NT Blog

The cover story in this week's Newsweek is on The Passion of the Christ. The main article is the most detailed description of the film I have seen so far, with some intelligent analysis of its relationship to the Gospels and questions about anti-Semitism:

Who Killed Jesus?
Mel Gibson's powerful but troubling new movie, 'The Passion of the Christ,' is reviving one of the most explosive questions ever. What history tells us about Jesus' last hours, the world in which he lived, anti-Semitism, Scripture and the nature of faith itself
By Jon Meacham

Well worth a read; more anon.

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In relation to my previous blog post, Darko Svenscak points out that the example I chose is not a good one because only the first page of that article is cached by Google; I hadn't thought to check the rest. But Darko offers another useful tip:

The Wayback Machine

I saw someone referring to this recently and forget who. It's not something I've visited before and it's great fun. Essentially it is attempting to archive everything on the web so that it can be accessed by future generations. Here's its results on the NT Gateway:

Wayback Machine: NT Gateway

It's quite nostalgic for me to see how it developed. That record begins in June 2000 because that's when I moved the site over to its own domain. One can go further back by typing in its old address. But this is to digress. How does the Wayback Machine help us with finding those Harvard Theological Review articles we are after? As long as one has the old URL, one is OK -- just type it into the Wayback machine box and here is the article we were looking for:

Wayback Machine archive of Adela Yarbro Collins, "Mark and His Readers: The Son of God among Jews"

So this could turn out to be a very useful tool.

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Correspondent Darko Svenscak makes the useful point to me that where Find Articles have deleted on-line articles (see blog entry on), they are still present in the Google cache. So if you are looking, for example, for Adela Yarbro Collins, "Mark and His Readers: The Son of God Among Jews", Harvard Theological Review 92 (1999): 393-408 (listed in Featured Links of July 2001), you now get a 404 Not found; but if you paste the title into Google and hit "cached", you can still retrieve it. However, these caches don't last for ever, so if there's something you want to have electronically from Harvard Theological Review, fetch it and save it while you still can.

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The Winter 2003 edition of Biblical Theology Bulletin is now on-line (free to all) at Find Articles:

Piety and Politics: the Dynamics of Royal Authority in Homeric Greece, Biblical Israel, and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia - Book Review
by Robert Gnuse

Paul Beyond the Judaism/Hellenism Divide - Book Review
by Richard B. Cook

Judges - Book Review
by John F. Craghan

Seeing the Psalms: a Theology of Methaphor - Book Review
by John F. Craghan

Scripture and interpretive method: why read scripture as Canon?
by Kenneth G. Stenstrup

"Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers . . . - Revelation 22:15" - Critical Essay
by Rick Strelan

Who should be called father? Paul of Tarsus between the Jesus tradition and patria potestas
by S. Scott Bartchy

Of Eunuchs and predators: Matthew 19:1-12 in a cultural context - Critical Essay
by Carmen Bernabe

Gainful reappraisal - Presenting the Issue
by David Bossman

Labels: Biblical Theology Bulletin

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I commented in December on the revamp of the Find Articles site, which included lots of material from the Harvard Theological Review (free to all). Torrey Seland points out that the on-line issues of HTR are now down to just 2001. I have several links to other issues so will have to remove these if there is no sign of their return. It's another reminder not to trust that anything on the web is going to be there forever.

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Thanks to Helenann Hartley for sending over this link from Saturday's Guardian which I'd missed (no doubt because it is still lying folded up and unread):

Crucified by empire
The blood libel that 'the Jews' killed Jesus sent millions to their deaths
Giles Fraser (Vicar of Putney and lecturer in philosophy at Wadham College, Oxford)

It's a well-written, informed piece that helps put the debate over The Passion of the Christ in context; an excerpt:

What is going on here is intra-Jewish sectarian polemic. Note: intra-Jewish not anti-Jewish. The attack on "the Jews" in the Gospels is a family argument, and is conducted with the ferocity typical of a family argument. The prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures frequently denounced Israel for failing to live up to God's expectations. "These people draw near with their mouths and honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me," insists Isaiah. Attacks upon "the Jews" in the Gospels are of a piece with this intra-Jewish prophetic invective. But once Christianity morphed from a small Jewish sect, wrestling to establish its identity against the prevailing religious establishment, to the official religion of the Roman empire, these denunciations became deadly. Torn from the context of an intra-Jewish row for the soul of Judaism, "the Jews" starts to be heard as "them" as opposed to "us". From this moment on, the Gospels are used as justification for the greatest crime in European history - the death of one Jew becoming the pretext for the murder of millions more. Christians have too often preferred an anti-semitic lie to a disturbingly relevant truth: Jesus was destroyed by the logic of empire.

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On Synoptic-L, Wieland Willker asks "why this botch" (The Passion of the Christ) "gets so much attention in scholarly circles". While not knowing whether it is a "botch" or not -- I haven't seen it yet -- I think that there are several reasons:

(1) Some scholars are interested in the way in which the Gospels are adapted in film and fiction, partly because of the renewed interest in Wirkungsgeschichte and partly because the creative process of adaptation might shed light on the interpretative process. For investigations of Jesus (and other) films along such lines, I would recommend the books by Larry Kreitzer on the OT, the NT and Paul in fiction and film; and this book by Barnes Tatum:

W. Barnes Tatum, Jesus at the Movies (Sonoma: Polebridge, 1998)

I would also recommend these two articles by William Telford:

Telford, W. R., "The New Testament in Fiction and Film: A Biblical Scholar's Perspective" in J. G. Davies, G. Harvey and W. Watson (eds.), Words Remembered, Texts Renewed. Essays in Honour of J. F. A. Sawyer (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995): 360-94

Telford, W. R., "Jesus Christ Movie-Star: The Depiction of Jesus in the Cinema" in C. Marsh and G. Ortiz (eds.), Movies and Meaning. Explorations in Theology and Film (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997): 115-39.

