Gratitude for those who engage the Da Vinci Code

I don't think I have anything of interest to contribute to the discussion of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. I have not read the book and have absolutely no intention of doing so; it's just so far down my list of fiction that I'd like to read that I can't imagine ever being in the position to find the time to read it. On occasions like this, I tend to be quite grateful when a film comes out because then I only need to waste a couple of hours on something that someone with a better imagination than me has read and converted into a film for me. And I just love the cinema. My guess is that on this occasion I won't get round to going to see the film, though, because the reviews are not positive and a certain perverse desire to miss the big event kicks in. It was nice to be able to say to one of the dads at my kids' school this morning that I was not planning to go and see it.

I am not particularly proud of that perverse desire to stand outside of the big cultural event (if you can call it that), though, because I think it's fantastic that so many of my colleagues in the guild have taken the time not only to read the book but to engage the historical claims made in it. In other words, I am really grateful to those like Bart Ehrman who have provided an interested public with some proper history, not least because it is always so important that we take seriously our task to communicate the methods, results and conclusions of our scholarship to a wide public.

This is the biggest pop cultural event relating to early Christian history since the release of The Passion of the Christ just over two years ago. It has been interesting on this occasion to be on completely the other side of the fence. On that occasion, I couldn't get enough of it, the film, the media buzz, the scholarly reaction and over-reaction, as this blog testified. Goodness, I even went out of my way to sneak into a vicars-only preview screening. My interest at the time eventually let to an article on it, and I have another one in preparation. The difference for me was that I have always been fascinated by Jesus films, and the prospect of a new one was very exciting; I was the same about The Miracle Maker in 1999 and will be the same about future ones, good, bad and ugly. So getting stuck in, blogging about it, writing about it, etc., was never difficult. This makes me all the more impressed with those of my colleagues who have engaged the Da Vinci Code since few, if any, have any kind of love for the genre or for this specific piece. So this is a public thank you from a representative of those who did not have the energy to engage this book.

Review of Biblical Literature

Latest from the SBL Review of Biblical Literature under the NT heading:

Harrill, J. Albert
Slaves in the New Testament: Literary, Social, and Moral Dimensions
Reviewed by Bruce Malina

Harrill, J. Albert
Slaves in the New Testament: Literary, Social, and Moral Dimensions
Reviewed by John Pilch

Hornik, Heidi J. and Mikeal C. Parsons
Illuminating Luke: The Public Ministry of Christ in Italian Renaissance and Baroque Painting
Reviewed by Deborah Prince

Hornik, Heidi J. and Mikeal C. Parsons
Illuminating Luke: The Public Ministry of Christ in Italian Renaissance and Baroque Painting
Reviewed by Hendrik Stander

Smalley, Stephen S.
The Revelation to John: A Commentary on the Greek Text of the Apocalypse
Reviewed by Chris Smith

Kloppenborg reviews Questioning Q

Thanks to Ken Olson for alerting me to this review of a book I co-edited with Nicholas Perrin:

Questioning Q: A Multidimensional Critique
Biblical Theology Bulletin, Spring, 2006 by John S. Kloppenborg

The above link is to Look Smart's Find Articles reproduction (or try Print Friendly version); see also High Beam Research.

The review is an encouraging one, e.g. "Each of the essays is carefully and thoughtfully argued and deserves a prominent place on reading lists on the synoptic problem" and "On the whole, however, Questioning Q is an excellent example of balanced and thoughtful synoptic scholarship." Kloppenborg is most critical about N. T. Wright's foreword, described as "the only blemish on an otherwise valuable volume," which "invents a silly 'myth'--the combination of heresy and American pop culture--which, he claims, has gripped scholars who write on Q." Kloppenborg goes through each essay in turn, summarises and makes a brief comment. I will leave my fellow contributors to make their own comments (here, should they wish) and will limit my own thoughts to what Kloppenborg says about my own piece, "When is a Text not a Text? The Quasi Text-Critical Approach of the International Q Project":

