NT Blog

The EWTN site has now added an archived version of Raymond Arroyo's "new exclusive second interview regarding 'The Passion of the Christ'" which was first broadcast over the weekend:

The World Over

In the interview, Gibson breaks his silence, speaking for the first time about charges that his film, The Passion of the Christ is anti-Semitic. He talks about his bold vision for the project and his motivation for making the film. Gibson tells Arroyo, “It reflects my beliefs-I’ve never done that before.” He also candidly comments on the controversy surrounding the movie, his resistance to altering the film, and his personal commitment to press forward: “I don’t know if I will ever work again. I’ve said that this is a career killer and it could well be, but that doesn’t matter because I don’t care,” Gibson says in the interview. Based on biblical accounts, the movie, "The Passion of the Christ," depicts the last 12 hours of Christ’s life on earth and will be released in the U.S. on Ash Wednesday, February 25th. EWTNews Director, Raymond Arroyo was on set, in Italy during the filming of “The Passion of the Christ” last year, and is the only broadcast journalist to conduct an extended interview with Mel Gibson about the project.

Thanks also to Helenann Francis for this news item from the BBC:

Flak for Jesus film 'to worsen'

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Interesting little Passion-related story on the Always On Network / Blog, Davo's Dispatch #2:

Speaking of events of Biblical proportion, one of my dearest Davos friends, musician and social activist Peter Gabriel, told me a story about "The Passion of the Christ." The controversial new film depicts the last 12 hours of Christ’s life on earth, and it turns out that the movie’s Website had incorporated some of Peter’s songs without permission. This fact set in motion a dialogue between Real World (Peter’s entertainment company) lawyers and those of the movie producer, Mel Gibson.

As Peter explained it, Mr. Gibson called him immediately to apologize and ended up making a donation to Peter’s non-profit organization, Witness, for his penance. He also agreed to send a tape of the movie to Peter for his private viewing. "I watched it and wept," Peter recounted. He says it is a very violent movie, but well directed with amazing cinematography.

And the controversy that the film is anti-Semetic [sic], painting Jews as "the killers of Jesus"? Peter points out, "Well, the Pharisees certainly didn’t look too good, but neither did the Romans."

I'm not quite sure where the "some of Peter's songs" is coming from; an earlier version of the teaser trailer used a Peter Gabriel track and that may have been on the official web site -- I can't recall. I do remember clearly that there were a bunch of samples of Peter Gabriel's songs on the site that describes itself as "the premier international fan site", which has been around for some time; and that site did remove the Peter Gabriel songs pretty quickly after they'd arrived.

Incidentally, the official site now does have John Debney listed as the one who has scored the film, with a little bio.

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Stephen Carlson makes some useful comments on the discussion we've been having on the future of the "megasites" or "supersites". I particularly like his focus on the question of the role of the "editorial judgement of their [the sites'] builders". He also reflects on my comments on the way that specialized areas interact with the supersite model:

The way I see it, there are still plenty of opportunities to carve out a niche for yourself specializing in a segment you feel most passionate about (that passion will sustain your motivation during the tedious parts like keeping links up-to date). If could be anything, such as "Anything you wanted to know about Philemon but were afraid to ask" as long as you have the passage and the editorial work is good. If the specialized site is good enough, some of the burden undertaken by the megasite maintainers can be eased.

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Latest additions to the Review of Biblical Literature on the NT side are:

Berger, Klaus
Translated by Charles Muenchow
Identity and Experience in the New Testament
Reviewed by Douglas Geyer

Das, A. Andrew
Paul, the Law, and the Covenant
Reviewed by Jerry L. Sumney

Dubis, Mark
Messianic Woes in First Peter: Suffering and Eschatology in 1 Peter 4:12-19
Reviewed by Eric J. Greaux

Jones, F. Stanley
Which Mary?: The Marys of Early Christian Tradition
Reviewed by Stephen W. Felder

Reiner, Andy M.
Miracle and Magic: A Study in the Acts of the Apostles and the Life of Apollonius of Tyana
Reviewed by Kimberley Stratton

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My DVDs of the new Visual Bible Gospel of John film arrived today. Unfortunately I have too much marking, teaching preparation and admin. to do to find time to watch it all so I'm taking it in segments. I've enjoyed it very much so far. It's nice to have a Jesus film in which Jesus appears from pretty early on. As Christopher Plummer narrates the Prologue, there are nature scenes, sunsets etc., John the Baptist comes in and gradually you see Henry Ian Cusick as Jesus walking -- but his face only finally revealed at the end of the Prologue. Cusick has a warm smile and seems rather engaging.

The film does have that typical Bible-film look about it. John the Baptist looks like an actor with a false beard and lanky long hair. Nothing has ever quite got the blood and dirt in the way that The Last Temptation of Christ managed, though I suppose The Passion of the Christ looks like it is going to be far more graphic in its violence than anything we've seen before.

I was intrigued to see how they would depict John the Baptist's speech about the dove descending on Jesus -- would they make it a baptism scene, i.e. would they allow themselves to be influenced by the Synoptic context? In fact they don't show Jesus getting baptized by John but they do show him arising up out of the water -- in flashback -- as John tells the crowd about Jesus.

The Wedding at Cana has Jesus' mother dressed in traditional blue so that she is instantly recognisable. In some ways this is a bold decision given that so few Jesus films do dress her in icon blue. The words of the Good News Bible, "Madam . . .", along with Jesus' smile, tend to make his words to her less harsh than they might otherwise have been.

The Temple scene is pretty interesting -- Jesus is quite animated -- far more so than in the older films like The Greatest Story Ever Told (Max von Sydow as Jesus making a carefully choreographed token effort at causing a scene) but it does not compare to the Scorsese (Last Temptation of Christ) temple scene -- one of the finest moments in Jesus film history. The scene did remind me of the Scorsese temple scene, though; the way that the Jewish leaders come down the steps to see what is causing the commotion and find themselves confronting Jesus directly -- this was very similar to Last Temptation even if it looked like a rather pale reflection of it.

Though I'm only up to the end of John 2, it's already clear to me that the production values are a bit higher than they were with the previous Visual Bible outing, Matthew, but it is only a bit. It does have a very similar feel to it, Christopher Plummer's narration relentlessly marching on just as Richard Kiley's did in Matthew. A nice feature of that film is missing in the new one. In Matthew, we sometimes see the aged apostle dictating to his scribe and it created a feeling of distance between the text and the events being narrated. But in Gospel of John the narrator is unseen. One improvement with Gospel of John is that we don't have the Bible verse ticking away in the corner as we did with Matthew. More reflections as I watch my way through it.

Incidentally, getting hold of it is not easy if you are outside the U.S.A. or Canada. It's not been shown in any British cinemas to my knowledge and there is no video or DVD release here. You can't order it from the official site because it will not ship to the UK or elsewhere. But there is a way round it if, like me, you are desperate to see it -- new copies are appearing every day or two on ebay. And if you are lucky (I was), you can even get it just a touch cheaper than it is on the official site, though the price gets pushed right up to the limit and sometimes over it. Also, it's useless if you haven't got a multi-regional DVD player because the ones on sale in the U.S. are all Region 1.

Labels: Visual Bible

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Carl Conrad announced on b-greek today that he has now has the following ready in PDF format:

Robert W. Funk, A Beginning-Intermediate Grammar of Hellenistic Greek² (Missoula, Montana: 1977) Volume I, pp. xxv-xxxii, 1-30

Conrad explains it like this: "an extract from Robert W. Funk's 3-volume textbook of Koine greek, first published in 1973 and long out of print. The materials here extracted set forth the rationale of Funk's method and sketch the linguistic framework on which the textbook and teaching program are organized. I have long thought that these are the principles that ought to govern the teaching and learning of ancient Greek at any level, whether Homeric, Classical Attic, or Koine."

Labels: b-greek

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There is now an RSS feed available for this blog so that you can read it in an aggregator alongside your other favourite blogs. This is the link for the site feed:

Site feed

And it is in the column on the left (scroll down a bit). Some readers have asked about this but others may have no idea what I am talking about, so I'll explain a little more later.

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Thanks to Jim West for this link:

European Association of Biblical Studies

This is a new society "created in order to promote biblical and related studies in Europe". The web site provides information about officers, the constitution, forthcoming conference, links and so on.

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Jim Davila and Torrey Seland comment further on the megasite question. I like Jim's comment that "There's plenty of room for experimenting in cyberspace". One thing is clear to me and that is that I would not enjoy the role of a kind of general editor of a megasite; I'm not too keen on anything that would take the fun (for me) out of the work on the web.