(2) Interest in this particular Jesus film is accentuated among some scholars because of their involvement with the question of the depiction of Jews in the Passion Narrative. Paula Fredriksen in particular is worth mentioning here since she was on the so-called "ad hoc committee" that strongly criticized an early script of the film for its alleged anti-Semitism (See blog entries here and here). So too is Amy-Jill Levine who was on the committee that composed that report (See blog entry on). Both Levine and Fredriksen have been involved with discussion about the film as a result of that early and robust encounter with the script. And whatever one thinks about the way that that debate has developed, there is no question that the issue of the depiction of Jews in the Passion Narrative has been a hot topic in Gospel studies over the last generation. What this film has done is to push that debate back into centre stage.

I would add, in relation to this point, that much of the controversy over the film could have been avoided if only Gibson had done what Garth Dabrinsky did on the recent Gospel of John (Visual Bible) film and employ a panel of expert consultants. Gibson claims that he has consulted hundreds of Biblical scholars, but what the film lacks is a panel of accountable, named historical consultants from a variety of scholarly and religious perspectives. The Gospel of John has managed to adapt that Gospel word-for-word without a whiff of controversy and I think that this is in no small part due to the likes of Peter Richardson, Adele Reinhartz, Alan Segal and co on its Advisory Committee.

(3) I suspect the film also excites attention among scholars because of its use of Latin and Aramaic. Of course Gibson had to use a scholar to do the translation -- William Fulco of Loyola Marymount University.

(4) If Biblical scholars had nothing to say about major cultural events like this, then that might be further evidence of a retreat into the ivory tower. Interest is generated much of the time simply because the media asks them for their opinion, and they rightly respond.

Labels: Paula Fredriksen

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One of the great things about The Passion of the Christ for those like me who are fascinated by Jesus films is that it is generating a good deal of interest in the history of Jesus films. This article takes a look at what is undoubtedly my least favourite of the Jesus films, the 1979 outing starring Brian Deacon, called simply Jesus, based on the Gospel of Luke:

'The Passion's' Precedent: The Most-Watched Film Ever?

The article is from the New York Times and is by Franklin Foer. I enjoyed his description of the film, including this line:

In terms of special effects, the film offers poofs of smoke and gauzy halos to suggest miracles and angels; a hissing snake and a booming voiceover represent the devil. In the scene in which the Romans beat Jesus, their punches obviously don't connect.

He also quotes The New York Times's Tom Buckley's description of it as "painfully monotonous." It's interesting to see, though, that the Jesus Film Project are not at all afraid of the new film; indeed they are embracing it as an evangelistic opportunity and their web page currently headlines with Mel Gibson's "The Passion of The Christ".

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Don't forget to look at the latest Explorator:

Explorator 6.41

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On the Gospel of Thomas e-list, Andrew Criddle draws attention to this piece:

Lasse Collmann, "Thomas 50 and its context"

This is a post-graduate seminary presentation at Helsinki directed by Ismo Dunderberg whom you may know from his publications on The Gospel of Thomas. The English is a little broken (but I am always lost in admiration for post-grads who write doctoral theses in a second language) and it is still in draft mode, but it's an interesting read for those interested in Thomas. Criddle characterises it this way, "This article draws parallels between the saying and other accounts of questioning of the soul by spiritual powers but emphasises that in some of the closest parallels such as the Jewish Hekhalot material the powers, although potentially dangerous are not intrinsically evil."

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Loads more articles on The Passion of the Christ including this one from The Observer by Paul Harris:

Who killed Christ?
Mel Gibson's controversial film on the Crucifixion has been pilloried by Jewish leaders but is being hailed by US Catholics as the best recruiting tool for 2,000 years, reports Paul Harris in New York

One thing is certain though: the hype surrounding the film is going to ensure a box-office smash. Experts predict Gibson will recoup his $25m investment on the opening weekend alone.

And this one from The Scotsman by Rachel Zoll:

Faithful sell film with a passion

"When they attack him, they attack millions of people in America," said Jennifer Giroux, a Roman Catholic nurse from Cincinnati who created seethepassion.com "We have watched films concerning the Holocaust with compassion, concern and sorrow, and we just want to be able to watch this beautiful movie about our faith."

And this one from DallasNews.com by Jeffrey Weiss:

Passion or prejudice?
New movie about Jesus' death stirs anti-Semitism question

which features this great quotation from Dr. Leonard Swidler, professor of Catholic thought and interreligious dialogue at Temple University:

"What we know about Pilate otherwise is that the governor was a self-centered thug who would sell his mother on Sunday morning to get himself extra breakfast," he said. "He crucified scores of people at the drop of a turban."

This article by James Murrary is from The Australian is one of those nice review articles which goes through several Jesus films (with a predictable title):

Jesus Christ movie star

On past experience, Jesus films usually succeed, if only because there are enough believers to pack the cinemas. Experience also suggests that the reverential approach is preferred: Jesus the miraculous, the sentimental, the sensational, in an ancient landscape with Roman artefacts and gospel goodies and baddies.

The Passion of the Christ may prove too realistic for those who like their religion sugar-coated.

Finally, Jim West emails me to draw attention to a PAX TV one-hour special to air in the USA, "The making of 'The Passion of The Christ'" in advance of film's Feb. 25 premiere on Feb. 22 and Feb. 24 at 9 p.m. Eastern.

The behind-the-scenes look is meant to help viewers understand Gibson's vision for the film, and it will present never-before-seen footage of the actors and directors at work. The special also will feature on-set interviews of the cast and crew and stories of how the sets were created."

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Rubén Gómez has a new web site and a related blog that is likely to be of interest:

Bible Software Review

Bible Software Review Weblog

This corner of cyberspace will be devoted to bringing you all kinds of information about the ever-growing Bible software scene. Our goal (my goal!) is to build a fairly comprehensive repository of tips, news, articles, and reviews of different Bible software products.

The site can only really be viewed effectively in 1024x768. At present it's still being built but most of the Links section is active. Note: it looks like the blog does not yet have an RSS feed.

