Possibly the best Biblical Studies Carnival Ever?

Here at the NT Blog, we are up late at night every night, twiddling our thumbs, hanging around and waiting for something worth reading to appear online. Usually, it is slim pickings but tonight is one of those rare occasions when our hope is more than satisfied.  Deane Galbraith has one of the best, perhaps the best Biblical Studies Carnival ever over on the Religion Bulletin:

Biblical Studies Carnival נז (November 2010)

It will take you several hours to read it properly, especially if you follow all the links, as of course you are obliged to do. Galbraith fans gather around -- it's quantity as well as quality.

Deinde Blog Move

Danny Zacharias has been in touch with news of a feed change for the Deinde Blog.  Point your readers at the new feedburner feed.

More on The Nativity

Over on the Bible Films blog, Matt Page has More on The Nativity (BBC), including a link to the press pack.

Journal for the Study of Paul and his Letters

Thanks to Michael Bird for sending over notice of the new Journal for the Study of Paul and his Letters, announced over on Euangelion.  I am a bit late in announcing this one because of the pre-SBL rush.  Mike is editing along with Nijay Gupta, also well known from the blogosophere. Although it is not a free journal, there is a free sample first issue, which is in fact a free article from my colleague Susan Eastman, "Philippians 2.6-11: Incarnation as Mimetic Participation".

JSNT Latest

The latest Journal for the Study of the New Testament is a special issue on Wirkungsgeschichte. Articles are for subscribers and subscribing institutions only. Here is the alert:
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A new issue of Journal for the Study of the New Testament has been made available:

1 December 2010; Vol. 33, No. 2

URL: http://jnt.sagepub.com/content/vol33/issue2/?etoc

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Articles
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Introduction
Jonathan Roberts and Christopher Rowland

Wirkungsgeschichte, Reception History, Reception Theory
Mark Knight

Wirkungsgeschichte and Visual Exegesis: The Contribution of Hans-Georg Gadamer
Martin O'Kane

Effective-History and the Hermeneutics of Ulrich Luz
Mark W. Elliott

Sachkritik in Reception History
Robert Morgan

Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation: Textures of a Text and its Reception
David B. Gowler

Hope for a Troubled Discipline? Contributions to New Testament Studies from Reception History
William John Lyons
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University of Birmingham job

A job in New Testament has just been advertised at the University of Birmingham:

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UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM
SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY, THEOLOGY AND RELIGION
Lecturer in New Testament and Theology
Salary from £36,715 to £49,342 a year

The School of Philosophy, Theology and Religion, College of Arts and Law, University of Birmingham is seeking to appoint a Lecturer in New Testament and Theology. You will possess particular expertise in theology and biblical studies and how these relate to each other and to the study of religion/theology in the contemporary world. You will also have research experience at post-doctoral level, shown through a record of publications and have teaching experience at higher educational level. Ideally you will hold or be nearing completion of a PhD in New Testament Studies/Theology.

You will be required to provide advisory support for research, contribute to the design, development and delivery of programmes of study, and undertake research and administrative activities.

Closing date: 21st December 2010. Ref: 44432

To download the details and submit an electronic application online visit: www.hr.bham.ac.uk/jobs.  Alternatively, information can be obtained from 0121 415 9000.

Valuing excellence; sustaining investment
0171DH(93913)

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Return from SBL, #SBL10

The Tuesday morning of the SBL Annual Meeting tends to be a bit of a non-event.  There are sessions still going on, but they are attended by the speakers and just a smattering of people, those who are not yet fatigued and  those who do not have a flight to catch for a while.  I once had to speak on a Tuesday morning, Boston 1999, but on the whole I have been lucky since then.  I do try to make it to Tuesday morning sessions when I can, but this year I could not.

I had a nice breakfast, though, at the Corner Bakery opposite the Hyatt Regency, where I was staying.  And from there,  I took the metro to the airport -- much cheaper than a taxi -- and was lucky to meet friends at the airport and to have one last Sweet Water 420 before flying.