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The latest Explorator has been posted:

Explorator 6.39

It includes a link to an article on the James ossuary from the Toledo Blade. It is by David Yonke and is all about James Harrell's views:

Debate continues over authenticity
UT professor says Israeli study flawed

. . . . "What I think happened is that they threw this committee together very quickly. It's like a road accident: The first people on the scene are not always the best to help. That's exactly what happened. I think there will be another, better-qualified committee to study it and issue a new report."

Dr. Harrell said Dr. Shanks has asked him if he would consider organizing such a blue-ribbon panel.

"I sort of welcome the opportunity, and in a way I don't," Dr. Harrell said. "It's such a controversial issue. You can get caught up with it. Not everybody's going to be happy with what you do, no matter what your conclusion."

Also included is a link to this New York Times article explaining the bizarre events of this week surrounding the Vatican and The Passion of the Christ:

Mystery Drama, With the Pope Cast as a Movie Critic
FRANK BRUNI

It doesn't add much to what we already know, but it's clear and full.

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William Fulco of Loyola Marymount University is the man who did the translating into Aramaic and Latin for The Passion of the Christ. Thanks to Jim West on Xtalk for the link to this article in the Naples Daily News by Terry Mattingly which features some comments from Fulco:

On Religion: 'Passion of Christ' has been passion of others

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Wieland Willker comments on the discussion that has been going on between Torrey Seland, Jim Davila and me on the future of the megasites (see my most recent post with links; and Torrey Seland's most recent post with links). Wieland writes:

I think this cannot be done by one individual alone. I would therefore suggest that we should gather certain individuals for small sections. Every individual is responsible for one section under the head of the NT-Gateway. This way everything looks the same and is easily navigatable. This is already the case with the "Open Web Directory" where you can become an editor of a certain category (check http://dmoz.org). An editor should keep the links up-to-date, add new links, and have some comments now and then. The only problem I see at the moment is how to manage the access authorization for the editors.

I have wondered about something like this before and it might provide a useful way of getting the balance right between an evolutionary approach and some degree of prescription or organisation. However, at this stage, at least as far as the NT Gateway is concerned, I am a bit concerned about the idea because (a) it might take as much organisation and maintenance as the doing the site myself; (b) it would -- as Wieland mentions -- mean organising access authorization for the editors; (c) there is the risk of patchiness across the site, with some editors doing their sections well and others less well; and (d) I am not sure that the NT Gateway would be the right forum to do this -- there are other megasites and I don't particularly want to land myself with a kind of imperialistic role! But on the other hand I don't want to pour cold water on this; I am intrigued by the suggestion and there may be something in it. Let me think a little more.

One final comment on how something like this is actually evolving already. On many occasions I simply point to a place where you can go to get the best gateway on a given subject. I have a little section of Judaica, for example, which just points to some of the major places to go for extra information -- it would be madness even to try to be comprehensive there. Likewise the Gospel of Thomas. Even though that is one of my research interests, there is no point my trying to provide a comprehensive set of links because one already has Steve Davies's Gospel of Thomas homepage, so I point to that and one or two other leading resources. My guess is that this is the way that things will continue to develop, so unofficially bringing about something like what Wieland is suggesting but on a more organic, evolutionary model.

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Yesterday I commented on the intrigue growing around whether the Pope did or did not say "It is as it was" about The Passion of the Christ. Some pretty serious charges were beginning to emerge. Now Peggy Noonan, who was one of the two first journalists to have reported the Pope's alleged comment, has set out the case from her perspective, in the Wall Street Journal Opinion Page (with thanks to Jim Davila for the link):

'Passion' and Intrigue
The story of the Vatican and Mel Gibson's film gets curiouser

If you've not been following it, the gist is this: the Vatican apparently reported the Pope as saying "It is as it was" and then a month or so later apparently denied it. Both Noonan (one of the journalists at the centre of this) and Steve McEveety (the producer of The Passion of the Christ) have emails from the pope's official spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, which seem to back up the quotation, unequivocally in the case of the McEveety one (sanctioning that the quotation is to be repeated "again and again and again"). Navarro-Valls apparently claims that the email to McEveety is not genuine but fabricated. Have a look at Noonan's full and patient examination of all this which concludes with a paragraph beginning, "Believe me, it is painful to be accused however implicitly of being the accessory to a lie" and with the promise of more to come.

One thing that is not yet clear to me is whether the emails to McEveety have been analyzed. The EWTN report yesterday said "Noonan and Dreher were able to establish that the email message to McEveety was sent from Navarro-Valls' email address, and relayed through a computer at the Vatican". Noonan's article, however, only confirms that the email to her was relayed through the Vatican and her email is nothing like as unequivocal as McEveety's.

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Some more news has emerged on the soundtrack for The Passion of the Christ. It seems clear that John Debney has composed and recorded the score (see previous blog entries on this), that Mel Gibson himself sings on it and that the singing will be in Aramaic. No mention of Lisa Gerrard. This article from Music in the Movies:

Mel Gibson sings in 'Passion Of The Christ'

The score will be available on CD from Sony Classical on 24th February, one day before the film's world premiere. The music is written for orchestra and choir singing in Aramaic (the film's dialogue is also in Aramaic and Latin). According to a press release, director Mel Gibson lended "his own voice to the singing and chanting" in the score.

One of the most recent publicity trips has been to Florida and you can watch a short video about it at Wesh.com:

Gibson Visits Florida To Promote 'Passion'

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There's a little more concrete information on this story on EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network):

Vatican Public-Relations Debacle on Gibson's "Passion"

. . . Meanwhile two prominent American columnists reported that, shortly after the Pope's comment was reported, Navarro-Valls had encouraged McEveety to use the quotation. In separate columns published on January 22 in response to the denial from Archbishop Dziwisz, Peggy Noonan and Rod Dreher of the Dallas Morning News reported that they had seen an email message from Navarro-Valls to McEveety, in which the papal spokesman told the film's producer that he should feel free to cite the Pope's comment "again and again and again."
Confronted with that email message, Navarro-Valls denied that it was authentic. But Noonan and Dreher were able to establish that the email message to McEveety was sent from Navarro-Valls' email address, and relayed through a computer at the Vatican. On January 22, Navarro-Valls issued a short, bland statement confirming only that the Pope had indeed seen the Passion. Without directly responding to reports that the Pope had issued a one-sentence comment, the Vatican spokesman concluded: "It is the Holy Father's custom not to express public judgments on artistic works-- judgments which are always open to diverse evaluations of an aesthetic nature."

EWTN are to broadcast an interview with Mel Gibson over the weekend, first showing 8 pm (USA) ET. I am not familiar with EWTN but it looks like you can watch live over the internet, so it might be worth tuning in. Full details here:

The World Over with Raymond Arroyo

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There is a new Bible Review available for February 2004. Unfortunately, they seem to have discontinued their practice of making selected articles available on-line. Now it's just a teaser paragraph for each one:

Bible Review, February 2004

It also seems that they have scrapped all their older on-line full text content -- very disappointing. I'll give it a little to see if any of it returns but if not, I'll have to take off the links to individual articles on the NT Gateway.

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The Society of Biblical Literature Mark Group now has its own web page with details about the group, how to propose papers and so on:

The Mark Group of the Society of Biblical Literature

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Like everything to do with The Passion of the Christ, this story doesn't go away. And all the time the film is getting lots of free publicity. It is sometimes said that Scorsese used the controversy surrounding The Last Temptation of Christ as a means of generating and encouraging the necessary free publicity for a film that otherwise would not have done so well at the box office. Anyway, the latest is that CNN's Vatican analyst John Allen feels quite sure that the pope did say this and has sources who, he says, confirm it. This article from Newsmax.com:

CNN Vatican Analyst: Sources Confirm Pope's Mel Gibson Quote

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There are some useful reflections on the article on the James Ossuary by Eric Meyers in both Paleojudaica, "I'm not going to put much stock in it until the anonymous archaeologist goes public and gives us a firsthand account I can evaluate for myself", and Hypotyposeis -- excerpt:

"Unfortunately, the anonymity of the witness is a serious cause for concern, and until the person is willing to come forward and be "cross-examined" to determine if that's what he really told Meyers or whether his recollection is solid, the charge has to be considered pure hearsay. It is also unfortunate in terms of being able to evaluate the charge that "the dealer's shop has recently closed and the one-time owner of the ossuary has since moved to Europe." All we're left with is the word of an anonymous source, a level of reporting that is usually considered to be insufficient in modern journalism."

