Joel Marcus, Mark 8-16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 930. While it is probable...that some members of the Jewish hierarchy pressed Pilate to put Jesus to death (Mark 15:1, 3, 11), and while a revolutionary ringleader may have been released at about the same time that... Continue Reading →
Joshua Bowen, Did the Old Testament Endorse Slavery? (Mechanicsville, MD: Digital Hammurabi Press, 2020), 196-197. Slavery was not endorsed arbitrarily, as it was part of a common economic system that existed in ancient Israel and in the wider ancient Near East long before the biblical period. Both debt-slavery and chattel-slavery were also part of the... Continue Reading →
Over at his blog, biblical scholar Bart Ehrman addressed a question asked of him by a parent wondering why he should send his son to the university where Ehrman teaches to take his class on the Bible if Ehrman doesn't actually believe in the book about which he is teaching. As Ehrman points out, going... Continue Reading →
Joshua Bowen, Did the Old Testament Endorse Slavery? (Mechanicsville, MD: Digital Hammurabi Press, 2020), 16. When discussing slavery in ancient Israel, we are more limited in our sources than if we were discussing slavery as was known in the wider ancient Near East. Generally speaking, we are usually restricted to the information we can gather... Continue Reading →
Paula Fredriksen, Paul: The Pagans' Apostle (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017), 160-161. If the letter to the Romans is Paul's Ninth Symphony, Romans 11.11 begins its fourth movement, Paul's own "Ode to Joy." Alle Menschen werden Brüder, and the apostle, divining God's plan, knows how. Too many gentiles? No: more, in fact, will... Continue Reading →
Yesterday evening I had the privilege of speaking with @AlchemistNon over on his YouTube channel. Topics included deconversion, inerrancy, contradictions in the Bible, philosophy of religion, and more. For those unfamiliar with @AlchemistNon, he is an agnostic who has had a similar trajectory religiously as I have had (minus the KJV Onlyism, the stint at... Continue Reading →
David Luckensmeyer, The Eschatology of First Thessalonians (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009), 10. All scholars who take the text of the NT seriously must attempt (at least) to identify the assumptions and preunderstandings they bring to a text. Exegesis without presuppositions is an impossibility. The problem then is not the starting point of a particular preunderstanding.... Continue Reading →
Those readers acquainted with biblical scholarship know that there is a general consensus that the book of Isaiah was not entirely penned by the eighth century BCE prophet. That the book underwent some kind of editing is virtually undisputed. For example, chs. 36-39 contain material lifted directly from the Deuteronomistic History (i.e. 2 Kings 18-20),... Continue Reading →
Joel Marcus, Mark 8-16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 890-891. The abomination of desolation [in Mark 13:14] is probably related to a desecration that preceded the destruction of Jerusalem. The occurrence that best fits the bill is the occupation of the Temple by the Zealots near... Continue Reading →
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