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The score for the The Passion of the Christ, composed by John Debney, will apparently be available from February 24. There are some excerpts available at one of the Passion of the Christ fan sites:

Passion of the Christ soundtrack excerpts

You can order from there, or click here for Amazon.

So whatever happened to the rumours that Lisa Gerrard was to score the film (Blogged on December 11 2003)? After this was apparently confirmed, it was then announced that John Debney was scoring the film and that Gerrard would be "co-scoring". But now Lisa Gerrard's name seems to have been removed altogether and the news item has been dropped from her web site. So what is the story here? Some interesting light is shed in the forum of Lisa Gerrard's site, in which Lisa's husband Jacek is a participant. He shows some real frustration with this project and states that "We have all worked VERY hard on the Passion", so much so that other projects have had to be sacrificed. He goes on, "I have VERY deep feeling about all this and is better I say nothing . . . . Not to mention that Patrick [co-writer Patrick Cassidy, MG] missed Christmas completely and his mother came to be with him from Eire . . . . we have worked TOOOOOO hard on this project!" He adds that "I just do not think any of LGs and PCs work will be in the final version of the film . . . ." Elsewhere in the forum, Jacek describes the film as a "masterpiece" and Mel Gibson as a "very good person" but the Debney score only as "good but not exceptional". He hints that the decision to go with Debney was not solely Gibson's choice and also that he "ran out of time to include the work that LG did".

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Web guru Peter Kirby (author of sites like Early Christian Writings and Gospel of Thomas Commentary) has another new project:

Open Scrolls Project

Kirby describes it like this: "This project will make the Dead Sea Scrolls available anywhere with an internet connection, at no cost, and with electronic searching potentiality. It is released under a "copyleft" agreement that allows it to be published on other web sites or even in printed books, so long as the reference to OpenScrolls.org is maintained." In other words, this ambitious project aims to make a completely fresh translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls available on the net since the publishers of existing versions will not allow reproduction. Whether it will be possible to maintain the quality control remains to be seen. One suggestion if it is to succeed would be to appoint a committee with appropriate credentials.

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I have followed Torrey Seland's example and added a "Comments" feature. So if you want to comment on a particular blog post, simply click on the "Comments" link that features at the end of each entry.

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I mentioned on Wednesday the report that Gibson was to cut the Matt. 27.25, "His blood be on us and on our children", from the film and that we were going round in circles on this one. Now the inevitable pull back on this story -- Reuters report that "A spokesman for the Hollywood star . . . . declined to comment on the report"; the spokesman is the publicist Alan Nierob:

Mel Gibson stays mum on "Passion" scene

Summary: It's in, it's out, it's in again, it's out, no comment.

This article from the Seattle Times argues that there is a "symbiotic and mutually beneficial" relationship between Mel Gibson, director of The Passion of the Christ and the ADL (Anti-Defamation League):

Anti-Defamation League plays into Gibson's hands
By David Klinghoffer

. . . . . So what did ADL think its relentless criticism of "The Passion" would accomplish? Gibson is the last person in all of Hollywood to bow to hostile pressure to edit his work. A news story this week suggested that the filmmaker may have cut an inflammatory verse from Matthew's Gospel — but this was due to reactions of friendly screening audiences, not thanks to the ADL, which continues to attack the film.

As the Seattle-based interfaith activist Rabbi Daniel Lapin observes, Gibson is the guy who made "Braveheart" and identifies with its hero, William Wallace, a 13th-century Scottish warrior who gladly accepts disembowelment rather than submit to intimidation and tyranny.

The ADL's national director, Abraham Foxman, genuinely cares about the Jewish people, but his group is inevitably affected by the pressures of funding a large, nonprofit organization. The imperative to convince donors that you fight an urgent fight is overwhelming. The ADL has a $40 million yearly budget to raise.

The perilous logic of the anti-defamation business demands that the ADL find "dangers" to denounce, even when those dangers, if left alone, would have been neutralized simply by their own nature — in this case, by the eccentricity of a Latin-Aramaic screenplay. Gibson's purposes positively required that he be denounced.

He played the ADL as William Wallace played the bagpipe. The relationship between anti-defamation watchdogs and alleged defamer is symbiotic and mutually beneficial. What dangers it has unleashed for the rest of us remain to be seen.

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In a recent review of The Gospel of John, S. T. Karnick comments that in Cecil B. De Mille's The King of Kings (1927) one can actually see what Jesus writes in the ground in the story of the woman taken in adultery in John 8. I asked whether anyone knew what Jesus wrote since I don't have a copy of the film. Correspondent Michael Stickland asked Sam Karnick, the author of the article, who responds

What happens in the DeMille film is that Jesus kneels down, and as each of the first few prominent persons approaches with a stone, he very casually writes in the sand a sin, such as "liar," "adulterer," "murderer," etc., and each Pharisee in turn drops the stone and leaves, as Jesus has exposed them as not being without sin and as hypocrites and deserving of being stoned themselves, by the [sic] own stated standards, the Law of Moses. (Of course, Jesus writes in Aramaic or Hebrew--I forget which--and intertitles translate for us.) It is a very powerful treatment, and for me a perfectly plausible understanding of the Biblical text."

I've now also had a look at Greatest Story Ever Told and Last Temptation of Christ but neither have Jesus writing in the ground.

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Those stories on The Passion of the Christ just keep coming. This one is from the Miami Herald:

Co-star Defends Mel Gibson Film
ALISON MUTLER
Associated Press

Maria Morgenstern plays Mary in the film (the mother of Jesus, not Magdalene) and she is the daugther of a holocaust survivor (see older blog entry on); here is an excerpt:

"When people go and see the film, they will (primarily) see a work of art," she said. Muslims, atheists, Christians and Jews worked on the film but race and religion were never an issue, said Morgenstern, 42, who is Jewish.

Any political message the film offers is "about the responsibility and impact political and military leaders can have in manipulating the masses and interfering in people's conscience, particularly at a moment of crisis as it was then," said Morgenstern.