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Thanks to Loren Rosson on Corpus Paul for reference to this new book:

Bruce Winter, Roman Wives, Roman Widows: The Appearance of New Women and the Pauline Communities

It is published by Eerdmans who provide this blurb:

In Roman law you were what you wore. This legal principle became highly significant because, beginning in the first century A.D., a “new” kind of woman emerged across the Roman empire — a woman whose provocative dress and sometimes promiscuous lifestyle contrasted starkly with the decorum of the traditional married woman. What a woman chose to wear came to identify her as either “new” or “modest.”

Augustus legislated against the “new” woman. Philosophical schools encouraged their followers to avoid embracing her way of life. And, as this fascinating book demonstrates for the first time, the presence of the “new” woman was also felt in the early church, where Christian wives and widows were exhorted to emulate neither her dress code nor her conduct.

Using his extensive knowledge both of the Graeco-Roman world and of the New Testament writings, Bruce Winter shows how changing social mores among women impacted the Pauline communities. This helps to explain the controversial texts on marriage veils in 1 Corinthians, instructions in 1 Timothy regarding dress code and the activities of young widows, and exhortations in Titus for older women to call new wives “back to their senses” regarding their marriage and family responsibilities.

Based on a close investigation of neglected literary and archaeological evidence, Roman Wives, Roman Widows makes groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of first-century women, including their participation in public life as lawyers, magistrates, and political figures, which in turn affected women’s ministry in the Pauline communities.

See also the companion web site at Tyndale House which features a Photo Gallery.

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THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS

A Conference to be held at Lincoln College, Oxford, 5-7 April 2004

Speakers include:

Bart D Ehrman
John Kloppenborg Verbin
Helmut Koester
William Petersen
Frances Young

A limited number of places is available (residential, £160; non-residential, £80)

Further information, including the full list of speakers and booking form, is available at the conference website:

www.theology.ox.ac.uk/news/tntataf.shtml

Announcement forwarded by Andrew Gregory.

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I've been looking out for a UK release date for The Passion of the Christ and at last there seems to be one. BBC On-line, at the end of another article about the pope's (non)endorsement of the film, gives 26 March.

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You may have seen this already, but it's worth mentioning again if not. This from Bible and Interpretation today:

Well-known Israeli Archeologist Casts More Doubt on Authenticity of James Ossuary
Ossuary spotted in dealer's shop lacking the “brother of Jesus” element of the inscription
Eric Meyers

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You wait for a bus for an hour and two come at once. BSW are really pulling out the stops at the moment and now have added another volume, full text on-line:

Filología Neotestamentaria 9 (1996)

Artículos

Sebastian Schneider, «Glaubensmängel in Korinth. Eine neue Deutung der ,Schwachen, Kranken, Schlafenden' in 1 Kor 11,30», Vol. 9 (1996) 3-20

Dave Mathewson, «Verbal Aspect in Imperatival Constructions in Pauline Ethical Injunctions», Vol. 9 (1996) 21-36

J. K. Elliott, «The Greek Manuscript Heritage of the Book of Acts», Vol. 9 (1996) 37-50

Ramón Puig Massana, «Acerca de una reciente publicación de José O'Callaghan sobre los papiros de la cueva 7 de Qumrán ("Los primeros testimonios del Nuevo Testamento. Papirología Neotestamentaria", El Almendro, Córdoba, 1995)», Vol. 9 (1996) 51-60

Josep Rius-Camps, «Las variantes de la Recensión Occidental de los Hechos de los Apóstoles (VII) (Hch 3,1-26)» , Vol. 9 (1996) 61-76

Jenny Heimerdinger, «Word Order in Koine Greek. Using a Text-Critical Approach to Study Word Order Patterns in the Greek Text of Acts», Vol. 9 (1996) 139-180

Jeffrey T. Reed and Ruth A. Reese, «Verbal Aspect, Discourse Prominence, and the Letter of Jude» , Vol. 9 (1996) 181-200

Josep Rius-Camps, «Las variantes de la Recensión Occidental de los Hechos de los Apóstoles (VIII) (Hch 4,1-22)» , Vol. 9 (1996) 201-216

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These arrived last week but I left the email on my work PC (and blogging is mainly done from home). The titles below are those specifically relating to the NT.

Review of Biblical Literature

Beavis, Mary Ann, ed.
The Lost Coin: Parables of Women, Work and Wisdom
Reviewed by Athalya Brenner

Hagner, Donald A.
Encountering the Book of Hebrews: An Exposition
Reviewed by Goutzioudis Moschos

Hays, Richard B.
The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1-4:11
Reviewed by Tobias Nicklas

Levine, Amy-Jill and Marianne Blickenstaff, eds.
A Feminist Companion to Luke
Reviewed by Esther Fuchs

Smith, Dennis E.
From Symposium to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early Christian World
Reviewed by Peter-Ben Smit

Verhey, Allen
Remembering Jesus: Christian Community, Scripture, and the Moral Life
Reviewed byJennifer Wright Knust

Webb, Joseph M. and Robert Kysar
Greek for Preachers
Reviewed by Kerry Robichaux

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Thanks to Jim West for this link from Newsmax.com:

Mel Gibson Rebuts Vatican Denial

Mel Gibson's spokesman issued a statement late Monday saying there is no reason to believe the Vatican's denial that the Pope commented favorably about the controversial film "The Passion of the Christ." . . . .

. . . . . "Based on all previous correspondence and conversations held directly between representatives of the film and the official spokesperson for the Pope, Dr. Joaquin Navarro-Valls, there is no reason to believe that the Pope's support of the film 'isn't as it was'."

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I commented on Saturday on Frank Rich's article, Chutzpah and Spiritual McCarthyism, which went investigating the pope's apparent endorsement of The Passion of the Christ. Well now it seems that the Vatican is denying that the pope ever said this. This story is already getting repeated everywhere, but its origin seems to be this article from the Catholic News Service:

Pope never commented on Gibson's 'Passion' film, says papal secretary
By Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope John Paul II never said "It is as it was" after watching Mel Gibson's film on the passion of Jesus, said the pope's longtime personal secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz.

"The Holy Father told no one his opinion of this film," the archbishop told Catholic News Service Jan. 18 . . .

. . . . . The co-producer of the film, Steve McEveety, was in Rome in early December to host private screenings of a rough cut of the film for Vatican and other Catholic officials.

After the pope and Archbishop Dziwisz watched the film, the archbishop met with McEveety and with Jan Michelini, an assistant director of the film.

According to published reports, McEveety and Michelini said Archbishop Dziwisz told them the pope reacted positively to the film and said, "It is as it was."

But, Archbishop Dziwisz told CNS, "That is not true."

"I said clearly to McEveety and Michelini that the Holy Father made no declaration," the archbishop said.

"I said the Holy Father saw the film privately in his apartment, but gave no declaration to anyone," he said. "He does not make judgments on art of this kind; he leaves that to others, to experts."

There is a little more in the New York Times in an article by Frank Bruni:

Vatican Raises Doubts About Pope's View of 'Passion' Film

Until Archbishop Dziwisz's interview with the Catholic News Service, a news agency for Catholic publications that is affiliated with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, no Vatican official had gone on the record to confirm or deny the pope's reported remark.

That Archbishop Dziwisz spoke out is extremely unusual. He is closer to the pope and spends more time with him than virtually anyone else at the Vatican. Partly because of that, he almost never gives formal interviews to reporters.

His decision to talk to Ms. Wooden suggests that either he, the pope or other Vatican officials close to the pope had become concerned about the degree to which the pope's imprimatur was being placed on "The Passion."

A telephone message left today at Icon Productions, which is responsible for the movie, was not immediately returned.

One prominent Roman Catholic official close to the Vatican said today, "I have reason to believe — and I think — that the pope probably said it."

"But I think there's some bad feeling at the Vatican that the comment was used the way it was," the official added. "It's all a little soap-operatic."

Curiouser and curiouser.

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Two correspondents have recently asked me if there is an RSS feed so that they can view this blog using an aggregator. I'm afraid that at the moment the answer is no. Although I host this blog on the NT Gateway's server space, I use the blogger software to run it and at the moment blogger does not support RSS. They do have it available on their "blogger pro", but upgrades to blogger pro are currently suspended. But they promise that they should be introducing RSS feeds soon. I'll make an announcement when it is available.