More disappointing is Mark Goodacre's critique of the models adopted by the International Q Project for reconstructing Q. Goodacre rightly notes that two models are in use: an (earlier) papyrological' model, which imagined "minimal Q" as a tattered papyrus that Matthew and Luke each restored, and restored differently; and a "text-critical" model, which understands the task of reconstructing Q on the analog of text criticism, reconstructing a now-lost Urtext that accounts for later manuscript developments. Goodacre objects to the text-critical model, arguing that a source critical model ought to have been adopted. But Goodacre misunderstands what the models are: they are metaphors, not descriptions of the IQP's procedures, which required the organization of huge bodies of data (scholarly opinion on the reconstruction of Q since 1863), using the analogy of critical editions of the New Testament, which organize manuscript variations around variation points. Goodacre's real objection is that the IQP should have written a book entitled "The Sources of Luke."

The comment is a little surprising given that I repeatedly use the word "analogy" to describe what is going on (ad nauseam on 119-20) and never construe the models as "descriptions of the IQP's procedures". One of the key points is to ask what the most appropriate analogies for the enterprise are, and I am attempting to argue that the dominant use of these text-critical models leads the IQP to construe their work in a particular way, which causes them (ironically) to ignore key textual evidence, to avoid engagement with competing source theories and to use a rhetoric more appropriate dealing with extant texts. It is a question of one's choice of natural dialogue partners.

But speaking of dialogue partners, I should add that Kloppenborg exemplifies the best in synoptic scholarship in always listening to and engaging intelligently with opponents, and producing some incisive and helpful critique.

Andrew Lincoln on John

Thanks to Ken Olson for alerting me to this one. As regular readers will know, I am a fan of publishers providing sample chapters of their authors' books on-line, and Hendrickson have often led the way on this, including here:

The Gospel According to St John
Andrew Lincoln

Black's New Testament Commentary, Volume 4
Price: $29.95
Size: 5.5 x 8.5 inches
Binding: cloth
Pages: 592
Pub Date: 2005
Volumes in Series: 19
ISBN: 1565634012

“In the solid tradition of what we have come to expect from a Black commentary, Lincoln has distilled and made thoroughly accessible a wealth of contemporary scholarship.

Lincoln’s introduction is a series of crystal clear essays giving balanced approaches to key Johannine issues. For example, he gives a lucid analysis of the place of Jesus in the narrative of this ancient biography; he brings common sense and clarity to the issue of authorship and the identify of the Beloved disciple; there is a penetrating analysis of the Christology of the Fourth Gospel that touches on much that is theologically significant in the gospel. Also, Lincoln deals forthrightly and sensitively with the Gospel’s frequent apparent hostility to the Jews. Readers along the whole theological spectrum will benefit from the masterly and realistic discussion of historicity and truth.

Relying on his own translation which is refreshing, often to the point of startling, the commentary focuses on the theological dimension of the final author’s message to the particular first-century CE readers. However, never far from view are the historical and social factors that are important in any adequate explanation of this text. Also, the commentary bears the fruit of having been written over a time in which Lincoln came to be persuaded that John knew the synoptics.

There may be many commentaries on the Fourth Gospel on the shelves of scholars but this one will quickly earn a place open on the desk of both scholars and preachers.”
—Graham H. Twelftree, Regent University

The PDFs are Table of Contents, Introduction and Sample Chapter.

Meier's Unpapal Conclave Experiment and the Scholarly Task

On my return to blogland after the end of semester rush (I was always jealous of American academics finishing in mid May and now I'm one of them!), I am interested to see Loren Rosson's writing up of an interesting experiment based on John P. Meier's vision of an "unpapal conclave" of scholars engaging in historical Jesus research. Loren's real life experiment was in some ways more ambitious than Meier's hypothetical one and in some ways less so. He was more ambitious by inviting people from a broader range of differing perspectives and in getting these real people to vote on a variety of issues. He was inevitably less ambitious in not having his protagonists engaging in vigorous debate first. They cut to the chase and voted. Here are the relevant posts on The Busybody:

Meier's Unpapal Conclave: An Experiment (I)

Meier's Unpapal Conclave: An Experiment (II)

Meier's Unpapal Conclave (III)

I have a comment and a related suggestion. My comment relates to the way that the experiment is described:

The point of this experiment is to find out if Meier's idea has merit, and whether or not common ground can be found in a group like this. Reason being, any points of consensus reached among people this diverse would stand a good chance of being objectively true.