"The Roman occupation was terrible and people were very poor. Pontius Pilate was very afraid that there could be a real revolution," she said, referring to the Roman governor of Judea who caved in the face of crowd pressure and allowed Jesus to be crucified"

For a break from all the frowning and earnestness on all sides, and a good laugh, have a look at this piece from the Toronto Star by Slinger:

It's the real thing: Vision of Mel (Gibson, that is)

But back to the serious business of the question of anti-semitism, I recently mentioned the ADL (Anti-Defamation League's) Letter to Mel Gibson. It seems now that they have received a reply:

Mel Gibson's Letter to Abraham H. Foxman

And Foxman has replied:

ADL Response to Mel Gibson

Copies of these are on the ADL web site (to which the previous links point) or you can go to a news article that discusses the correspondence here in JTA News:

Gibson, Foxman trade letters, but fail to find a common ground
By Tom Tugend

That article also mentions Matt. 27.25, "His blood be on us and on our children", which is spoken by Caiaphas in The Passion of the Christ but by the crowd in Matthew. Some months ago, it was reported that this scene had been dropped from the film. But then in the recent preview screenings, it appeared still to be there. Now it is apparently to be deleted again. Sometimes this feels like it is going round in circles; here's the article from the New York Times

Gibson to Delete a Scene in 'Passion'
By SHARON WAXMAN

A scene in the film, in which the Jewish high priest Caiaphas calls down a kind of curse on the Jewish people by declaring of the Crucifixion, "His blood be on us and on our children," will not be in the movie's final version, said the Gibson associate, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The passage had been included in some versions of the film that were shown before select groups, mostly of priests and ministers.

"It didn't work in the focus screenings," the associate said. "Maybe it was thought to be too hurtful, or taken not in the way it was intended. It has been used terribly over the years."

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As correspondent Helenann Hartley says, "Another day, another 'Passion of Christ' story!" This one is from BBC On-line and features some extracts from the forthcoming Readers Digest interview with Gibson:

'Faith' inspired Gibson's movie
Director Mel Gibson says a renewed interest in faith inspired his controversial film about Christ.

On the reawakening of his faith:

Part of my investigation was the reawakening of the faith I was raised in.

"So I began to explore in books, sermons and theologies. It's interesting that many of the critics think I just came out of a vacuum with this."

On his research:

"I have talked to literally thousands of learned and biblical scholars. I didn't make it up, you know."

This (happily) contrasts with earlier reports that had Gibson allegedly showing disdain for Biblical scholars. Nevertheless, note this rather stark comment to those who have problems with the film:

"They don't really have a problem with me if they have a problem with this film. They have a problem with the gospel, because it adheres pretty well to the gospel."

And on whether the pope did day "It is as it was", Mel Gibson's view seems pretty clear:

"Yes, Pope John Paul II saw it.

"His assistant related a comment that he made during the latter part of the film.

He said, 'It is as it was'. It sounds pretty Zen, doesn't it?"

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The Stanford Report has an article about Elaine Pagels who has been lecturing there recently:

Gospel of John aims to discredit evangel Thomas, scholar says
BY THERESA JOHNSTON

The article drastically oversimplifies (so that Athanasius is the big baddie who suddenly arrives to exclude books like Thomas from the canon) but there are some interesting quotations from Pagels, summarising her book; ana couple of excerpts:

In her latest best-selling book, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas, Pagels argues that whoever wrote the Gospel of John clearly was familiar with this Gospel of Thomas -- and thoroughly detested it. "What you're seeing when you read [John and Thomas] together is an intense, contentious ... I guess you could call it a conversation, but really it's more like an argument between different groups of the followers of Jesus," Pagels told her rapt Stanford listeners. "What they're arguing about is the question: Who is Jesus and what is the good news about him?" . . . .

. . . . . As if to underscore these differences, John alone among the evangelists paints Thomas as an ignorant, unauthorized, faithless disciple. Thomas is the only one of the original 12 (besides the betrayer Judas Iscariot) not present in the famous scene when Jesus reappears after his death, and because of this untimely absence, Jesus doesn't make Thomas an apostle like the others, Pagels said. "Furthermore, when the other disciples tell Thomas what happened, he stubbornly refuses to believe it."

It is not until Jesus appears in the locked room again eight days later and chastises Thomas for his lack of faith that the doubting man falls on his knees and proclaims Jesus as his Lord and God. "I think John wrote this scene with some satisfaction," Pagels added wryly, "to show that Thomas finally 'got it' and admitted he was wrong."

Labels: Elaine Pagels

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I was sorry to read today of the death of Donald Verseput on Monday. I never met him but have read several of his articles. This is the announcement from the Pioneer Press:

Donald Verseput was Bethel Seminary professor
BY CYNTHIA BOYD
Pioneer Press

Donald J. Verseput, a nationally known biblical scholar and New Testament professor at Bethel Seminary in Arden Hills, died Monday of cancer.

Seminary colleague Leland Eliason said Verseput, who lived in North Oaks, had "established himself as a superior New Testament scholar" and was elected to membership in the prestigious Studiorum Novi Testament Societas.

He was as passionate about his research as he was about teaching the next generation of preachers in the church, said Eliason, who is executive director and provost at Bethel Seminary.

Verseput, 51, had come to Bethel in 1998, receiving the Faculty Excellence Award in 1999-2000. He wrote numerous essays and articles and his work appeared in publications including New Testament Studies, Novum Testamentum, Journal of Biblical Literature and Catholic Biblical Quarterly.

A graduate of Wheaton (Ill.) College and Dallas (Texas) Theological Seminary, he went on to Basel, Switzerland, to complete an advanced degree. He also taught theology in Germany, South Africa, Deerfield, Ill., and Pasadena, Calif.

Visitation is from 4 to 8 p.m. Thursday at Holcomb-Henry-Boom Funeral Home at 515 W. Highway 96 in Shoreview. Funeral services will be held at 5:30 p.m. Friday at Benson Great Hall, on the Bethel College & Seminary Campus, with visitation before the service at 4 p.m.