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Christian History magazine steadily makes more of its articles in a given issue available on the web. The latest to be added from Issue 80 (Fall 2003), with its special focus on The First Bible Teachers, is an article on Origen:

Origen: Friend or Foe?
He has been called the father of Christian biblical exegesis, the first systematic theologian … and a heretic. How should we assess his legacy today?
by John R. Franke

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Thanks to AKMA for some interesting comments on Tom Wright on postmodernity:

Wright on [Postmodernism]?

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I took the What Christian Theologian are you? quiz and discover that I am Erasmus. A bit of fun for an idle moment.

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I've just been sent over this URL by Keith Simons. My guess is that it won't be of much interest to most readers of this blog because it is aimed at those who require a simple English resource, but I mention it anyway. It is developed by a group called Wycliffe Associates and is a site full of Bible commentaries and other materials written in what they call "EasyEnglish" (all one word):

EasyEnglish Info

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I've added a link on Paul: Books, Articles and Reviews to the following article reproduced on David Trobisch's homepage:

David Trobisch, “The Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 and Paul's Letter to the Galatians", Christopher Seitz and Kathryn Greene-McCreight (ed.), Theological Exegesis: Essays in Honor of Brevard S. Childs (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999) (PDF file)

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I've mentioned the Hollywood Jesus web site before, and specifically on The Passion of the Christ. It has now added a lot of additional material including a review of the film by David Bruce:

The Passion of the Christ: A Hollywood Jesus Movie Review

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I've added a link to my page on the Pasolini film, The Gospel According to St Matthew:

Hollywood Jesus: The Gospel According to St Matthew

This is a useful breakdown of the film into segments with clips in Real Video alongside the corresponding portions of text from Matthew's Gospel.

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Explorator 6.38 now available and, as usual, full of interesting bits and bobs.

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Stephen J. Shoemaker, Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary's Dormition and Assumption (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) is reviewed pretty favourably in the latest Bryn Mawr Classical Review:

Review by Adam H. Becker, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2004.01.07

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Stephen Carlson's excellent review of Paul Foster, "Is it Possible to Dispense with Q?", NovT 45 (2003): 313-337 continues on Hypotyposeis, now in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5. I have commented on Parts 1 and 2. I'd now like to comment on Part 3. Carlson comments on Foster's attempt to bring Luke's Prologue into play against the Farrer Theory, and specifically Luke's mention of the πολλοί (many) predecessors. As Carlson points out, the Two-Source Theory is no better off than Farrer here (Mark and Q rather than Mark and Matthew) and he makes the useful point that the wording "a narrative (or account, διήγησιν) of the events that were fulfilled among us" could tell in Matthew's favour since that sounds more like a description of Matthew than of Q.

I would add that Foster is walking a difficult line here. On the one hand, in the context being discussed above, he is keen to criticise Farrer and Goulder for their minimal sources position, no Q, no M, no L, and to make this criticism in the light of Luke's Preface. On the other hand, later in the article, he wishes to criticise me for not adhering to a minimal sources position, arguing that my acceptance of the role of oral traditions places me in a "thin end of the wedge" situation, that if I accept the role of oral tradition, I may as well accept Q. There is one minor problem and one major problem here. The minor problem is that Foster is misrepresenting Austin Farrer's views. As Carlson points out here, and as I pointed out to Foster before the publication of the article, Farrer accepted the role of oral tradition alongside Matthew's use of Mark and Luke's use of both (particularly "Dispensing": 85). The major problem is that the acceptance of the role played by oral tradition in the development of the Gospels is, I think, a real strength and it cannot realistically be used against me. Two-Source theorists do not see the acceptance of the role of oral tradition as compromising their theory and nor should Farrer theorists either. The only reason that we have got into the kind of situation where people think it is a weakness is because of the way that Michael Goulder has attempted to set up the terms of the debate. He set up a kind of hard-line version of the Farrer theory in which there are only literary sources with no oral tradition. He has been rightly criticised for this by E. P. Sanders and M. Davies, Studying the Synoptic Gospels, Eric Franklin, Luke: Critic of Matthew, Interpreter of Paul and most extensively by me in Goulder and the Gospels, Part 2 and Case Against Q: 64-66 (etc.). All in all I think Foster needs to decide whether it is a weakness for the Farrer theory to embrace a role for oral tradition (Farrer, Sanders and Davies, Franklin, me), in which case it is necessary to explain why this is not a weakness for the Two-Source Theory, or whether it is a weakness to deny a role for oral tradition (Goulder), in which case there can be no objection to my endorsement of it. Otherwise we simply have a "heads I win, tails you lose" scenario.

On a related note, Farrer was ahead of his time in dispensing with M and L as Streeterian written sources that could be dated and located. I've read very little in recent times that endorses M and L as literary entities, one of the few being Kim Paffenroth's The Story of Jesus According to L (JSNTSup, 147; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), cf. my review.

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The new theatrical trailer (2 mins.) for The Passion of the Christ is also now available on the official web site (and they have retained the "teaser" trailer there too):

The Passion of the Christ Official Web Site

While on the topic, see also this interesting article from the International Herald Tribune (but originally in the New York Times?) investigating the inside story on the Pope's apparent endorsement of the film:

Frank Rich: Chutzpah and spiritual McCarthyism

Excerpt:

McEveety declined to speak with me, but last week I tracked down Michelini, an Italian who lives in Rome, by phone in Bombay, where he is working on another film. As he tells it, McEveety visited Rome in early December, eager "to show the movie to the pope." Michelini, it turned out, had an in with the Vatican. "Everyone thinks it's a complex story, the pope, the Vatican and all," Michelini says. "It's a very easy story. I called the pope's secretary. He said he had read about the movie, read about the controversy. He said, 'I'm curious, and I'm sure the pope is curious too.'"

A video of "The Passion" was handed over to that secretary - Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, whom Vatican watchers describe as second in power only to the pope - on Dec. 5. The archbishop later convened a meeting with McEveety and Michelini in the pope's apartment. There, Michelini says, the archbishop quoted the pope not only as saying "it is as it was," but also as calling the movie "incredibile."

Update: here's the link to the (same) story in the New York Times, courtesy Paleojudaica and Explorator.

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After a year or more of absence, I had dropped the link to BSW's Multi-Library Search Engine from my Bibliography: Search Engines page but -- as so often -- not long after dropping the link it has returned:

BSW Multi-Library Search

If you've not used it before, this is a useful bibliographical tool which searches from one page the extensive collections THEOLDI (at the University of Innsbruck), COPAC (Union of universities in the UK and Ireland), LCOC (Library of Congress Online Catalogue), PIB (Pontifical Biblical Institute) and articles in some on-line journals (e.g. Biblica).

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Helen Bond's new book on Caiaphas is now out. It is published by Westminster John Knox who have details here:

Caiaphas: Friend of Rome and Judge of Jesus?

"This is a book about Joseph Caiaphas, the longest serving Jewish high priest of the first century and, along with Pontius Pilate, one of the men who sent Jesus of Nazareth to his death." --from the Foreword. "Written in a thoroughly accessible style and displaying easy mastery of the historical sources and mature judgment on controversial matters, this book will provide a much valued resource for scholars of ancient history as well as students of the Gospels and Acts." --James D. G. Dunn, Lightfoot Professor of Divinity, University of Durham. "Well written, thoroughly researched, and probably a definitive study of Caiaphas. A fine example of the rigor expected of a scholar of antiquity, and especially marked by its readability and attractiveness for nonspecialists and scholars alike." --Jackson P. Hershbell, Professor Emeritus of Classical and Near Eastern Studies, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. HELEN K. BOND is Lecturer in New Testament at the University of Edinburgh. An expert on the history and archaeology of first-century Judea, she is author of the groundbreaking Pontius Pilate in History and Interpretation.

ISBN: 066422332X. Price: $24.95

See also Amazon (US) and Amazon (UK).

Labels: Helen Bond

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A new trailer has been released today for The Passion of the Christ. It's longer than previous versions (2 minutes) and you even catch a little bit of Jesus speaking in Aramaic at the Last Supper. It's only available at the moment on a new Yahoo! Movies page:

Yahoo! Movies Exclusive: The Passion of the Christ

I've had a look round and the other sites -- including the official one still have the shorter, "teaser trailer". I've added a link to the Yahoo! site on my page on The Passion of the Christ.

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There is a review, not ever so favourable, of The Gospel of John in the Star Tribune's Movies section:

The Gospel of John
Despite the filmmakers' efforts to make "The Gospel of John" into a dramatic feature film, it never quite makes it beyond the Sunday School lesson stage.