I understand the idea and sympathize with the attempt, but it does not quite get to what I regard as the (potential) strength of Meier's vision. Let me try to explain.

One of the merits, as I see it, of Meier's idea is that it reminds us of the fundamental task of scholarship, a task that should not be about the attempt to persuade like-minded colleagues who share our own prejudices and presuppositions (which is apologetics) but a rigorous and honest enterprise to engage with others who do not share our own prejudices and presuppositions, and so to have our own preconceived positions (and theirs) challenged. This is one of the reasons that I like to stress the importance of the public, democratic nature of scholarship. It is publicly available evidence and publicly coherent arguments. By publicly available evidence, I mean that it is never admissable to use private revelation in scholarship ("God told me that it was this way"; "it's common sense that it was this way"). By publicly coherent arguments, I mean that the argument you make should be articulated in such a way that you are not primarily attempting to persuade those who share your own views. You are always paying special attention to those who do not share your own perspective. Scholarship should not be self-indulgent. It should not be used as an opportunity to proselytize. It should be self-effacing, paying attention to the dialogue partner's concerns and addressing them seriously.

With all that in mind, it seems to me that the strength of the Meier vision is not about the possibility of finding consensus, or of looking for common ground. It is rather about the way in which we can aspire to the most rigorous, the most honest kind of scholarship, about how people from all perspectives can avoid lapsing into apologetics . The difficulty is that many do not take the scholarly task sufficiently seriously, and Meier's vision allows one to find some help with taking it seriously. For me, it is about saying: I am going to imagine myself into a situation in which I am engaging directly with those with radically different presuppositions, and this imaginative task will help me to keep my scholarship honest. I like the term "vision" that Loren uses, and I don't recall if Meier himself uses that term.

Let me throw in too that one of the reasons that teaching is so essential to good research is that one has to use those publicly coherent arguments in the presence of groups of people from different perspectives. Good teaching is always about engaging with students and never about proselytizing.

Here is my suggestion, for what it is worth. I notice that several of the punters involved in Loren's experiment are big names in the world of e-lists. So how about a bigger version of the experiment in which some engagement actually takes place between them, with attempts to work towards emerging consensus in discussion rather than in voting without discussion? After all, it is not as if we are dealing with the kind of scholar who camps a long way from the world of internet discussion. And I would have thought that the Xtalk e-list would be the obvious place to try it.

Update (Tuesday, 10.01): Ed Cook criticizes my use of the term "apologetics" above. I apologize and withdraw the use of that term. What I am looking for is a term that describes the use of scholarship solely to defend a point of view that has already been reached on prior, non-scholarly grounds.

Update (Tuesday, 12.25): Loren Rosson comments on my post in The Busybody. I agree with pretty much all of what Loren writes. Apparently the protagonists in Loren's experiment are debating their votes on Chris Weimer's Ancient Mediterranean Cultures, a forum that is new to me (but I am very behind). Loren writes:

But I think good scholarship should be about that anyway: unapologetic, democratic, public, and learning from everyone, regardless of the other's faith (or faithless) perspective. What Meier has been doing in the Marginal Jew series, however, is more specific than this. In no small part because he is writing for the Anchor Bible Reference Library -- which makes the series different from the many autonomous works on the historical Jesus, as he sees it (see p 1 of Vol II) -- he seeks a portrait of Jesus derived from a diverse group of people who have been imaginatively "locked in the bowels of Harvard Divinity School, put on a spartan diet, and not allowed to emerge until they had hammered out a consensus document on who Jesus was and what he intended in his own time and place" (p 1, Vol 1). Meier's project is certainly about finding consensus -- or at least, about finding consensus wherever possible.