I enjoyed this SBL.  I found the Saturday, with my three speaking commitments, so exhausting that the Sunday and Monday seemed so much more gentle and relaxed in spite of the fact that I had lots on.  The session highlight for me was the inaugural Blogging and Online Publication section, and it is good to see that several of the papers from that session have already been posted on the blogs (e.g. Paleojudaica; more below).

Another highlight was going up and down in the funky lifts in the Hyatt Regency -- I really liked them.  I was a bit disappointed to discover late on Monday evening, when we tried to go all the way to the top, that the top two floors are closed off for the elite.

I heard several good papers this year and several pretty ordinary ones.  I must admit to being disappointed that everyone seems completely devoted to reading papers rather than presenting them.  I would like to see more people looking at their audience.  On the other hand, I was pleased with the number of clear handouts.  There were several papers that would have been greatly improved with nice handouts too.

It was interesting to see that several people did use Powerpoint and Keynote in spite of the charges.  I was pretty horrified about the $25-$75 speaker charges and hope that this is not repeated next year.  Three were especially memorable -- Bob Cargill and James McGrath at the Blogging session and Joe Weaks at the Synoptic Section.  Those three really showed the value of a strong illustrated presentation.

As usual, of course, the real highlight was the socializing with old friends.  I particularly liked the Irish pub, Meehans that was just down the road from the conference hotels.

And did anyone else take a day or two to realize that the book exhibit was in two different rooms?

SBL Atlanta 2010, Monday, #SBL10

As usual, it was an early star at the SBLt, this time for our Library of New Testament Studies editorial board meeting at 7am. Unlike previous years, the meeting was in a suite, with breakfast laid on, and it enabled us to have a decent and uninterrupted conversation.

The SBL gathers everyone together and so provides the opportunity for things like PhD vivas. I was examining a St Andrews University (UK) PhD and it was the first time I have done this kind of thing at the SBL rather than at the institution itself.  That was my major morning's activity.

A particular highlight this afternoon was the inaugural meeting of the "Blogger and Online Publication" section. Several of you might remember the discussion about this earlier this year.  Bob Cargill was chairing and he began by mentioning Charlie Haws and Jim West as key characters in getting the section going.  The speakers were all excellent -- Jim Davila appropriately beginning, followed by Chris Brady, Michael Barber, James McGrath and Robert Cargill.  I agreed with pretty much everything that the panel said, and I'd have thought that it would be ideal for the blogs to get the discussion going on these things.  The session was packed out, there were lots of interesting questions and comments, and it was all-round very positive.  More anon on this one.

I did the SBL tart thing for the last couple of hours today, taking in both the Cross, Resurrection and Diversity Section and the Bible in Ancient and Modern Media section, the latter a session on Anthony Le Donne's book and featuring Paula Fredriksen on the panel.

It has to be said, of course, that the highlight of the SBL is always the socializing.  I visited Max Lager's Wood Fired Grill and Brewery for dinner, and then retired to Meehan's Public House where we were treated very nicely, and got given a free bottle of Fuller's Vintage Ale.  Our friendliness and perhaps the British accent helped.

SBL Atlanta 2010, Sunday, #SBL10

After the pretty exhausting day yesterday, today was much more relaxing and enjoyable. I went to the University of Birmingham breakfast first thing. This has become a bit of a highlight since leaving Birmingham over five years ago, and a nice way of keeping in touch with old friends and colleagues. I ate some rather odd sausages, chicken apple flavour I think they were.

I did the SBL tart thing this morning, flitting between several different sessions of interest. I particularly enjoyed Richard Wright's paper on 1 Cor. 11.2-16 in the Ritual and Gender section. I also enjoyed catching a couple of papers in the Intertextuality section, including Dukie Lori Baron who did a great job.