You may need to register to view the article (free).

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Torrey Seland commented on the future for his pages, mine and others like them. I had responded here; Torrey replied; Jim Davila offers his response; and Torrey responds. After a little more thought, I find myself in sympathy with what Jim Davila is saying. The evolutionary model is the right one and the attempt to introduce hierarchical structures, centralisation, too much control could be unwieldy and to the detriment of all of our sites. Our sites are powered by energy and enthusiasm and my guess is that others are like me -- they do it because they enjoy doing it. To be frank, when I look for things that I can cut back on, my preference is always to cut back on things other than the internet stuff. I suppose that where Torrey was hitting a note with me was in the thought that one day it will all become too unwieldy, too much for individuals working in isolation. I always have a backlog of links to add to the NT Gateway, some sent to me by kind individuals who cannot work out why it is taking me so long to add their link, many that I have found myself and are awaiting the next spare moment. But in the end they do make it onto the site and I don't think I have a bigger backlog now than I've had in the past. So I'm not too concerned at the moment. What I would be interested in would be some dialogue about the future and being British, beer or wine is fine with me too. Unlike Jim, I won't be in Groningen but I will be in San Antonio, so we could take it there.

A couple of further notes: (1) By "SBL sponsored", I wasn't thinking about web space. I used to host the NT Gateway at the University of Birmingham web site but moved it to its own domain for a variety of reasons a few years ago. Perhaps the major reason was simply reliability -- I wanted a much more robust server than the university was providing. I fund the name and the web space through book purchases that are made through the site -- they just cover costs. So I'm not in loss through the site though I'm not in profit either. What I have wondered about a few times, and I've even approached SBL about this in the past, is the notion of a kind of SBL seal of approval for a handful of key sites in the area. In a way the SBL does that now to some degree with its Sites of Interest on the new web site. I would be interested to talk to them further about the way in which we can all interact with them in this kind of area. I've just been invited to join the SBL Forum Advisory Board and look forward to talking about issues connected with the web. (2) Felix Just, S. J. did moot something more formal for the future of academic Biblical-related web sites, a kind of SBL-sponsored loose confederation of key sites. The strength of his proposal was that it combined the evolutionary model with some degree of control and structure. His plan, if I remember it correctly, was that SBL centralise a gateway or portal and that individuals underneath that umbrella do their work, e.g. he would have the Johannine Literature covered. Wherever possible, the sections, groups, consultations etc. at SBL would be those responsible for that area of the web. I've had a look and see that Felix's draft proposal is still on-line:

Recommended Biblical Resources

I think this was either Nashville 2000 or Denver 2001, in the CARG (Computer Assisted Research Section). It was enthusiastically received in the session but I don't think that anything further has come of it and perhaps now nothing will. Still, it's an interesting idea.

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I've refreshed my Scholars: T page -- lots of wandering scholars' faculty pages and home pages. I've deleted the link to Tom Thatcher's. He used to have a huge and interesting web page with full-text reproductions of articles and more, but it's been off the web now for well over a year. I saw Tom briefly at the SBL in Atlanta; we share the same birthday (date and year). The other revisions are new URLs for Charles Talbert, William Telford, Bruce Terry (massive site) and Mary Ann Tolbert.

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Polebridge Press, the publishers of Karen King's recent book on Mary Magdalene, have a mini web site in connection with the book. It's clearly aimed primarily at the press but there are some useful features including excerpts, an image of Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 3525 and the text from Papyrus Berolinensis:

http://www.maryofmagdala.com/

[Note: there is a far, far better image of Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 3525 on the P.Oxy. web site].

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BSW announced today that they have made available on-line Vol 10 (1997) of the journal Filología Neotestamentaria (Vol 11, 1998 and Vol 12, 1999 have been available for a while):

Filología Neotestamentaria 10 (1997)

Christian-B. Amphoux, «Quelques remarques sur la formation, le genre litteraire et la composition de l'Évangile de Marc» , Vol. 10 (1997) 5-34

J. Smit Sibinga, «Serta Paulina on composition technique in Paul» , Vol. 10 (1997) 35-54

G.H.R. Horley and John A.L. Lee, «A lexicon of the New Testament with documentary parallels: some interim entries, 1» , Vol. 10 (1997) 55-84

Ernesto Borghi, «La notion de conscience dans le Nouveau Testament: Une proposition de lecture» , Vol. 10 (1997) 85-98

Josep Rius-Camps, «Las variantes de la recension occidental de los Hechos de los Apostoles (IX) (Hch 4,23-31)» , Vol. 10 (1997) 99-104

Simon Légasse, «Vas Suum Possidere (1 Th 4,4)» , Vol. 10 (1997) 105-115

J. Duncan M. Derrett, « 1Artoj and the comma (Jn 21:9)» , Vol. 10 (1997) 117-128

Roy R. Jeal, «A strange style of expression: Ephesians 1:23» , Vol. 10 (1997) 129-138

Maria-Irma Seewann, «Semantische Untersuchung Zu PW'RWSIS, Veranlasst Durch Röm 11,25» , Vol. 10(1997) 139-156

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National Catholic Reporter has an article / interview on Elaine Pagels, "Scholar stirs controversy with views on early Christian development". It's only available to subscribers, but this extract courtesy of Maurice A. O'Sullivan:

"Oh, this was gentle," she said of the stinging rebuke of one critic, a fellow scholar who, to put it charitably, did not like her latest book, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas. The critic, Luke Timothy Johnson, said Pagels adhered to a "stunningly simple argument." . . . .

. . . . Pagels argues that early authority figures within the church, particularly Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyons, concluded that the writer of the Gospel of Thomas erred in suggesting that Jesus taught "that we have direct access to God through the divine image within us," Pagels writes. In contrast, the majestic Gospel according to John -- which Pagels believes was probably written in response to Thomas, with the two texts "in dialogue" but also often in conflict -- took a far different view of Jesus and his ministry and proved more useful in uniting the growing Christian movement.

If Thomas believed humans should try to emulate Jesus as a way of discovering inner divinity, John's Gospel "succeeded ever after in persuading the majority of Christians," Pagels writes, that "only by believing in Jesus can we find divine truth." . . . .

. . . . "The history of Christianity is not a triumphal march of ideas but a series of intense arguments and conversations," Pagels said. "I love that side of it."

Others are less enthusiastic. In a review for the independent Catholic magazine Commonweal, Johnson, who teaches New Testament and Christian origins at the Candler School of Theology, took Pagels to task for needlessly defending noncanonical texts that honor spiritual experience over "the rule of faith (or creed)."

"Welcome to another exercise in revisionist history," Johnson wrote, adding that Pagels' "historical point is that the good stuff lost out. Her normative point is that Christianity has to claim its inner Kabbalah [Jewish mysticism] if it is to appeal to people like Elaine Pagels."

Pagels understands Johnson's critique, but maintains she is not so much saying that "the good stuff lost out" as arguing that contemporary Christianity is richer by having a wider range of early texts from which to draw. . . . . .

Labels: Elaine Pagels

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Ken Penner on b-greek draws attention to the following web site which reviews Memorisation Software including several of those linked on my Greek NT Gateway: Computer Software page:

Memorisation Software Reviewed

FlashWorks and VocabWorks both get four pencils (good).

Labels: b-greek

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Raymond Arroyo has interviewed Mel Gibson about The Passion of the Christ and this is to air in the USA on EWTN Global Catholic Network between January 23-26. Apparently he addresses the anti-semitism issue and also comments, "I don’t know if I will ever work again. I’ve said that this is a career killer and it could well be, but that doesn’t matter because I don’t care":

EWTN to air 2nd Exclusive Interview with Mel Gibson on "The Passion of the Christ"

The film also features in Empire Online which reports that Gibson "has secured a massive distribution deal for the movie"; it also notes that "The film's full trailer looks set to be released this weekend":

Power Push For Passion

The source for this appears to be Variety -- see this at SciFi.com:

Passion Opening Wide

This includes the additional information that it will be "the widest opening ever of a subtitled movie"; the release of the new trailer is pinned here to January 16.

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I reported back in December that Lisa Gerrard was to score The Passion of the Christ; this after earlier reports that it would be Jack Lenz or James Horner. The latest is that John Debney is to score the film. This from Music from the Movies:

Debney scores 'The Passion of the Christ'

Debney's latest include Elf and Bruce Almighty.