Right, but I think that Meier's vision is more interesting in its potential than in the simple attempt to hammer out consensus. What I find interesting about it is that it provides an actual practical means for scholars to try to avoid the inevitable self-indulgent impulse to look for verification of one's prior perspectives, rather than to look at ways that they can be tested and challenged. Because so much scholarship is done in isolation (I am sitting alone as I write, with just the cats to keep me company while I am putting the finishing touches to an article on the Crucifixion Narrative in Mark), scholars need checks and balances to help them avoid using their scholarship as a means of massaging their prejudices.

Update (Friday, 11.38): James Crossley comments in Earliest Christian History (with further engagement with Christopher Shell in the comments section):

I think that is right but one qualification needs to be added, namely that the intellectual make up of the discipline prevents this from happening at the moment. It is overwhelmingly and unsurprisingly of course Christian dominated and more and more questions could be raised with more and more perspectives. This is why the conclave is an honourable dream and could potentially throw up some interesting results. But in one sense it remains a dream because in reality NT scholarship just cannot function in the way hoped for if it remains a Christian dominated discipline or better a discipline where the overwhelming majority of his participants are Christian.

This is a good point, but let me add that the advantage, as I see it, of thinking through the Meier vision is that it has the potential to help us all to keep our scholarship rigorous and honest by encouraging us to conceptualize our audience not as the like-minded and easily persuaded but as different and sceptical. Let me try to illustrate. I am a Christian but I would regard it as a failure of my scholarship on a given point if someone were to say, "Well, he would say that" rather than to judge the particular point at issue on its merits. The same is true, for example, of an atheist, where the reaction "Well, s/he would say that" would be a disappointing one, and might well show that the scholar in question has not made a sufficiently compelling argument. Let me add that given the fact that NT studies is indeed "a Christian dominated discipline" should lead us all the more to make sure that those of us in that majority are not just engaging in a dialogue among ourselves. This is what I mean about publicly available evidence and publicly coherent argumentation -- scholarship takes place in an arena that should not unfairly privilege certain perspectives and presuppositions. Ultimately, this is what I was trying to say above when I faltingly brought the terminology of "apologetics" into play, and let me try to reconceptualize things like this: whereas scholarship is fundamentally democratic, and can be engaged in by all, apologetics is necessarily privileged -- it it only be practised, of course, by those who come from a particular perspective and who speak a particular language.

A Brit at Duke: Reflections of an Alien Professor

It is Duke Graduation Weekend. Earlier today, I took a break from swimming and sitting by the pool with my family to drive in to Duke to attend a Graduation weekend reception on the East Campus lawn, at which I had been asked to be a "host". To be asked to be a host, a number of seniors (= graduating students) have to have put your name forward as someone they'd like to be there, who could meet their parents and so on, so it is a kind of an honour, though I have no idea of how many of my colleagues were also invited but declined. I was one of only two present from the Department of Religion. To be a host means to hover around the table of your general section, in my case "Humanities". Other tables included "Professional Schools", "Natural Sciences" and so on. You then meet and greet those you know, or those you don't know (far more of the latter in my case). The event is what we would call in England a "garden party", a tea-time outdoor summer event, where people are smartly dressed, a band is playing, and good buffet style food is eaten. The main difference from the British garden party here was that there was no alcohol served, no champagne, no pimms, no wine. And I must admit that it does change the feel of the event somewhat. One glass of pimms really would have set off the whole event perfectly, and I can't imagine a similar event in the UK going off without a nice glass of something. I suppose that this shows the extent to which Duke is in the puritan south and still influenced by its past. I wonder if other American universities are dry on such occasions?

Nevertheless, and in spite of the absence of a celebratory drink, one of the great things about Duke, and no doubt this is typical of the American university, is that a great deal is made of graduating. The very fact that an entire weekend is devoted to this is, to me, delightful if not surprising. In the UK, we are used to seeing American TV and films where leaving school at eighteen ("High School") is even dignified with the term "graduation", and mortar boards are warn, and massive ceremonies are held. It's a big contrast with the UK, where we just slink off home at the end of sixth form (Ages 16-18), perhaps going for a celebratory drink in the pub on the way home, but no more than that. So it's little surprise that after four years of learning at elite institutions like Duke, graduation gets marked with a whole weekend of activities.