He is survived by wife Laura, daughter Elisabeth, 18, and son, Timothy, 15.

Labels: Novum Testamentum

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This site has been referenced in some recent articles on The Passion of the Christ (e.g. in USA Today) and it's a well done piece from the Christian Scholars Group on Christian-Jewish Relations at Boston College:

Facts, Faith, and Film-Making: Jesus' Passion and Its Portrayal
A Study Guide for Viewers and Reviewers of Portrayals of Jesus' Passion

(Also available in PDF)

The site also has a page of Resources to help in Evaluating Portrayals of the Passion. Included there is a link to a useful short article on the Passion Narrative in the Gospels:

Ronald D. Witherup, "The Passion of Jesus" in Scripture from Scratch (St. Anthony Messenger Press, Feb. 2001)

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Recently out from Polebridge Press is the following:

Robert J. Miller, Born Divine: The Births of Jesus and Other Sons of God

In this compelling study of the birth and infancy of Jesus, Robert Miller separates fact from fiction in the gospel narratives and relates them to stories about the miraculous births of Israelite heroes and of Greek and Roman sons of God. Born Divine analyzes the Christian claim that the birth and childhood of Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecies. The historical and theological dimensions of the virgin birth tradition are discussed with honesty and insight. This wide-ranging book also presents additional infancy gospels from the second century through the Middle Ages.

Polebridge Press Paperback, 360 pages 2002 ISBN 0-944344-95-X

The link above takes you to the Westar site which also features an excerpt:

Did Jesus Fulfill Prophecy? Probing Matthew's Gospel

This also features apparently in The Fourth R Volume 16, 2 (March/April 2003). Also available is the following:

Free on-line study guide

The latter is only any use if you have the book (which I have not yet), i.e. it's not free-standing. See also: Amazon link here.

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I've added a link on the Historical Jesus: Books and Articles page to this fascinating article by John H. Elliott which challenges an emerging scholarly consensus:

John H. Elliott, “Jesus was not an egalitarian. A critique of an anachronistic and idealist theory”, Biblical Theology Bulletin 32/2 (2002): 75-91

I've also stripped out all the Bible Review and Biblical Archaeology Review articles on that page since it now seems clear that they are not going to return to the web. Shame.

Labels: Biblical Theology Bulletin

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A day does not go by without more on The Passion of the Christ; Icon productions must be delighted by the publicity it continues to get. Some of the latest stories to break include this one from the BBC (with thanks to Helenann Hartley for sending over):

Campaign against Gibson's Passion
Jewish and Christian groups have announced a lecture campaign after fearing Mel Gibson's upcoming film on Jesus could incite anti-Semitism

The Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee saw The Passion of the Christ, due out shortly, last week.

"It undermines the progress that we've made in this country toward mutual respect and religious pluralism," said Rabbi David Elcott.

Lectures, interfaith talks and other programmes will be held . . . .

The story reminded me to take a look at the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) web site which usually has up-to-date press releases. See the following:

ADL Screens Mel Gibson's "The Passion of The Christ" ; Says Film's Portrayal of Jews "Painful to Watch"

ADL Letter to Mel Gibson

The latter is actually pretty well written and on the whole avoids the temptation to use inflammatory language. It asks Gibson to add "a movie postscript with you coming on screen at the end to implore your viewers to not let the movie turn some toward a passion of hatred". The interesting thing is that it seems that Gibson has decided to add a postscript of a kind. Thanks to Jim West on Xtalk last Thursday for pointing this one out on WorldNetDaily:

Gibson adding pro-Jewish ending to 'Passion'?
Evangelical leader describes dramatic anti-Semitism discussion after screening

And see here, also in WorldNetDaily, which gives the full story from the horse's own mouth:

Mel Gibson agrees to change 'Passion' film to combat anti-Semitism
Mike Evans

I was recently invited to a special screening of "The Passion of the Christ" in Dallas to make recommendations regarding the film . . . . At the end of the screening, Mr. Gibson humbly asked if we felt the film could incite anti-Semitism and, if so, what could be done to avoid it.

I explained to Mr. Gibson that the Crucifixion story has been used by anti-Semites to feed and fuel Jew-hatred throughout history, and that anti-Semitism has risen throughout the world to levels not seen since the days of Hitler. I further stated that the film, in its present form, could incite violence against Jews in the former USSR, Muslim countries and Europe, and could even result in Jews being killed . . . .

. . . . . Mr. Gibson listened intently, hung his head, and was deeply moved. "What can I do," he asked? I responded, "When the last scene ends go to black, scroll these words across the screen: "During the Roman occupation, 250,000 Jews were crucified by the Romans, but only One rose from the dead."

"By doing this," I said, "instead of feeding Jew-hatred, you will be fighting it. You will be communicating the suffering of all Jews under Roman occupation. By simply inserting this statement, those who desire to use the film to incite hatred toward Jews will be deterred.

"Those who might use the movie to incite Jew-hatred would know that they would be doing just the opposite – challenging the evil myths (that Jews are cursed for crucifying Christ and are Christ-killers) taught throughout history, and still today. In addition, 'The Passion of the Christ' would be the first Jesus film produced to fight anti-Semitism by telling the true story of Jewish suffering during the time of Christ."

Mel Gibson became very excited, and said, "Perfect! I will do it. Yes, I will do it. I needed something for that spot anyway. This is it. I will do it. Thank you." . . . . .

I've not yet seen any comment on this very interesting development, official or otherwise, from the ADL or others.

