What did ex-pagans and Jews expect when they became followers of Jesus? This is the question that Alex Finkelson addresses in his recent post "What kind of blessings did the churches inherit from Israel?" As Finkelson discusses, the various promises made to the patriarchs and even to king David are tangible: a literal kingdom in... Continue Reading →
Note: This will be the final Weekly Roundup of 2019. Claude Mariottini recently posted a piece explaining why the common Christian interpretation of Melchizedek as a Christophany doesn't add up and serves to undermine the claims made in the book of Hebrews that Jesus was a priest "according to the order of Melchizedek" (Hebrews 7:11).... Continue Reading →
I am finally getting caught up with episodes of the New Testament Review, enjoying episode 23 on Richard Bauckham's work on the hypothesis of Gospel communities and episode 24 on Judith Perkins' The Suffering Self: Pain and Narrative Representation in the Early Christian Era. This is great work by the intrepid team of Laura Robinson,... Continue Reading →
"So, reader be warned. Cultivating sensitivity to Christian anti-Judaism involves re-learning or at least re-thinking a body of material that “everybody knows.” Un-learning and re-learning, in my experience, is always challenging, often annoying, sometimes infuriating." - Heather Thiessen. @AlchemistNon has constructed a moral argument against Calvinism. For those unfamiliar with the theological system, Calvinism is... Continue Reading →
The September 2019 Biblical Studies Carnival is here and was put out by Phil Long, the curator of the carnival in general. There's a lot of good stuff to be found so I won't waste my time going through it all. Click on the link and enjoy! And if you're a blogger who would like... Continue Reading →
Dr. Josh Bowen of the Digital Hammurabi duo released a video not too long ago explaining Daniel 9 in its historical context, specifically the 70 weeks. Many Christians see the text as a prophecy about Jesus but this doesn't seem to be a natural fit at all and is likely about such characters as the... Continue Reading →
As John the Baptist was one crying out in the desert, pointing people to the one who was greater, so too I, as a mere Amateur Exegete, am pointing to people who possess far greater knowledge of the biblical texts and related subjects than I have. So without further ado, the August 2019 Biblical Studies... Continue Reading →
Candida Moss (University of Birmingham) wrote a piece back in March on Apollonius, the miracle-working son of God that is often compared to Jesus. In it Moss, a prolific writer and scholar, observes that many in the ancient Mediterannean were considered the son of this or that God and that the miracles of Jesus "weren't completely unprecedented."... Continue Reading →
"When Jesus calls Herod Antipas a 'fox' (Luke 13:32), most modern European readers will automatically think this means he considered Herod to be particularly clever or craft....The same association would naturally have occurred to a Greek reader in the 1st century. In Greek literature, the fox is proverbially a crafty animal. In Jewish literature, however,... Continue Reading →
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