Let me provide a little more context still. At British universities, it is common for students to miss their graduation ceremonies altogether, and to collect their degrees in absentia. It's common for academic staff (= what Americans call "faculty") to avoid graduation ceremonies too, and when I once asked a colleague in Birmingham why he avoided them, he told me that he did not like "pomp" and that he had missed his own graduation, even for his doctorate. And a little more context too: there is a horrible time lag between finishing your degree in the UK and graduating, and it is one of the things that effectively discourages people from going to their own graduation -- they are usually returning to their university; they are not still in residence. In Birmingham, you will have finished your finals by the end of May but you won't have your graduation ceremony until the middle of July. Indeed, you won't get your results until mid June. Worse still if you are in Oxford. Graduation is not automatic. You have to make an appointment, and unless you organize it carefully, you won't be graduating with anyone you actually know. I graduated from my BA a good year after completing, and the only person I recognized at the event was one of my favourite tutors, Canon John Fenton of Christ Church. (And bear in mind that the entire ceremony is in Latin). I made up for this a little when graduating for my MA, MPhil and DPhil (all in one ceremony) and organized it so that several of my best friends were graduating the same day, returning to Oxford to pick up their MAs -- a very happy occasion.

I suppose that what I am saying is that there is a lot that I love about the British university system, but graduation is one thing the Americans do really well, and we Brits would do well to learn a bit more about the importance of ritual and the public celebration of good achievement. It is a truism that graduation ceremonies are more for the parents of graduands than for the graduands themselves, yet that is why the public celebration of academic achievement is so important, because the parents are those who have partaken in that achievement and are in many ways responsible for it, perhaps through emotional support, almost certainly through financial support. Those of you Brits who don't attend your own graduation ceremonies, what are you thinking? Here is a chance to celebrate your achievements, to reflect together with your colleagues, in front of your teachers and your parents, in the university that has been your home for several years.

The reason my mind is turning to these things is that later today, I drive in to Duke again to attend another element in this Graduation Weekend. It seems that as well as the outdoor receptions and the big official graduation ceremonies (which are held in great sports stadiums seating thousands!), each department also holds its own celebration for its majors. As the new kid on the block, I have been asked to share a few words at our Religion graduation ceremony tomorrow. To be honest, it is quite a daunting task. I tend to think that it is easier to speak in public when you know what to expect, when you know the nature of the audience and the feel of the occasion. But what I do know about the event tomorrow is that there will be a lot of good feeling, and there will be a lot of (the right kind of) pride in the audience. And to speak to that kind of occasion should be a pleasure. I have taken as my theme the title to this post, "A Brit at Duke: Reflections of an Alien Professor", and I will speak for about ten minutes.

The fact that not long before the ceremony, I will be trying to catch a little of the Test Match from England on Willow TV over my broadband connection, will instantly tell you the unfortunate truth that after eight months in the US, I've not become completely like the natives. But I am making some important progress:

• By accident, I used the term "soccer" with reference to what we (and, let's face it, almost all the rest of the world) call "football" last week.


• I can now talk about "grading papers", rather than "marking" them, almost naturally.


• I have only occasionally driven on the left hand side of the road by mistake, and have not yet been unfortunate enough to meet someone coming straight towards me.


• I now understand that the correct pronunciation of "LA-Z-BOY" is "La-zee-boy", "Maths" is "Math", "aluminium" is "aluminum", a "bonnet" is a "hood", a "boot" is a "trunk", "revision" is "review", "biscuits" are "cookies", "scons" are "biscuits", the "pavement" is the "sidewalk", but the road is made of "pavement". "Trousers" are called "pants", and "pants" are . . . ?