Meanwhile, Paula Fredriksen, one of those who offered her opinion of an early script of the film last April in the incident that got the whole controversy underway, offers some fresh reflections though she has not yet seen the film. This is in the Christian Science Monitor but reproduced from The Responsive Community:

Controversial 'Passion' presents priceless opportunity for education
A toxic film delivers a dangerous, but teachable, moment
By Paula Fredriksen

And finally, IMDb now has a list of release dates for the film across the world:

Release Dates for The Passion of the Christ

Labels: Paula Fredriksen

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Some new NT related reviews on the SBL's Review of Biblical Literature:

Hovenden, Gerald
Speaking in Tongues: The New Testament Evidence in Context
Reviewed by David Miller

Miguel García, Jose
La Catequesis Más Consoladora de San Pablo: Las luminosas oscuridades de 1 Cor 15
Reviewed by Lloyd W. Rogers

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

Osborn, Grant
Revelation
Reviewed by Kevin W. Larson

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Torrey Seland has updated his Resource Pages in Biblical Studies; you can go straight to the list of updates here:

Latest Updates February 2004

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The Ancient / Classical History Blog draws attention to this page from one of the Passion of the Christ fan sites in Latin:

About The Passion in Latin
Passio est ecphrasis cinematograhica actuosa atque vivida, ostendens ultimas duodecim horas vitae Iesus Christus

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The latest edition of Explorator has been posted:

Explorator 6.40

As usual, there is plenty of interest, including on Biblical topics. I think most of the Biblical related ones have been covered either here or in Paleojudaica, but you might have missed them. One worth drawing attention to that features in both places is Paul Flesher on the alleged tampering with the James Ossuary.

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There's far too much around about The Passion of the Christ at the moment, especially for a film that hasn't been released yet, so it's nice to see a really glowing review of The Gospel of John on the National Review Online:

The Word, According to John
A Gospel on the silver screen.
By S. T. Karnick

The article has a useful run-through various Biblical epics and then talks about The Gospel of John which the author clearly loved:

Given the amount of talk involved, even for a three-hour film, one might expect The Gospel of John to come off as somewhat static and preachy, but it is not so at all. Saville uses a wide variety of cinematic techniques to keep things interesting. The camera moves about constantly, prowling through streets and passages, panning about, and shifting from one character to another, to give the viewer something interesting to look at while Plummer narrates. The visual tableaux are often quite beautiful, especially in the use of contrasts between light and shadow, but never in a way that distracts the audience from the story. In addition, the producers took great care to make the settings and costumes look as true to the time as possible, giving the film a new and interesting look. Even the soundtrack reflects this care, as the arranger included authentic recreations of instruments of the time.

In addition, Saville evoked an excellent performance from Henry Ian Cusick as Jesus Christ. Cusick presents the Christ as significantly more cheerful and self-assured than most such depictions have been. He smiles easily and often, and has a pleasant but strong demeanor and can be quite determined when that is appropriate. This makes his Christ rather less enigmatic than is usual for a screen depiction of Jesus, and it does not in any way decrease our reverence for him — the main point of John's Gospel, after all, is Christ's divinity. Given that emphasis, Cusick's and Saville's choice to show Jesus as a person who enjoys life and particularly enjoys serving God, his Father, in addition to being supernaturally wise, temperate, loving, and courageous, is exactly right . . . . .

. . . . . the film takes on the style of an A&E biographical documentary: A narrator tells the story, and actors clad in period costume reenact the events in settings as realistic as the producers can afford (which in this case, as mentioned earlier, are very persuasive indeed). The camera moves about the settings while Plummer articulates the Gospel text, just as the shot in a TV documentary pans across a still photo to create some sense of movement while the narrator describes the events it shows. Black-and-white flashbacks are also used to good effect here, tying the narrative strands together visually as Plummer recites the text.

Good analogy -- it does have that feel. I haven't finished watching yet, but at this stage I'm a little less enthusiastic about Christopher Plummer's narration which is surprisingly wooden and sometimes intrusive. I'd have liked to have seen more imaginative use sometimes of the ambiguities over narration / dialogue / monologue in the film, e.g. as soon as the narrative reaches John 3.16, Christopher Plummer's narration comes muscling in with "For God so loved the world . . ." And elsewhere Plummer gives us the crowd's thoughts rather than the words being put in the mouths of members of the crowd. But these are niggles; it's a joyous outing so far (I'm up to Chapter 8 now). I agree with Karnick about the flow of the narrative, the use of black-and-white flash backs and so on.

Karnick comments that in Cecil B. de Mille's The King of Kings (1927), one can actually see what Jesus writes in the ground in the story of the woman taken in adultery in John 8. Since I don't have a copy of the film (I should get one), I don't know what he writes. Does anyone happen to know? Are there any other Jesus films where we can see what Jesus writes? I can't think of any. He doesn't write at all in this scene in Last Temptation. In The Gospel of John it's not easy to see what he is writing -- it looks like some kind of symbol.

Another review from a week ago from The Wichita Eagle:

'Gospel' brings the Bible to life
BY LAWRENCE TOPPMAN

Interesting conclusion -- something I'd been thinking about:

The film is fortunate in its casting, which borrows mostly from British television and theater. Daniel Kash is an impetuous Simon Peter, Stuart Bunce an observant John, Scott Handy a wild-eyed yet tender John the Baptist.

Yet this lily-white casting is also the main awkward element. Brown, black and olive-skinned extras abound, yet all Christ's close friends are Caucasians. In a movie that strives for fidelity to the story from which it springs, couldn't we have more honesty about the people who lived 2,000 years ago in the Middle East?

Labels: Visual Bible

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There's a nice article in this week's Spectator about Sunday; Matthew Parris thinks he might have produced "the definitive analysis of the problem about Sundays":

The question that just won’t go away: is Sunday this week or next week?
Matthew Parris

So my editor was right. For the Creationist, Saturday being the Sabbath, the new week must start on Sunday. The Bible confirms this. Matthew xxviii 1: ‘In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.’ Dozens of New Testament references suggest the same convention. The early Palestinian Church followed it.

I'm not sure about "dozens"; nor am I sure about this:

So why did Christianity depart from the convention? Why did we not designate Saturday as our Day of Rest, and Friday and Saturday as our weekend?