Today was a great day for free food -- didn't buy any all day. I wasn't expecting to get a free lunch, but it turns out that this is one of the perks of being on the JSNT editorial board. The food was that Mediterranean stuff -- olives, sun dried tomatoes, mozzarella, all that kind of stuff.

I finally managed to get my strength up to visit the book exhibit today too. I am not a big fan of the book exhibit -- find it depressing seeing all those books -- but I do like meeting people there, and I had a couple of good meetings with publishers.

Another good session today was the Synoptics Section. I went primarily because I wanted to hear Rebekah Eklund's paper on the crowds in the Passion Narrative, which she had initially worked on for my Passion Narratives graduate class last year. She did a great job -- clear, interesting, engaging. But it was a bonus also to catch several other interesting papers, including Joe Weaks's presentation on "MarQ", reconstructing Mark's Gospel on the basis of Matthew and Luke alone as a test for reconstructions of Q. I was on Joe's committee at Brite Divinity School and I really enjoyed his presentation. I don't know whether he forked out $75 for his projector fee but he had a great powerpoint.

It was receptions evening tonight and I took in three -- UNC Chapel Hill, T and T Clark and Duke. All were enjoyable, especially getting the chance to catch up with some old friends. Of course the days of the lavish food are over, but if you are lucky you can grab a cube of cheese and perhaps a cookie. Good if you are a diet.

SBL Atlanta 2010, Saturday, #SBL10

Several days ago, when I actually checked the programme, I realized that Saturday was going to be a big day. Somehow, I had managed to find myself speaking three times on the one day.  The first of these is not, strictly speaking, part of the SBL Annual Meeting.  Rather, as some of you will know, the Biblical Archaeology Society holds its annual "BibFest" round the corner from the SBL and several of us go to address the conference there on topics of interest to us.  My topic this year was "Paul's Letters: Women, Men and the End", some reflections on the roles played by women in Paul's churches (specifically Phoebe, Prisca, Junia) and then some analysis of the troubling passages in 1 Cor. 11 and 14, with conclusions on the eschatological nature of Paul's views on women and men, in discussion of Gal. 3.28.  I like speaking at the BAS -- it is an audience of enthusiasts who always have interesting comments and questions, and who appear appreciative of our coming along to speak to them.

My second stint of the day was in the Ideological Criticism section.  This is where all the cool kids hang out, and it is not my usual haunting ground.  The topic was James Crossley's book Jesus in an Age of Terror.  My paper offered a critique of James's discussion of the "politics of the bibliobloggers" and it is probably something that I will offer here in the blog in due course to generate some further discussion.  Zeba Crook spoke second and discussed the representation of the context group in James's book -- and he had some critical things to say.  Bill Arnal offered a more sympathetic reading of James's book and Roland Boer offered some sophisticated and often very funny reflections on what James was doing.

James gave a response to our four presentations and there was a very lively discussion afterwards.  I am still reflecting on this session and I am not really sure what to make of it.  I think I'd like to read all the papers and James's response and to work out where things stand.  I'll come back to this in due course.  I did not have any time to chew over that session in my mind, though, because I went from a panel with the cool kids to a panel with the bigwigs.

Pat McCullough organized a session entitled "Finding your 'niche' in Biblical Studies".  There were five panelists, Christopher Hays, Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, Dale Martin and Paula Fredriksen and me. I have shared here in the blog the substance of my short presentation. I was hugely impressed with the other speakers, all of whom were witty, engaging, compelling. We had ten minutes or so each. The room was packed. There must have been two or three hundred people there, and there were people standing at the side. After we had finished speaking, the room emptied out a good deal, but then there was time for discussion of the topic and many of the contributions from the floor were excellent too.

I dined tonight with an old friend at Azio, an Italian place just a couple of blocks away from the conference and it was a hugely enjoyable evening. There is also a nice little Irish pub not far away from the conference hotels that is well worth a visit.