• I love jerky, root beer, hush puppies, corn bread and a thing called "barbecue", but I still prefer a good old-fashioned cup of English tea made in a pot with boiling water over against this extraordinary sweet drink called "iced tea".

Please bear with me, I have only been here a few months.

But these few months have given me the chance to reflect on what is different about the university at which I am now privileged to work. On a personal level, it still feels strange to be addressed as "Professor" or "Professor Goodacre", rather than just Mark. As you may know, the term "Professor" is reserved only for those with chairs in the UK, and it takes a lot of getting used to this different system, especially given the fact that I have encouraged students simply to call me by my first name (common in the UK). Yet with that deference also comes, with no disrespect intended to my former students in England, a marked confidence among the students in the classroom. Students here want you to know that they are bright, that they are engaging in the topic, and that they have some interesting or original contribution to make. I have heard so many interesting comments in the classroom over the last few months that I am now anxious that I may temporarily forget about them and ultimately publish them as some great new idea I have had. There is a drive towards achievement, an ambition to do well, the enthusiasm to get that A grade, that marks out students here as pretty special, and those I will be speaking to tomorrow deserve their grades -- they have worked hard and shown real distinction.

If I am impressed with the students, what of the system? For the professor here, there is more freedom than in the UK, but with that comes more responsibility. There is no equivalent here to the things that academics complain about in the common rooms of British universities, no QAA (Quality Assurance Assessment, an extensive review carried out periodically on the quality of a department's teaching), no RAE (Research Assessment Exercise, a five-yearly review of the quality of a given department's research record). When you grade a paper, you alone grade it and that grade is final. You set the examination yourself. There is no second marker, let alone a second "blind" marker, no external examiner, no anonymity for students. I have to admit that on one level the freedom is bliss. The amount of time that I have spent grading papers here is a tiny fraction of the time I spent marking examinations in England, not just in my own university but also as an external elsewhere. But with that freedom comes the realization that your say is final; that this is the last word, and that places far more responsibility on every piece of assessment you undertake. It is difficult to know whether to lament the lack of the same frameworks that safeguard the student and improve the process of assessment in England, or whether to celebrate the trust that is placed in every professor here, and in his/her judgement, releasing up so much more time to do the other things that make being an academic worthwhile.

But what of teaching Religion at Duke? Here I am more struck by the similarities to what I have been used to than the differences. The Department of Theology and Religion in Birmingham, where I was until last year, was a similarly non-confessional department in which the study of religion was open, critical, rigorous, democratic, with engagement by those of a variety of faith perspectives and none. Perhaps the most noticeable difference here is that our (geographical) proximity to a professional school in which the practice of religion is as important as the teaching of it inevitably encourages us, at times, to define ourselves in relation to them, i.e. we stress that we are what they are not. Yet our students probably have a better idea of what we are than we do ourselves, and one of my tasks here, on a road I am only just beginning, is to understand what it means to study, to understand religion in America. I can hardly even begin to comment on that at this stage, so instead let me conclude with something I will say later today at our ceremony, that one of the values of the best scholarship, and this is especially true of studying religion, is that it helps to keep you honest.

When you set out your beliefs and attempt to use scholarship solely to defend them, rather than to question and to test them, you are engaging in apologetics. When you subject religious claims, religious literature and your own religious ideas to rigorous scrutiny in the presence of others who have different ideas, you know that you are on the right track. Publicly available evidence, publicly coherent arguments, rigorous academic scrutiny, and honesty.

Dunderberg on John and Thomas

Just out from Oxford University Press is this interesting looking piece:

The Beloved Disciple in Conflict?
Revisiting the Gospels of John and Thomas
Ismo Dunderberg

* Examines critically various early Christian texts and makes them fruitful for the study of the New Testament

* Assesses current theories about these texts, and also makes new suggestions

27 April 2006 | £45.00 | Hardback | 272 pages
For more details, visit: www.oup.com/uk/isbn/0-19-928496-2

OUP have generously made available a really lengthy sample (PDF):

Sample Chapter: The Beloved Disciple in Context and Conclusion

Update (7 June): I received a note this morning that this title is now available on Oxford Scholarship On-line. Those with subscriptions to this (including many universities) will now be able to read the whole thing on-line. I, for one, am looking forward to it.