As so often, St Paul seems to be the problem. In his arbitrary way, Paul started talking as though the Early Christian Holy Day had been switched from the Sabbath to the following day. He did not say why, but we can be pretty sure he was not relying on anything Christ said, or he would have cited Him. It is a fair assumption that Jesus, a good Jew, observed Saturday as His Holy Day. Paul was vague, however. The first text explicitly to mention Sunday worship is Justin’s First Apology, c. ad 150.

"As so often", Paul is cited as "the problem" without any corroborating evidence. Jesus is cited as "a good Jew" but Paul not. It's interesting just how easy it is in the journalistic world to blame Paul for everything. But then Parris also wants to "stop people with doctorates calling themselves doctors", so what would I know?

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Another article has been placed on line by Christian History, who release their print articles incrementally over the weeks:

Opponents of Allegory
The scholars at Antioch rejected allegory in favor of history. But their interpretive method led some into heresy
by Steven Gertz

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Roberta Allen has sent over a link to this on-line book of c. 100,000 words in PDF files on John's Gospel. The author received a First Class honours degree in Theology from Westminster College, Oxford. I have not had the chance to read the book yet and in linking to it here I am going on initial impressions that it is worth looking at. So by all means send me any feedback on this:

Interpreting the Interpreter: Intertextual Midrash in John's Gospel 1- 4
Roberta Allen

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Jeff Peterson sent over this delightful piece from the Catholic World News

Post-It notes from the papal kitchen

It focuses on the pope's alleged opinion of some soup he had for dinner one night, in a series of emails beginning with "The boss said the soup was good. Nice work" through "Still hearing from all sides about your famous bouillabaise. You should chisel the word "Good!" on the plinth above your stove" to "The claim that he would have intended the word "good" in a positive sense is preposterous prima facie and does not merit credibility. A memorandum indicating the contrary that purports to have been issued from my office is a transparent forgery" and so on. Well worth a read.

This parodies the debate of a week or so ago of whether the pope did or did not say "It is as it was" about The Passion of the Christ. That story and the surrounding issues still have not gone away. One of the latest and most thorough pieces is here in yesterday's National Catholic Reporter which brings us up to date on the controversy:

Pope on Gibson movie: Was it as it was?
Sifting through spin and Vatican speak
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

It explains the situation from the beginning to now in the best way I've seen yet and it has the following conclusion which resonates with British readers in the week of Hutton:

Where does all this leave us?

No one can have ironclad certainty about what the pope said. Based on Navarro’s Jan. 22 statement, it is possible that the pope said something like “It is as it was,” but intended this as a private reaction. My original source continues to insist this is the case. On the other hand, there is no clear confirmation of the remark.

No one comes out of this mess looking good.

The makers of the film have been widely accused of either lying about the pope’s comment, or abusing John Paul’s confidence by publicizing a private remark. If either of those charges is true it would be reprehensible, but if not, their reputation has been done a serious injustice.

Reporters, myself certainly included, look like naifs who have been spun every which way, or worse yet, like willing partners in someone’s dishonesty. If nothing else, it’s a wake-up call about the dangers of reliance on anonymous sources, a fact of reporting life in the Vatican. Officials here rarely speak on the record, so those of us who cover the Vatican are constantly dealing with unnamed sources. This incident undoubtedly has raised the bar on caution for all of us.

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I've scrapped the previous blog email address since it is getting so furiously spammed that there have been occasions when I have accidentally missed the odd authentic email. I'm trying something different, a bloglines email address that one can repeatedly change so as to run away from the spam. The only unfortunate thing is that it is unmemorable, so you'll have to go to "Click here to send email" which appears on the main page at the top, or in the header information if you are reading in an aggregator.

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Since Blogger began to provide xml site feeds to enable their blogs to be read in an aggregator / blog reader, I have been looking for a good blog reader (see previous blog entry). Newsmonster I still cannot even persuade to install and Bottom Feeder has problems with the Blogger xml feeds and messes up any entry featuring links, especially adjacent links. My next attempt has been with Macromedia Central which features a nice looking Blog Reader. At first I thought that this was my solution. It looks good and it has no trouble representing the blogger xml site feeds neatly. But it seems that there are problems with this too. There's lots of other rubbish packaged in with it -- movie finders, weather finders etc., and all USA-based. It's very patchy in what it seems able to fetch from the blogs I want to read and it's "refresh" button doesn't appear to do anything. It's also not versatile enough. What I like about Bottom Feeder, if only it rendered the xml feeds intelligibly, is its versatility within given blogs and blog entries. My guess is that most of my readers simply read on the web since I've not had any feedback on this topic.

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There's a fine article in today's New York Times on Jesus films, triggered of course by The Passion of the Christ:

Enraged Filmgoers: The Wages of Faith?
By A. O. SCOTT

The obvious thing to say about the skirmishes over "Passion," which will either subside or intensify once the movie opens nationally on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 25, is that, since those earlier dust-ups, the sides have reversed. The conservative Christians who were so vocal in their condemnation of Mr. Godard, Mr. Smith and, especially, Mr. Scorsese, are now equally vocal in their defense of Mr. Gibson. An ugly undercurrent of anti-Semitism ran through some of the attacks on those supposedly sacrilegious movies, directed not at the filmmakers, none of whom were Jewish, but at the producers and studio heads who have periodically served as convenient targets for conspiracy-minded demagogues. Similar insinuations bubble beneath the surface of some of the defenses of Mr. Gibson's reportedly pious picture, which is itself accused of fomenting anti-Semitism by placing the blame for Jesus' death on the Jews.

This reversal is testimony both to the endlessness of the culture wars and to the changed landscape of battle. Those Catholics and evangelical Protestants who felt alienated from much of American commercial culture and who informed the earlier protests, have not only a powerful and glamorous Hollywood ally in Mr. Gibson but also a growing sense of cultural and political confidence. More and more it seems that religious expression — in the form of best-selling thrillers, pop music, movies and television programs — is entering the mainstream.

The article discusses Ben Hur, The Robe, King of Kings and how about this for a characterisation of The Greatest Story Ever Told?