Finding your "niche" in Biblical Studies, #SBL10

A little later I am doing a stint in a section organized by Pat McCullough entitled "Finding your 'niche' in Biblical Studies" and featuring also Christopher Hays, Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, Dale Martin and Paula Fredriksen. One of the things I will be encouraging people to do is to treat all advice with a pinch of salt. When I was in the early stages of my doctoral research in Oxford, I was asked by one of the New Testament dons, "So what are you writing on for your DPhil, Mark?" I said that I had settled on a thesis about the work of Michael Goulder on the Gospels. "There are two things wrong with that topic," he replied, while we stood outside the Theology Faculty building at St Giles.  "It will be unpublishable, and you won't get a job." The problem was that that was what I really wanted to write about and I knew that the best chance I had of writing a decent DPhil (they are DPhils in Oxford and not PhDs) was to write about something that I was enthused about.

Luckily, there were others with different thoughts.  I suppose that the research would never have got off the ground if things had been different.  When I went to Ed Sanders with my idea about Michael Goulder, he said, "Well, I have said for years that someone should spend time with Goulder's work and I think it would be a fine topic for a doctorate."  And so I began the work on the thesis only for Prof. Sanders to tell me, not long afterwards, through clouds of pipe smoke in his room at Queen's College, that he would be leaving to go to a place I had never heard of in America, Duke University.  I was crestfallen and I remember thinking, "Why on earth would he want to do that?"

Well, I ploughed on with the research on Goulder and the Gospels, a DPhil orphan for a while, turned down by one potential supervisor, and only saved by the arrival of John Muddiman in Oxford in 1991, and I could not have had a more ideal supervisor.   As it turned out, I did get a job and I did get the thing published.  I enjoyed my doctorate and I am still pleased that I did not really listen to the naysayers.

I suppose that this is going to be the difficulty with the "Finding your 'niche'" session.  I imagine that there will be a lot of conflicting advice.  The thing is that every academic's experience is so different.  I am not sure that I would want to advise my students to choose to write about unpublishable, un-marketable topics.  And yet the key thing is to follow your nose and to write about the things that will enthuse you, whatever they might be.    I mean: I am baffled by the fact that many (most?) scholars appear to be so uninterested in detailed discussion of the Synoptic Problem, but I haven't let that prevent me from airing my own interest in it.

In fact, on this topic there is another piece of advice that I ought to offer, but which I have ignored: if you want a career, don't try to take on the establishment on a dearly loved, consensus topic.  I wrote a book called The Case Against Q in which I argued that the grounds for postulating the existence of Q are not as persuasive as the alternative, which accepts Marcan Priority but adds that Luke also knew Matthew.  Looking back on it now, I wonder if I might have been a bit naive to have been so confrontational so early in my career and to have taken so great a risk.  I could have played safe.

I suppose that the serious advice I would give here is that if you are going to take a risk like that, then make sure you fully understand your opponent's position, and make sure you go the extra mile to represent it as fairly as possible.  You will get nowhere if your readers can easily charge you with misreading, misunderstanding and misrepresentation.  In fact, that is probably much more destructive to a potential career than anything, the failure to attempt to represent the scholarship honestly and fairly.

I remember once talking to a PhD student about his plans for the future;  he handed me a sheet in which the research program was mapped out for the next twenty years, with projected publishing dates and everything.  I think what amazed me most about that was that the plan was made on the assumption that the student would have no new ideas for twenty years, that there would be a predictable pattern to his career.  One of the things that is so enjoyable about the academic's life is, for me, that it is unpredictable.  And you have new ideas all the time -- it's an inevitability of teaching and of continuing to read and research.

It is a question, I would say, of enthusiasm rather than obsession.  I have got pretty close to being obsessed with the Synoptic Problem, but I don't want to go the way of William Farmer and spend my entire career on it.  In fact, Ed Sanders once warned me that getting into the Synoptic Problem is like getting into quicksand -- he was concerned I would never emerge.  So I think it's good to put your ideas out there, to see what happens and to move on.