Still no NTGateway blogging, but more Americanizing of Emily

My latest update on experiences Stateside is now on The Americanization of Emily, and to some extent explains why there has been no NT Gateway blogging today. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible, including the resumption of the link-a-day. But in the meantime, for the handful of you who wish to share in the bizarre ramblings of a Brit abroad, here's the latest (with pictures!):

How to cope without British TV and Radio: Cricket Supplement Update

Update (Friday, 10.26): see my further update now to the above post.

Update (Saturday, 23.46): yet another update to the above post.

How to cope without British TV and Radio: Cricket Supplement

The latest in my series of posts on "How to cope without British TV and Radio" is up on The Americanization of Emily:

How to cope without British TV and Radio: Cricket Supplement

A Link a Day: Bennema on John

Today's addition is on the Gospel of John: Books and Articles page:

UP: Cornelis Bennema, “The Sword of the Messiah and the Concept of Liberation in the Fourth Gospel”, Biblica 86 (2005): 35-58

DOWN: three articles by Jeffrey Staley have vanished from the web.

A Link a Day: Alice Bach (ed.), The Pleasures of Her Text

Today's link-a-day (and this one gets in on the before-I've-gone-to-bed technicality, so it's not a day late) is also on the Women and Gender: Books and Articles page:

Alice Bach (ed.), The Pleasures of Her Text, Feminist Readings of Biblical and Historical Texts (Philadelphia, PA: Trinity Press International, 1990), reproduced on Religion On-line.

A link a day

After taking a second unwelcome break, a link a day is back again today with the following, added to the Women and Gender: Articles page:

UP: Brian Capper, “Public Body, Private Women. The Ideology of Gender and Space and the Exclusion of Women from Public Leadership in the Late First-Century Church” in Robert Hannaford and J'annine Jobling (eds.), Theology and the Body (Leominster, Gracewing, 1999): 123-151

CORRECTED URLs: articles by J. D. H. Amador, Deirdre Good and Holger Szesnat.

A link a day

Our new "link a day" feature took an enforced break yesterday, at the height of "grading" season here at Duke, but it returns again tonight with more work on Paul: Books and Articles:

UP: Todd Penner & Caroline Vander Stichele, “Unveiling Paul: Gendering Ethos in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16”, Lectio Difficilior 2 (2004) (on-line journal)

DOWN: two articles by Steve Moyise. I've been in touch with Steve who tells me that they will be on-line again at some point in the future, but he does not yet know when.

CORRECTED: J. D. H. Amador's two articles on this page.

Biblical Studies Blog Carnival V

The latest Biblical Studies Blog Carnival is available:

Biblical Studies Blog Carnival V

As I commented recently (Disintegration of the Biblioblogging Community?), these blog carnivals are now more valuable than ever, since no one can get around all the blogs of interest in a given month, and it's excellent that someone each month is taking on the job of finding some highlights and writing them up. I am sorry to say too, and this is symptomatic of the growth of the biblioblogging community, that I had not heard of this month's host blog before -- Bluecord by Kevin Wilson. I certainly hope to visit again, and will -- in due course -- add to my ever growing but, alas, increasingly unread, blogroll. Thanks for your work on this, Kevin.

Review of Biblical Literature latest

No sooner have I caught up, than another one arrives; anyone would think that they were timing it specially. I know that some of my readers get stressed about the fact that I repeat these things here when all interested get them in their emails anyway, but I do like the complete record here, all the better for searching and more, so I continue to the post them, in spite of the critics. Latest from the Review of Biblical Literature under the NT heading are:

Keck. Leander E.
Romans
Reviewed by James Dunn

Keck, Leander E.
Romans
Reviewed by Sigurd Grindheim

Keck, Leander E.
Romans
Reviewed by James Miller

Peters, Olutola K.
The Mandate of the Church in the Apocalypse of John
Reviewed by Stephan Witetschek