The news on the Lisa Gerrard web site has changed to say now that she is co-scoring the film: "There are other brilliant composers involved, amongst them Lisa is also collaborating with Patrick Cassidy." IMDb give Lisa Gerrard and Rachel Portman as providing the music.

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New from Eerdmans is:

Michael Gorman, Apostle of the Crucified Lord: A Theological Introduction to Paul and His Letters
624 pages; dimensions (in inches): 6.25 x 9.25; 54 illustrations; 2003
ISBN: 0-8028-3934-7

Unlike the many books that treat the apostle Paul merely as a historical figure and his letters as literary relics, this new study by Michael Gorman focuses on the theological message of Paul’s writings, particularly what they have to say to the contemporary church.

An innovative and comprehensive treatment of Paul, including commentary on all of the Pauline letters, Gorman’s Apostle of the Crucified Lord unpacks the many dimensions of Paul’s thought carefully and holistically. Six introductory chapters provide background discussion on Paul’s world, his résumé, his letters, his gospel, his spirituality, and his theology, while the main body of the book covers in turn and in full detail each of the Pauline epistles. Gorman gives the context of each letter, offers a careful reading of the text, and colors his words with insightful quotations from earlier interpreters of Paul.

Enhancing the text itself are questions for reflection and discussion at the end of each chapter and numerous photos, maps, and tables throughout. All in all, Apostle of the Crucified Lord is the ideal book for students and any other readers interested in seriously engaging Paul’s challenging letters.

The above link takes you to the Eerdmans catalogue; also available here at Amazon.com.

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There was a short feature on the Today programme this morning on the King James Bible. Here's a link to the audio (about three minutes):

The King James Bible is 400 years old - an exhibition has just opened at Hampton Court

For a little more on what this is talking about, have a look at this web page:

The Hampton Court Conference

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There's a new on-line article from the latest (Fall 2003) issue of Christian History that may be of interest:

Midwife of the Christian Bible
Irenaeus identified the books of the New Testament, then showed the church how they fit with the Old.
by Fr. John Behr

See also previous blog entry on this issue.

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Viewers of The West Wing may have noticed the resemblance between Toby Ziegler and the Bishop of Durham, N. T. Wright:

   

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On his Philo of Alexandria blog, Torrey Seland writes:

Etana turns out to be an excellent site for students of Philo and his social world too. But it makes me think about how long it is useful to keep up all these other collections of links like my own site, NTGateway, and others. I know from my own work that it eats my time, and I can't imagine how Mark Goodacre gets time to keep up his great site as a one-man work...
Have we reached the point where we should seriously consider coordinating more of this work, get some sponsors, and establish a team to work on a really megasite for Biblical studies? Viewpoints are welcome....

Torrey is asking a useful question here and I don't know that I have a good answer at this stage. Four initial thoughts, though, as well as to second Torrey's "viewpoints are welcome":

(1) When people ask me about the NT Gateway at conferences, usually to wonder out loud about how I get the time to do it all, I tend to find myself saying that I enjoy doing it and that's why I carry on doing it. As soon as I stop enjoying it, I will have to stop doing it. (It's also a fact that I work too hard, produce less research than I would otherwise do and don't get as much sleep as I should, but you don't want to hear about that).

(2) Where I was beginning to flag on keeping the NT Gateway up to date, this blog has helped enormously. For reasons I've stated before, it's much more enjoyable than just doing the NT Gateway.

(3) There is one area that I have failed to keep up to date on the NT Gateway and it is now causing me some concern: on-line articles. These are proliferating at a real rate and it is not straightforward to keep on top of them. This situation is hardly going to reverse itself and there may come a day when I have to admit defeat on this one.

(4) I've sometimes wondered out loud about the possibilities of greater collaboration and it may indeed be the way forward to begin thinking seriously about this. My hunch is that it would only work if one could involve a major organisation and the obvious one would be the SBL. But all this needs some more thought.

Let me make clear that I have absolutely no intention of stopping developing and maintaining the NT Gateway, but I do think that Torrey Seland is asking some useful questions for the long term about how we all look to the future for Biblical (and related) resources on the web.

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Stephen Carlson is producing a fascinating review of Paul Foster, "Is it Possible to Dispense with Q?", NovT 45 (2003): 313-337 over on Hypotyposeis, so far Part 1 and Part 2. I am taking more than a little interest in this since Foster's article is largely focused on my work on the Synoptic Problem. I am writing a full-length response to Foster so will not comment at any length here but will comment on one or two things are they arise in Stephen Carlson's so far very thorough critique.

Carlson comments on Foster's brief discussion of the Farrer Theory's precursors. I would add that while of course Foster cannot be expected to cover all the proponents of the theory, there are two who are probably too important to miss, not least because I have drawn from them heavily in the material Foster is reviewing, and they are H. Benedict Green and E. P. Sanders / Margaret Davies (see my Introductory Bibliography for references).

In Part 2 Carlson makes some useful comments on Foster's claim on an "unproven assumption that is necessary for the Farrer theory", which "must hold for such a proposed solution to be even a possibility. It must be assumed not only that Matthew wrote before Luke, but also that the Matthean gospel had been in existence for "long enough" (however one may measure that) and had also circulated widely enough to come to Luke's knowledge." (315) As I commented to Foster before the publication of his review, I regard this as a clever attempt to turn a weakness for the Q theory (viz. the narrow window available for Matthew and Luke to be producing their Gospels in isolation from each other) into a strength. But the point only works with the singular quotation Foster picks from Farrer, and then only partially. Foster criticises Farrer's view about Matthew as an "orthodox Gentile Christian writing", but this view is quite singular. It is not shared by Goulder, whose Midrash and Lection in Matthew (London: SPCK, 1974) is a forthright defence of the composition of Matthew by a Jewish scribe; I think I recall Michael Goulder saying that Farrer himself was largely persuaded by the thesis in its early stages, but Farrer died just before Michael Goulder gave the first of the Speakers Lectures in Oxford that eventually became Midrash and Lection. Since I agree with Goulder and the consensus about this, it's a red herring for Foster to bring out Farrer's view here as if it is a necessity for the theory -- it is not. But in any case, Farrer's general point in context is about the prima facie case; and it is a reasonable place to begin. Consider the passage immediately before the sentence Foster picks out:

If there is no difficulty in supposing St. Luke to have read St. Matthew, then the question never arises at all. For if we find two documents containing much common material, some of it verbally identical, and if those two documents derive from the same literary region, our first supposition is not that both draw upon a lost document for which there is no independent evidence, but that one draws upon the other. It is only when the latter supposition has proved untenable that we have recourse to the postulation of a hypothetical source. (Farrer, "Dispensing": 56)

In my view, this is the right place to begin. Stephen Carlson's mention of Michael Thompson's article on the "holy internet" in this context is a very helpful one. Something I commented on in Case Against Q was the remarkable nature of Burton Mack's theory that has Luke written nearly forty years after Matthew yet preferring to use the moribund Q.

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Latest Explorator was posted yesterday by David Meadows:

Explorator 6.37

One story of interest featured is this:

Roman Anchor Found in the Dead Sea

An archaeologist from Kibbutz Ein Gedi has probably made one of the biggest finds of his career - and it happened just as he was walking along the nearby beach of the Dead Sea. He found a lead-and-wood anchor - without the lead - that probably dates back to the Roman period, 2,000 years ago. The anchor found by Dr. Gideon Hadas is 1.8 meters by 0.9 meters wide (6 by 3 feet), and weighs some 500 kilograms (1,100 lbs.). Dr. Hadas informed the Antiquities Authority of his find, and received permission to research it.

That's from Arutz Sheva. Jim Davila also blogs this and links to a paragraph in Haaretz with a picture.

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On Friday I mentioned a couple more N. T. Wright articles on-line. Now here's another, with thanks to Kevin Bush for drawing attention to it:

The Bible for the Post Modern World
William Orange Memorial Lecture 1999, hosted by the Latimer Fellowship

A little while ago AKMA made some interesting comments on some throw-away comments Wright had made about postmodernism. I don't suppose AKMA would care to comment on this article when he has time? I'd be interested to hear what AKMA thinks.

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I began getting a page together on Biblical resources on Sexuality for the NT Gateway some time ago but like lots of my projects it's sitting around only half-finished. I am happy to see in the mean time that Holger Szesnat has got together a useful set of resources here:

Internet Resources: Bible and (Homo)Sexuality

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Thanks to Kevin Bush for pointing out to me another Wright article on-line:

Jesus and the Identity of God (PDF)

It's hosted on the N. T. Wright Page and was originally published in Ex Auditu 14 (1998): 42-56.