Sometimes the a major research project will emerge naturally from the topic you are studying.  I am finishing up a book on the Gospel of Thomas at the moment, but I got into Thomas because of Q.  While I was writing about Q, people kept saying, "What about the Gospel of Thomas?"  And so I became interested in Thomas.  And having become interested in Thomas, I began teaching courses on the non-canonical Gospels, which, in turn spawns further research into related topics of interest.

The process of scholarly interest in different topics is often accidental and unpredictable.  You simply don't know what new idea might pop into your head while you are teaching and researching, and I would discourage the tendency to identify yourself too strongly with any particular "niche" in Biblical Studies.  Very few of us only teach on our primary areas of interest and publication, and that breadth in teaching is our invitation to keep breadth in research and publication.  So finding a niche is good, but finding another after that, and another after that, is better.

SBL Atlanta -- 2010 vs. 2003, #SBL10

The last time the SBL was in Atlanta was in 2003.  It's funny to look back on the state of blogging at that time.  Now, you would struggle to keep up with all the SBL bloggers and tweeters.  Back then, we were only a handful, and it seems I was in prophetic mode in a post entitled Other SBL Blogs.  After having mentioned AKMA, Jim Davila's Paleojudaica and Stephen Carlson's Hypotyposeis, I wrote:

In years to come no doubt there will be myriads of other bloggers at the SBL and people will laugh as they look back to 2003 and say, "Good grief; were there really so few blogs in the olden days?" and we will be proud to have been there early on. AKMA will be prouder still -- he was even blogging at the SBL in November 2002.

Well, it's seven years later and now it does seem funny to look back on that simpler world.

Arrival at the SBL Annual Meeting Atlanta 2010, #SBL10

I've arrived in Atlanta for the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting.  There are thousands here for this conference every year and already I have run into lots of attendees.  Some of the enthusiastic ones are already proudly wearing their big badges in the necklace fashion.  Even those who aren't, though, can be spotted a mile off, especially the jacketed men, who are everywhere, and looking very much like academics, some of them suitably earnest, others greeting old friends loudly in the foyers of the hotels to make clear to everyone standing around how important, popular and genial they are.

I look forward to blogging the conference over the coming days, as time allows, and also to tweeting the conference.  You can follow me on twitter, or for the real deal, just go to the #SBL10 tag and read multiple live updates on the conference in the coming days.  Bear in mind that you don't even have to be a twitterer / tweeter to enjoy reading others' updates, on the ground, as they happen.

My really busy day is tomorrow, with a presentation on "Paul's Letters: Men, Women and the End" at the Biblical Archaeology Society's BibFest XIII and then later, at one, a paper on the "James Crossley and the Politics of the Bibliobloggers" in the Ideological Criticism Section, where all the cool kids hang out. Also reviewing James's book in that session are Bill Arnal, Zeba Crook and Roland Boer, and James is giving a response.  And at four, I'll be speaking in an interesting session organized by Pat McCullough entitled "Finding your 'niche' in Biblical Studies" and featuring also Christopher Hays, Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, Dale Martin and Paula Fredriksen.

But of course there are about ten thousand other sessions on over the coming days too.  Luckily, Nathan Eubank has distilled all the really good sessions, i.e. the ones involving people from Duke, over on Duke Newt.

The Gospel of Judas and Stagnation at the National Geographic Website

In this week's Non-canonical Gospels class here at Duke, we discussed the Gospel of Judas and it gave me the opportunity to spend a bit more time thinking about the text and about the controversy it stirred up.  One thing is, I think, a bit disappointing.  Back in 2006, I praised the National Geographic website on the Gospel of Judas (Gospel of Judas megapost).  As well as being well designed and nice to look at, I was delighted that they had made available Kasser and Wurst's Coptic transcription as well as the committee's preliminary English translation, so that individuals could consult text and translation for themselves.

