“God worked discreetly, and in the ways that pleased Him. It had pleased Him that the Children of Israel should sweat and strain under the Egyptian yolk for generations. It had pleased Him to send Joseph into slavery, his fine coat of many colors ripped rudely from his back. It had pleased Him to allow the visitation of a hundred plagues on hapless Job, and it had pleased Him to allow His only Son to be hung up on a tree with a bad joke written over His head.
God was a gamesman….”
– Stephen King, The Stand (Anchor Books, 1990), ch. 50.
- Michael Kok is on Facebook! Also, you can read my review of his latest book here.
- Biblical Studies Carnival #229 is there for the perusing!
- Steve Wiggins talks about missing books. As someone who has lost plenty of books over the years (intentionally and otherwise), I feel his pain.
- Dan McClellan made an appearance on Tim O’Neill’s channel to talk Hebrew Bible.
- The Psalter (i.e., the Book of Psalms) contains material that was written over a long period of time. That means that it was, at some point in time, compiled. But when? Drew Longacre discusses.
- Over at the Ancient Jew Review website, Charël Daniel du Toit looks at women in Lukan parables, including those who may appear to be underneath the surface text as in the parable of the Wayward Son (Luke 15:11-32).
- Kevin McGeough talks about the ark of the covenant. He’s written a book about it too!
- Did Jesus predict the fall of the temple in Jerusalem? Robyn Faith Walsh discusses.
The Amateur Exegete 
Hi Ben, continuing our conversation from yesterday, I think Paul believed that the Gospel was for everyone, according to Romans 1:16–17.
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I would agree. My question was where Fredriksen had argued otherwise. I’m not sure she does.
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So, do you partially agree with Fredriksen?
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I completely agree with Fredriksen. Paul rejected the idea that eschatological gentiles needed to follow Torah (at least, in toto). Instead, he believed, reading prophets like Isaiah, that gentiles would come to the end of the age not as converts to Judaism but as gentiles. But all would need to do so through Jesus the messiah.
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From what I have read about the “Paul within Judaism” perspective—please correct me if I’m wrong—the idea is that, for Paul, Jews are already saved and justified through the Torah and the Covenant, while Gentiles are saved through faith in Christ, meaning there are two paths to salvation. Now, expressing my own opinion, I find this hard to accept: in Romans, Paul seems to leave no one—neither Gentiles nor Jews—outside God’s judgment, and the only way of salvation appears to be through Christ.
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I think there are some who basically posit two paths of salvation, one for Jews and one for gentiles. I don’t subscribe to that view. I believe that Paul envisioned Jews as participating in the kingdom as Jewish followers of the messiah, which entailed continuing in the covenant God had established with Israel. But gentiles were not so obligated; they were to come into the kingdom as they were and not convert to Judaism. They were to “Judaism” by abandoning idolatry and to turn to Jesus.
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Hi Ben, I’m from Brazil, and I’d like to know if I’m already well covered with the introductions by Raymond Brown, Helmut Koester, D.A. Carson, and Douglas Moo, since these are the only ones you mentioned that have been translated into Portuguese.
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If the most recent edition of Bart Ehrman’s intro to the NT, cowritten with Hugo Mendez, is available in Portuguese, I’d grab that as well since it is up-to-date and has an incredible bibliography.
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But do you think these books are enough?
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I think it is a pretty good start!
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Hi Ben,
I really appreciate your thoughts on Bart Ehrman’s book about Revelation — it’s a fascinating work, and I think Ehrman does an excellent job highlighting the distinctive features of the Apocalypse and the challenges it poses to readers used to the Jesus of the Gospels.
That said, I wonder if the apparent contrast between the two “Jesuses” might be more about genre, theme, and emphasis than about contradiction. Revelation and the Gospels are certainly different kinds of literature, but I think we can still recognize the Jesus of the Gospels in Revelation — and, in a lesser degree, the Jesus of Revelation in the Gospels.
Interestingly, that seems to be one of the main points raised in some reviews of Ehrman’s book — that the difference between the two portrayals may not be as absolute as Ehrman suggests.
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I think genre plays a part, but I personally find it hard to square the Jesus of the Apocalypse with that of, say, the Gospel of Luke. I also think the Jesus of Revelation is much more a cosmic being than anything suggested by the Gospels, especially the three Synoptic accounts.
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I think this difference in form does not imply a rupture in content. Jesus himself, in the Synoptic Gospels, already presents himself in terms that anticipate the glorified figure of Revelation. In the eschatological discourse (Mark 13; Matthew 24; Luke 21), he speaks of the Son of Man coming on the clouds with power and great glory, preceded by destruction and cosmic upheaval—precisely the image that John takes up again in Revelation 1 and 14.This cosmic description of the Son of Man also appears during Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin, when he declares that they will see “the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:62). In that moment, Jesus identifies himself with the exalted, heavenly figure of Daniel 7, claiming divine authority even in the face of human judgment.Moreover, the expression “Son of Man” — drawn from Daniel 7 — is already a cosmic designation, referring to one who has been given eternal dominion over all nations. Thus, the “earthly” Jesus of Luke and the “cosmic” Jesus of Revelation are the same person seen at different moments: the servant who was exalted.Therefore, Revelation does not invent a new kind of Christ but reveals, in visionary language, the consummation of what the Gospels themselves already anticipated.
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