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A thread has begun on the Johannine Literature e-list on the question of the dating and priority of John. Paul Anderson draws attention to this paper from lister Mark Matson:

Current Approaches to Johannine Priority (PDF)

The paper was apparently read at the Stone-Campbell Journal Conference in St. Louis in March, 2003 and should appear in the Journal in the future; it appears on Matson's homepage.

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I've mentioned Kevin Bush's N. T. Wright Page here before. There are some useful new links there:

Transforming the Culture
This article was "delivered as a main address at the AFFIRM conference at Waikanae in July 1999"; it is hosted by the Latimer Fellowship and the focus is on Paul.

New Perspectives on Paul (PDF)
This is a paper given at the 10th Edinburgh Dogmatics Conference, Rutherford House, Edinburgh, 25-28 August 2003. It is hosted on the N. T. Wright page itself and looks like a copy produced by Wright himself (though whoever produced it really ought to think about double spacing).

Finally, Tom Wright has apparently agreed to answer questions posed by an email list called Wrightsaid -- What N. T. Wright Really Said and his first batch of answers, for January 2004, are reproduced on the N. T. Wright page here:

Tom Wright answers "Wrightsaid" questions

The latter includes his comments on the future projected for the six volume Christian Origins and the Question of God.

Many thanks to Sean D for drawing my attention to these additions.

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Thanks to Jim West on Xtalk for a link to an excellent and comprehensive site from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill:

Ancient World Mapping Center

This centre "exists to promote cartography and geographic information science as essential disciplines within the field of ancient studies". Many useful, high resolution, well documented reproductions of maps from print resources in the AWMC Map Room including maps of the Expansion of the Empire in the Age of Augustus, Greece, the Aegean and Western Asia Minor and Roman Empire in AD 69. That's just a selection -- there are lots more. The main page has one of those annoying designs that only works properly in 1024x768 but the map room looks fine in 800x600.

The message forwarded by Jim was by Tom Elliott and reads as follows:

These maps were prepared to accompany the new book by Mary T.
Boatwright, Daniel J. Gargola and Richard J.A. Talbert, The Romans
from Village to Empire: A History of Ancient Rome from Earliest Times to Constantine, Oxford University Press, 2004 (ISBN: 0-19-511875-8).
Publisher's information on the book is available.

Please visit our homepage or jump directly to the map room for
more information.

Please feel free to forward this message to other lists where it may be of interest.

I've added the site to the NT Gateway: Maps page.

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I've added Dieter Mitternacht's Homepage to Scholars: M. Mitternacht is a Senior Research Fellow at Lund University, Sweden. His homepage includes the tiniest little link to a huge file that would be a shame to miss -- his Master of Theology dissertation:

By Works of the Law No One Shall Be Justified (PDF)

I've added the link to the Paul: Books, Articles and Reviews page.

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Both Stephen Carlson on Hyptoposeis and Jim Davila on Paleojudaica have blogged on a topic arising from the Corpus Paulinum email list. Jeffrey Gibson began the thread asking what you would ask Paul if you were able to go back to the sixties of the first century and somehow find a way of communicting with him. There have been some great suggestions on the Corpus Paul list; some highlights:

Paul, what was it that you and the pillars talked about when you spent your fortnight with them?

How many letters did you write and in what order?

What do you mean by PISTIS CHRISTOU?

Paul, how many other letters did you write that we don't have now? Were any of the other letters as tough as Galatians or 2 Cor 10-13?

Paul, what did Peter say after you confronted him in Antioch?

Since your about to die and all, have you changed your opinion about how quickly Jesus is going to return?

Could you explain just how many letters you actually wrote to the church in Corinth, and then give me a run-down on what they contained and when they were written?

Do you believe that homosexuality is as bad as temple prostitution and pederastry?

Fess up -- the collection which you so altruistically maintain that you were "eager" to take up actually galled and chafed you at first, didn't it? The pillars were stongarming you, no?

Why and where did you persecute fellow Jews who owned Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah and Lord, and who else was involved in this persecution?

How do you regard Jews who have not accepted Jesus as God's Messiah?

Was your letter to the Galatians a success? Did you receive a reply?

Do you keep copies of your own letters? Can we have a look at them?

When you said in (what we call) 1 Corinthians "I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh", could you explain what that means?

They are just some highlights. Visit the list archive to read them all, along with some attempts at answers; begin from 3 January 2004 and keep going.

Jim Davila adds a note on "a midterm question I used to ask my undergraduates back when I taught Introduction to the New Testament at another institution":

Imagine a meeting between a leader of the Q people, the Apostle Paul, and an Essene leader from Qumran in the year C.E. 58. Write your essay from the perspective of the Q person and explain how and where you (the Q person) agree and disagree with the other two leaders on observance of Torah law, proper religious lifestyle, relations with the gentiles (including proselytizing), the correct celebration of the communal meal, and the end of the world."

Nice idea; I'd be interested to hear a conversation between John Kloppenborg, Paul and a Qumran person!

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I posted recently on two articles, "The First Battle for the Bible" by Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J., and "The Habits of Highly Effective Bible Readers", a conversation with Christopher A. Hall. I mistakenly said that these appeared in "the Fall 2003 issue (80) of Christianity Today". I am grateful to Dwight Peterson for pointing out to me that they actually appear in the Fall 2003 issue of Christian History, not Christianity Today.

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Stephen Carlson points to a very interesting parallel between Matthew 3.11 and Acts 19.4, both of which juxtapose the themes of repentance and the "coming one" in John the Baptist's preaching. This is in contrast with Mark, Luke's Gospel and John. Given that, on the standard Two-Source Theory, Luke-Acts is independent of Matthew, this is striking. So how could it be explained? Stephen lays out the evidence and then asks:

Of the four gospels, only Matt 3:11 juxtaposes, as does Acts 19:4, the motifs of a baptism of repentance (John) with the one coming after (Jesus). According to the Critical Edition of Q (p. 14, at Q 3:16b, which aggressively adds Jesus's baptism to Q because of too many minor agreements), the phrase "for repentance" is Matthew's redaction of Q's baptism. In other words, the author of Luke at Acts 19:4 knows Matthew, or, if the editors of CEQ are wrong, Q is more like Matthew than we thought.

As a defender myself of the theory that Luke (the author) did know Matthew, what I like to do on such occasions is to try to get into the Q theorist's shoes. How would I answer this if I were persuaded of Q? (I always try to test my own arguments by trying to find the best possible arguments against them. This is not because of some kind of schizophrenia but because it can help one to sharpen up one's arguments or, sometimes, to drop them before it's too late). What I think I
would say here would be that there is a third option:

(1) It is not that Luke knows Matthew -- we know that that is not possible for a variety of reasons, chief among which are (a) Luke's eccentric editorializing that would be implied by that theory & (b) the phenomenon of alternating primitivity in double tradition. (My hypothetical Q theorist has not, unfortunately, read The Case Against Q or, if s/he has, s/he is -- God forbid! -- unpersuaded by it).

(2) And it cannot be that Q is more like Matthew than we previously thought. If Q had featured repentance here, Luke would have carried it over so producing the same juxtaposition of repentance + coming one in Luke 3. After all, we know that Luke has no aversion to repentance -- it is a favourite in his Gospel (e.g. Luke 5.32R, 15.7 QD, 24.47). On the other hand, repentance is something Matthew might have added in Matt. 3 (e.g. cf. the prominence the theme is given in Matt. 3.2). So Q did not have repentance here.

(3) So where did Luke get it from in Acts 19? It was probably his memory of these two features, both of them congenial, from Mark and Q. John's baptism of repentance is a key feature of Mark 1; the announcement of the coming one is a key feature of Q 3 and Q 7. So he juxtaposes them himself in Acts 19 in the same way that Matthew juxtaposed them himself in Matt. 3. So there is nothing here that cannot be explained by independent redaction.

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I was sent this by Ori Trend from Israel. There's a useful new book price comparison site available on the net. I've played around with it a bit and it seems to come up with some useful results. There's a North American version and a British version, though from my searches it is still often cheaper to go to the American version and order from there with international shipping:

Fetchbook.Info

Fetchbook.co.uk

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I posted a note on Torrey Seland's new Philo blog last week. If you haven't visited yet, don't forget to do so; new additions include a report on Philo at the SBL Annual Meeting in Atlanta in November 2003. Torrey Seland has also made some major additions to his Resource Pages for Biblical Studies, dropping the discussion board, adding links to the NT Gateway, the NT Gateway blog (thanks!) and Jim Davila's Paleojudaica blog on the main page, and also adding a good number of features of interest listed here:

Resource Pages for Biblical Studies, January 2004 additions

One of the links new to me is Quotation Finder from the Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung at Münster. This is designed to work with the TLG CD ROM. It looks useful, though I've not been able to spend enough time with it myself to figure it all out, and I don't have TLG installed so don't know how useful it would be for me. I'd be interested to hear if anyone does have any experiences with this.