However, now over three years have passed and still the site has not been updated to reflect the corrected Coptic text and translation subsequently released in the critical edition of 2007 (Rodolphe Kasser, Gregor Wurst, Marvin Meyer, and François Gaudard, The Gospel of Judas, Together with the Letter of Peter to Philip, James, and a Book of Allogenes from Codex Tchacos: Critical Edition (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2007)).  Those who go now to the text on the website are therefore still seeing a preliminary version of a piece that was later updated (and there is a still a typo).

As Stephan Witetschek pointed out in his review of April DeConick's The Thirteenth Apostle, several of the criticisms she makes of the National Geographic preliminary translation were actually adjusted in the Critical Edition.  But DeConick's criticism carries force for as long as the website, which is where many will still go to  consult the text, features the non-updated version.

Just how much do we forget?

In writing my paper for the SBL Ideological Criticism section, reflecting on James Crossley's Jesus in an Age of Terror, I have been shocked to find out just how much I have forgotten.  In order to get a feel for the blogs discussed by Crossley, I went back and re-read lots of blog entries and I was shocked to see just how much I had forgotten.  I am not just talking about blogs that I have paid scant attention to at the time, but also the old favourites, like Jim Davila's Paleojudaica or N. T. Wrong.  The biblioblogs are full of wonderful and fascinating posts and heaps of erudition, and yet the vast majority of the posts vanish from our consciousness extraordinarily quickly.  I am not quite sure whether I find this encouraging or discouraging.  I think it is fantastic that there are so many brilliant posts still out there for us tap into whenever we have the chance, like scholarly diaries of major events in the academic life.  But on another level it troubles me that here we are, busily writing away, for our thoughts to vanish in the wind, making scarcely the most fleeting impact, when all this time we could have been spending more time on books and articles that might actually have some kind of legacy.

Just how rubbish is the search function on blogger blogs?

Ever noticed how rubbish the search function is on blogger (blogspot) blogs?  I am writing my SBL paper about "the politics of the bibliobloggers" in response to James Crossley's Jesus in an Age of Terror and I have been going back and reading lots of interesting old posts on different blogs.  Often, when those blogs are hosted on blogger, I use the search box at the top of the page.  Time after time, it fails to find the key posts.  A case in point: James Crossley discusses Jim Davila on Gabriel Barkai (Jesus in an Age of Terror, 43);  I go to Paleojudaica to get the relevant posts but a search on "Barkai" brings up nothing.  I then go to google and search "Paleojudaica Gabriel Barkai" and all the relenvant posts come up.  Given that blogger is affiliated with Google, I wonder why the blogger searches are so completely rubbish?

Oxford Seminar on the Synoptic Problem

Thanks to Andrew Gregory for sending this notice over.  This is also available as a PDF flyer.
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NEW TESTAMENT SEMINAR
2 December 2010

A special extended meeting of the New Testament seminar will take place on 2 December, when a Festschrift, New Studies in the Synoptic Problem (BETL 239; Leuven: Peeters Press, 2011), will be presented to Professor Christopher Tuckett. The seminar will take place in the Roy Griffiths Room, ARCO Building, Keble College, 2.15-6.00pm (with a break for tea from 3.45 to 4.15pm). Please note the extended time of the seminar.