Miller, Patricia Cox, ed.
Women in Early Christianity: Translations from Greek Texts
Reviewed by Lynn Huber

Moore, Stephen and Fernando F. Segovia, eds.
Postcolonial Biblical Criticism: Interdisciplinary Intersections
Reviewed by Joseph Marchal

Review of Biblical Literature Latest

Latest from the SBL Review of Biblical Literature, later than usual because I've been busy, and combining stuff from the last three email alerts:

Aus, Roger David
Matthew 1-2 and the Virginal Conception: In Light of Palestinian and Hellenistic Traditions on the Birth of Israel's First Redeemer, Moses
Reviewed by Wayne Meeks

Fitzgerald, John T., Thomas H. Olbricht and L. Michael White, eds.
Early Christianity and Classical Culture: Comparative Studies in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe
Reviewed by Fika Van Rensburg

Fuglseth, Kare Sigvald
Johannine Sectarianism in Perspective: A Sociological, Historical, and Comparative Analysis of the Temple and Social Relationships in the Gospel of John, Philo, and Qumran
Reviewed by Mary Coloe

Longenecker, Richard N., ed.
Contours of Christology in the New Testament
Reviewed by Peter Carrell

Longenecker, Richard N., ed.
Contours of Christology in the New Testament
Reviewed by Gert Steyn

Kowalski, Beate
Die Rezeption des Propheten Ezechiel in der Offenbarung des Johannes
Reviewed by Marko Jauhiainen

Kowalski, Beate
Die Rezeption des Propheten Ezechiel in der Offenbarung des Johannes
Reviewed by Jon Paulien

Thielman, Frank
Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach
Reviewed by Donald Carson

Wagner, J. Ross
Heralds of the Good News: Isaiah and Paul in Concert in the Letter to the Romans
Reviewed by Kenneth Litwak

Wagner, J. Ross
Heralds of the Good News: Isaiah and Paul in Concert in the Letter to the Romans
Reviewed by Christopher Stanley

Bertone, John A.
The Law of the Spirit: Experience of the Spirit and Displacement of the Law in Romans 8:1-16
Reviewed by James Miller

Bond, Gilbert I.
Paul and the Religious Experience of Reconciliation: Diasporic Community and Creole Consciousness
Reviewed by Christopher Hutson

Kelhoffer, James A.
The Diet of John the Baptist
Reviewed by Tobias Nicklas

Moloney, Francis J.
Mark: Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist
Reviewed by William Campbell

Siffer-Wiederhold, Nathalie
La présence divine à l'individu d'après le Nouveau Testament
Reviewed by Johanna Brankaer

Chepey, Stuart
Nazirites in Late Second Temple Judaism: A Survey of Ancient Jewish Writings, the New Testament, Archaeological Evidence, and Other Writings from Late Antiquity
Reviewed by Joshua Schwartz

Stuckenbruck, Loren T. and Wendy E. S. North, eds.
Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism
Reviewed by Peter Carrell

A link a day

Today's new link is with thanks to Holger Szesnat and is also on the Paul: Books and Articles page:

UP: Gerhard Swart, “Why without Excuse? An Inquiry into the Syntactic and Semantic Relations of Romans 1:18–21", Neotestamentica 39.2 (2005): 389-407

It's on the updated Neotestamentica website. See too the following, also added:

UP: Charles A. Wanamaker, “Metaphor and Morality: Examples of Paul’s Moral Thinking in 1 Corinthians 1-5", Neotestamentica 39.2 (2005): 409-33

CORRECTED: Holger Szesnat, “What Did the SKHNOPOIOS Paul Produce?", Neotestamentica 27 (1993): 391-402

While we are on the Paul: Books and Articles page, let's add another recent article of interest from Biblica:

UP: Christian Stettler, “The 'Command of the Lord' in 1 Cor 14,37 – a Saying of Jesus?", Biblica 87(2006): 42-51

That's one that, I suppose, could also have gone on the Historical Jesus pages.