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The Fall 2003 issue (80) of Christianity Today is entitled "The First Bible Teachers" and has a focus on Patristic interpretation of the Bible. Most of the articles are not available on-line but two that may be of interest are:

The First Battle for the Bible
How the church was forced to choose its treatment of the Jewish Scriptures
Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J.

The Habits of Highly Effective Bible Readers
What we can learn from the church fathers that will enrich our own Bible study.
A conversation with Christopher A. Hall

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The new version of Kalos (2.11) has been released today after some bugs were fixed in the previous release. This is an enjoyable, free resource for conjugating your Greek verbs:

Kalos Computer Programme

There is also a new much simplified URL and I've made the change on my Greek NT Gateway: Computer Software page.

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I noted the appearance of the October 2003 edition of the Journal of Theological Studies back in November and also the lack of on-line availability to subscribers or those with institutional subscriptions. Now the edition is available on-line to those who are able to access it. Unfortunately, the free abstracts are largely absent. Here's the link:

Journal of Theological Studies 54/2 (October 2003)

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I have previously mentioned Wieland Willker's On-line Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament. He has now produced a major second edition. According to Wieland, "Compared to the 1st edition it has about 300 more pages (now 1731) and 67 variants added (now 1223)":

TCG 2004: An On-line Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament

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The Institute for Biblical Research (IBR) describes itself in the following terms: "an organization of evangelical Christian scholars with specialties in Old and New Testament and in ancillary disciplines. Its vision is to foster excellence in the pursuit of Biblical Studies within a faith environment." Its web site is here:

Institute for Biblical Research

The institute plans to have certain sub-groups, the first one of which is the IBR Jesus Group started by Darrell Bock and Robert Webb. This is clearly in some ways intended as a reaction to the Jesus Seminar, though its approach is different (e.g. no voting). The web site features two major essays which are part of this project:

Robert Webb, "Jesus' Baptism: Its Historicity and Implications"

Scot McKnight, "Jesus and the Twelve"

Thanks to Michael Pahl for drawing this to my attention. I've added the main link to my Societies page. I'll add the articles to the Historical Jesus pages later.

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I usually mention the latest Explorator on a Sunday because there are always items of interest there:

Explorator 6.36

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My previous entry sent me looking around for other bits and bobs in the Christian Century and here's an older article on Wright that may be of interest -- an interview focusing on the resurrection but also dealing with other things:

Resurrection faith: N.T. Wright talks about history and belief

This is from the Christian Century December 18 2002.

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Religion-online have an article excerpted from N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God:

On the Third Day: God's Promise Fulfilled (Religion-Online)

The article itself originally appeared in The Christian Century (April 5 2003): 32-36 and is also available via the Find Articles site here:

On the third day: God's promise fulfilled (Find Articles)

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Carl Conrad, guru of the b-greek email list and professor emeritus of Classics at Washington University, has published on on-line commentary on Mark, with his own translation in the top frame and commentary on the text in a bottom frame. A very useful new resource:

A Brief Commentary on the Gospel of Mark

I've added a link on my Gospel of Mark page.

Labels: b-greek

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This just received from Jenny Heimerdinger:

"We are writing to let you know that the study week on Codex Bezae planned for 3rd-8th July 2004 at the University of Wales, Bangor, has been postponed. A good number of people expressed an interest in the meeting but it appears that there is a variety of obstacles standing in the way of this year’s proposal.

We are suggesting, therefore, that the meeting be re-scheduled for the summer of 2005 and to that end, in view of the observations some of you have made, we would like to invite comments from any who may be interested in taking part. In particular, we would welcome your thoughts on:

Format —is an informal meeting, with workshops and discussions on aspects of Codex Bezae, preferable to the more usual structure of a formal conference with scholarly papers? Would a combination of the two be best of all?

Content —it was envisaged that all four Gospels and Acts in Codex Bezae would be potential topics. Would you like to see the scope of the meeting restricted to selected books?

Language —which languages would you wish to have represented at the meeting? and which on a equal footing with English?

Dates —possible alternatives to the first week in July are mid-July or mid-September. The duration could be shortened to 3 or 4 days.

Location —Bangor (Wales), London or Dublin are alternatives. Is any more attractive a proposal than the others?

If you would like to comment on any of these points, we would be grateful to have your response within the next month.

Jenny Read-Heimerdinger (University of Wales, Bangor)
Josep Rius-Camps (Facultat de Teologia, Barcelona)"

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Daniel Gurtner points out to me that what I did have listed (on my Journals page) as Currents in Research: Biblical Studies has been recast for some time as Currents in Biblical Research. I've made the adjustment.

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Torrey Seland has added to his pioneering Resource Pages for Biblical Studies, which have a special focus on Philo of Alexandria, a new Philo of Alexandria blog. This was announced yesterday and I've added a link on the left of this page.

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I enjoyed reading Stephen Carlson's Hypotyposeis 2003 Retrospective and there are some connections with my own experience. Stephen mentions the problem of "link rot", a term I had not heard before. The problem of link rot is the something I am very conscious of because of the size of The New Testament Gateway which I've run for a few years now. The need to keep those links regularly serviced has made this NTGateway weblog liberating for me. I no longer need to arrange notices of URL changes in my old clunky Logbook but can simply note the changes I have made here, which is much quicker and less boring. Also the blog enables me to link to materials that are too transient to be added on the NT Gateway proper and especially media and journalistic materials.

In fact the blog began as a means of coping with some problems that the NT Gateway was throwing up. I was struggling to keep it as current as I would have liked and there were no obvious locations for smaller scale, transient features to which I would like to have linked. So the blog combines together my old Logbook, the monthly Featured Links section and the Notices sections but at the same time allows me to do loads more. I'm not quite sure why I find blogging so much easier and more enjoyable than all those things, but the fact is that I do.

It has not even occurred to me that it would be an idea to bolt a weblog onto the NTGateway until I read a comment of Jim Davila's that it would be good to see more weblogs in the general area.

An additional advantage, and one I had not realised at the outset, has been the chance to add some of my own short essays or reflections or thoughts. As Stephen rightly points out, this blog is primarily of the "filter" variety, "one in which the writer presents a daily selection of links and other web material that the writer finds interesting". But occasionally I've enjoyed venturing into the "journal" variety too, either to react to something that had been written about me, or to begin to frame some thoughts on a given topic. I share some of Stephen's reticence about publishing my own research in advance on-line and feel this more in this forum than I used to in, say, the email lists. For example, I worked out a lot of my ideas on the Synoptic Problem by engaging with people on Xtalk and Synoptic-L. I don't feel quite so comfortable working out current research ideas here, but perhaps that will change.

As time has gone on I've become less inclined to repeat any informatiion already noted in one of the other weblogs, particularly Hypotyposeis and Paleojudaica, not least because I know that many of the readers of this weblog also read those two (and of course others). But from time to time I can't resist flagging something up too, or I may have a comment to add; or I may have blogged it and only subsequently notice that others have blogged it too. This is just to say that I don't aim for comprehensiveness -- you have to read the other blogs too!

In the four months that the blog has been running, I've developed a few other rules of thumb. One of the most important is to avoid the temptation to be too self-indulgent. I figure that the reason that people read this blog is that they are interested in the academic study of the New Testament; some, I know, share broader interests in related topics like Jesus in film, which happens to be one of my favourites. But I don't assume that my readers will care about others of my interests so I don't write about them. And while I enjoy the more informal style that is at home in a weblog, I try not to allow it to become too chatty or matey. Just occasionally, I add an inappropriate light-hearted comment, repent of it and edit it out at the next posting. On a related matter, I try as far as possible to make the blog accessible to the newcomer. I don't assume that all my readers have been reading it from the beginning, nor do I assume that they all read it every day. So on the whole you won't find language that will look coded to the newcomer, though of course some familiarity with academic study of the New Testament is assumed.

I suppose this exercise itself runs the risk of getting rather self-indulgent, so I'll cease and return to the normal service. Many thanks again for your encouragement, your very helpful feedback and all your contributions.

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