________________________________________

New Studies in the Synoptic Problem
2.15-6.00pm



John Kloppenborg
Memory, performance and the sayings of Jesus

Joseph Verheyden
A road to nowhere? A critical look at the ‘Matthean Posteriority’ hypothesis and what it means for Q

Paul Foster
The extent of the recoverable Q material



Robert Derrenbacker
What’s the problem and why does it matter? The challenges and rewards of teaching the Synoptic Problem

Andrew Gregory
Studying and teaching the Synoptic Problem in Oxford, 1911-2011: some observations

with responses from Robert Morgan and Christopher Rowland

________________________________________

Tom Wright on the Apostles Junia and Mary Magdalene

I am teaching Paul this term at Duke and we have reached the part of the course where we look at issues connected with women and gender.  I was hoping to find some Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza on Youtube to show the class, but the only piece of her that I can find is her Burke Lecture from 2007 on another topic, and it is a video of her simply reading a script.  But while searching, I came across a short piece of a rather casual Tom Wright chatting about Junia and Mary Magdalene

 



It's an enjoyable piece, and it is good to see him so strongly behind the Junia reading given that he earlier assumed the Junias reading (Climax of the Covenant: 48, "these two men . . .").

Putting some of my articles online

I have been meaning to put some online reproductions of more recent articles on my homepage and I have now got round to it.  The newly uploaded pieces are:

“Mark, Elijah, the Baptist and Matthew: The Success of the First Intertextual Reading of Mark” in Tom Hatina (ed.), Biblical Interpretation in Early Christian Gospels, Volume 2: Matthew (Library of New Testament Studies 310; London & New York: T & T Clark, 2008), 73-84 [PDF]

"Scripturalization in Mark's Crucifixion Narrative" in Geert van Oyen and Tom Shepherd (eds.), The Trial and Death of Jesus: Essays on the Passion Narrative in Mark(Leuven: Peeters, 2006): 33-47 [PDF]

"The Rock on Rocky Ground: Matthew, Mark and Peter as Skandalon" in Philip McCosker (ed.), What Is It That the Scripture Says?: Essays in Biblical Interpretation, Translation, And Reception in Honour of Henry Wansbrough Osb (Library of New Testament Studies; London & New York: Continuum, 2006): 61-73 [PDF]

I have indexed these and other pieces on my articles page. I suppose I should add them to the NT Gateway too but it always feels a bit self-serving to be putting my own materials on the gateway.

Bible and Archaeology Fest, Atlanta, November 2010

BAS (the Biblical Archaeology Society) has details of its Bible and Archaeology Fest XIII, in Atlanta, GA from November 19-21.  I am one of the speakers again this year and the site now has details of my talk:

Paul’s Letters: Women, Men and the End
Paul’s attitudes to men, women, sex and gender are famously perplexing. Is he an egalitarian or is he a misogynist? Why does he appear to endorse women in leadership roles at some points, and prevent them from speaking in church at other points? Several key passages warrant careful examination: Romans 16, where he mentions several prominent women; 1 Corinthians 11, where he appears to insist on head-coverings for women; and Galatians 3.28, in which he says that there is no “male or female” and that all are one in Christ. In our context it is easy to miss the fact that Paul’s attitudes to men and women are driven by one over-riding concern: The imminent end.

There are details also of the entire program -- just go to 13th Annual Bible and Archaeology Fest .

Typo in National Geographic's Gospel of Judas ET

As I mentioned earlier, I'm checking up on materials for students in my Non-canonical Gospels class and spotted the following typo in the National Geographic English translation of the Gospel of Judas:

The cattle you have seen brought for sacrifice are the many people you lead astray [40] before that altar. […] will stand and make use of my name in this way, and generations of the pious will remain loyal to him. After hi another man will stand there from [the fornicators], and another [will] stand there from the slayers of children, and another from those who sleep with men.

It should, of course, be "him".

Is it illegal to call your son "Judas" in Germany?

I am preparing for a class tomorrow, as part of my course on Non-canonical Gospels, on the Gospel of Judas. While reviewing some video material for possible use in class, I came across this piece from the National Geographic documentary of a few years ago:



At 1:22, William Klassen says, "In Germany, of course, it is illegal to name your child Judas". This sounds like nonsense to me. I found the same claim made by William Klassen, presumably quoting from the same interview, in Herbert Krosney, The Lost Gospel: The Quest for the Gospel of Judas Iscariot (Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2006): 3.   A little googling appears to confirm that there is indeed no law in Germany that prevents parents naming their sons "Judas".  Whether parents are inclined to call their sons Judas, and whether officials might have objected to such naming, are, of course, different questions.

