingly, and somewhat related to @bibhisttcxt’s post on the relationship of Jude and 1 Enoch, the pericope in Mark seems to have borrowed imagery from the book of 1 Enoch as well, specifically the so-called Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1-36) and Moscicke discusses this and the relevant scholarship on the subject.
Featured image: Wikimedia Commons.
The Amateur Exegete 