In that film, Jesus, played by the young Max von Sydow, wanders through a Holy Land that resembles nothing so much as an endless showbiz talk show, populated by the likes of Shelley Winters, Telly Savalas and John Wayne, temporarily exchanging his cavalry badge for centurion's armor.

The article focuses specially on Last Temptation of Christ and Pasolini's The Gospel According to St Matthew, both of which the author obviously admires.

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Rochelle Altman on Ioudaios points to a really scathing article on The Passion of the Christ in Salon.com:

Inside Mel Gibson's "Passion"
A clergyman infiltrates the grass-roots campaign for Gibson's new Gospel film to catch a screening and reports that Jews, Arabs -- and Christians -- should be worried.
By Cintra Wilson

The author has interviewed Rev. Mark Stanger, "canon precentor and associate pastor of San Francisco's premier mainstream Episcopalian church" who has seen the film and clearly hated everything about it. Much of the article is patently absurd, e.g. the claim that it is somehow anti-Arab on the grounds that Aramaic sounds a bit like Arabic:

Anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim. Some of those words in Aramaic sound a little bit like Arabic -- Arabic is a Semitic language too. [In the film, it came off like] nasty foreigners were doing this thing to our beautiful Jesus. So when Mel Gibson said in the interview that the reason for the other languages was to highlight the brutality, that kind of freaked me out.

I'm sure I don't need to point out the weaknesses in this! Much of the rest of the article is in the same vein and is pretty useless. But there were two elements of interest to me. One was a link to a site all about The Passion Outreach which features a short interview with James Caviezel (two and a half minutes). The other was the dismaying news that it seems Mel Gibson is still caricaturing Biblical scholarship:

Mel Gibson in his remarks after the film took a potshot at contemporary biblical scholarship -- he called scholars "revisionists" who think the gospel writers had agendas.

We need to add the rider that this is only a reported impression in an often silly article, but if it is accurate I think it a shame that this line is still being taken. The idea that opposition to this film comes from contemporary liberal Biblical scholars who do not want the Bible story retold is nonsense, especially in the light of The Gospel of John, which used several Biblical scholars of "liberal" leaning and otherwise, including Christians and Jews, and which is a literal word-for-word retelling of the Gospel of John, of all the Gospels the one most open to charges about anti-Judaism. It may well turn out that there is nothing to worry about over The Passion of the Christ, but if there is it will not be because it is somehow too close to the Passion Narratives of any or all of the canonical Gospels.

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It turns out that not only were Foxman and Bretton-Granatoor present at the Global Pastors' Network preview screening of The Passion of the Christ last week, but so too was John Dominic Crossan. Crossan does not comment on the content of the film, but is critical of the secrecy surrounding it in this article on BeliefNet:

'Something Between Cover-up and Censorship'
A leading Bible scholar reacts to the secrecy surrounding an advance screening of 'The Passion'
John Dominic Crossan

Also included is a scan of the confidentiality agreement they had to sign.

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David Meadows comments on the inter-blog discussion about megasites between Torrey Seland, Jim Davila, Stephen Carlson and me (what he calls the "biblioblogs"):

Maybe a Rant ... Megasites, Blogs, and Classics

There are some useful reflections here from the overlapping but different perspective in Classics. I haven't time to comment at the moment but will return to this later.

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I mentioned recently that there is now a site feed available for this blog. Let me fill in a little more detail if you are unfamiliar with this. If you are in the habit of reading this blog and several others, you can access them from one place using an "aggregator" or "newsreader". Up until recently blogger, which powers this blog, did not provide the site feeds that are necessary to make reading in an aggregator possible. But that has now changed. Now blogger automatically generate a site feed in XML so that you can use the aggregators, newsreaders and so on and pick them up. The name given to this site feed is "Atom". Read more about atom here:

What is Atom?

I've only recently got into this game myself and so far with only mixed results. First, what newsreader or aggregator does one use? Newsmonster comes highly recommended but I can't get past first base on this -- I've downloaded the programme but it will not install. If anyone has any suggestions on that, I'd be grateful. Several of the others require one to part with money; one that doesn't is BottomFeeder. I found this straightforward to download, install and begin to use, but there's a problem with it -- the site feeds from blogger based sites don't represent properly in the content window (mine, Paleojudaica, Hypotyposeis, etc.). It seems especially not to like links. So while one can monitor the appearance of new posts in one's favourite blogs, one still has to open in one's browser. On the other hand, non-blogger based feeds seem to work fine, e.g. AKMA's. So if anyone has any bright ideas on how this could be fixed, I'd be interested to hear them.

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If you've been following the news stories surrounding The Passion of the Christ, you will be familiar with the name Abraham Foxman, one of the critics of the early script of the film and at the centre of the anti-Semitic charge. Up until the weekend he had not been able to get to see the film and finally sneaked in to see it with a group of Christian pastors in Florida. There are lots of stories on the net about this, but this article in PalmBeachPost.com is written by Foxman (along with Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor) and gives their current thinking:

'Passion' relies on theme of anti-Semitism

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This article by Steve Gertig in The Gateway (The University of Nebraska at Omaha's Student Newspaper) advertises an academic symposium on issues arising from The Passion of the Christ:

UNO, Creighton to host Mel Gibson's Passion symposium

UNO and Creighton University will host a symposium on the movie The Passion of the Christ, to discuss the movie's meaning Thursday . . . . Bill Blizek, a professor of philosophy at UNO and editor of the Journal of Religion and Film, is the organizer of the event. He said that UNO and Creighton felt the need to have the forum because it is a "powerful movie" and has a famous director. Blizek said "Mel Gibson felt moved to make the movie."

There is also news that "If you can't make it, UNO's Journal of Religion and Film and Creighton's Journal of Religion and Society will have transcripts on their respective Web sites. Indeed if you hop over to the Journal of Religion and Film, it has a full programme in PDF:

Exploring Mel Gibson's 'The Passion of the Christ'

There are some very interesting looking papers.

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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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