Dale Allison's Constructing Jesus and Facebook

It is clearly going to be an exciting few months for those interested in Historical Jesus research.  Not only is Maurice Casey's Jesus of Nazareth on the way soon, but Dale Allison's Constructing Jesus is now out (see Loren Rosson's review on The Busybody).  Allison's publisher, Baker Academic, has a Facebook page now advertising the book and giving you the chance to win a copy:

Confused or curious about the historical Jesus? It’s time to get some answers from a luminary in the field. Dale Allison, author of the new book Constructing Jesus, has agreed to answer a few questions on the historical Jesus from our Facebook friends. So, submit a question. Three of the best questions will be passed to Dale for answer that we will post here, and the authors of those questions will get a free copy of Constructing Jesus (which retails for $55)!

Go to http://www.facebook.com/bakeracademic to join in.

The Nativity: a new BBC drama for Christmas 2010

When I was watching the BBC Drama for Winter trailer below, in the hope of catching some Doctor Who, I was excited to see a very brief mention and still from a forthcoming new dramatization of The Nativity this Christmas. A little further exploration confirms that this is indeed a major new production, written by Tony Jordan, of Life on Mars, Eastenders and Echo Beach fame. The press release is here:

Stars align for Tony Jordan's Nativity on BBC One this Christmas

Andrew Buchan (Garrow's Law, Cranford), Peter Capaldi (In The Loop, The Thick of It) and rising star Tatiana Maslany (Cra$h & Burn, A Grown Up Movie Star) have been cast in a magical re-telling of the classic Nativity story.

Written by Tony Jordan (Life On Mars, Hustle, EastEnders) for BBC One this Christmas and produced by Red Planet Pictures in association with Kudos through BBC Wales.

Over four half-hour episodes the drama will tell the traditional tale known to millions from a very human perspective. With Mary and Joseph's enduring love story at the centre this familiar story is given a contemporary twist, as the drama follows Joseph and Mary from their initial courtship – Joseph desperate to win the heart of Mary – to his emotional turmoil at her unexpected pregnancy.

Tony Jordan said: "The challenge for me was to retell a story that has been told countless times before, a story that everyone knows intimately, yet to do so in a way that will still surprise and move you, to see parts of the story you'd never seen before. I really think that we've achieved that and I'm incredibly proud to have been asked by the BBC to be involved in such a wonderful project."

Although the press release does not mention The Passion, it looks to me like this project is inspired by its success, not least the idea of stripping a drama like this across several nights. The production team, however, appears to be different, and it does not look like the project has any tie-in with BBC Religion and Ethics. I will be on the look out for more over the next month or so, and will of course be commenting some more as the broadcast date draws near, and I look forward to reviewing. There are no pictures or clips yet, but there is the brief still in this preview, about two-thirds of the way through.



The still from The Nativity is at 1:57. But while one is watching, isn't it nice to see the ninth, tenth and eleventh doctors (Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant and Matt Smith) all appearing in the same trail?!

Update (Friday, 9.55am): Matt Page has an excellent round-up of what we know so far over on the Bible Films Blog (and I've pinched his screenshot for here too -- thanks).

Oktoberfest Biblical Studies Blog Carnival Extravaganza!

Jonathan Robinson of the ξἐνος blog has done an excellent job with the latest Biblical Studies Carnival, gathering together lots of highlights from biblioblogs from October:

Oktoberfest Biblical Studies Blog Carnival Extravaganza!

Next month, it is Deane Galbraith.

Teaching the Bible e-pub latest

November's Teaching the Bible e-pub from the Society of Biblical Literature is now available. There are several interesting pieces including an article Introducing the Real Mary Magdalene by Jaime Clark-Soles.