John Meier on Youtube: Jesus the Jew, but what kind of Jew?

I just came across this entire lecture by John Meier, reflecting on his scholarship on the historical Jesus on University of California Television. The upload date is January 2008 but the lecture itself is probably from around 2001. The title is "Jesus the Jew - But What Sort of Jew?":



Update (Tuesday, 6.30am): thanks to Janelle Peters in comments for helping to date this in about 2001, now updated above.

Bibledex: 1 Timothy

The latest Bibledex video from the University of Nottingham's Theology and Religious Studies department is on 1 Timothy. It's four and a half minutes' long and crystal clear. It mainly features a certain Emily Gathergood, a very good and engaging speaker.



One suggestion: it would be good to have some on-screen credits for the people featured in the Bibledex videos.

Bibledex: Videos from Nottingham University on the Bible

Thanks to Karen Kilby for letting me know about Bibledex, a project at the University of Nottingham to produce Youtube videos on every book of the Bible. Several are already available. This one, on Matthew, is eight and a half minutes long and introduces lots of the key issues in the interpretation of Matthew, with contributions from Roland Deines, Anthony Thiselton, Pete Watts, Conor Cunningham and Simon Oliver. It's very nicely produced and it's remarkable how much they pack in while remaining lucid. I'll be adding these in due course to the NT Gateway.



The others available so far are Genesis, Psalms, Amos, Song of Songs, 1 Corinthians and Philemon.

Note: this is a different project from the St John's Nottingham videos, which I have mentioned here and on the NT Gateway. It seems like Nottingham is the place to be!

E. P. Sanders, Is Paul's Legacy Relevant Today?

New on Youtube from Villanova University is a guest lecture from Ed Sanders, "Is Paul's Legacy Relevant Today?" The lecture itself was given this time last year. It is wonderful viewing and listening:

NT Pod 10: Paul's humour Programme Notes

I released the latest episode of the NT Pod on Friday and the topic was Did the Apostle Paul have a sense of humour? (or humor, if you prefer). I begin by mentioning John Knox, Chapters in a Life of Paul (Revised edition; Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1987; original edition, 1950); here is the passage in question:

To be sure Paul had his serious limitations as a counselor. We look in vain for any sign of humor in Paul's letters. He would have been both happier and wiser if he could sometimes have laughed at and with himself and at and with others; perhaps he did, but surely not often enough, since in that case at least an occasional chuckle would have found its way into his letters. (87).

The passages in Paul I discuss are Galatians 5:12, 1 Corinthians 12:15-26 and 2 Corinthians 12:11-13. For those who continued listening all the way to the end, there is a short clip of Eddie Izzard talking about Paul's letters. (Longer clip here on Youtube, with a bad language warning -- contains several expletives).

The last time I was in Rome

Next week I'll be in Rome for the International SBL. I am looking forward very much to the experience. Here's some Youtube footage from the last time I was in Rome, with Robert Beckford, for the Channel 4 documentary, Who Wrote the Bible? (Travel Diary: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3).

All things are better in Koine

This is lots of fun. Makes me wish I was teaching NT Greek again so that I could play it to the class a few weeks in for encouragement.



HT: Helen Ingram and Jim Davila.

Infancy Gospel of Thomas Cartoon

In today's Historical Jesus class we are moving to Part 5 of the course where we begin to explore some life of Jesus traditions. And we begin at the beginning by asking questions about whether we can know anything about Jesus' birth and childhood. Well, if we look at the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, we find a whole series of wonderful, fictional stories about Jesus, including this piece (9), here delightfully animated:



I am grateful to Tony Chartrand Burke on Apocryphicity for sharing this link with us two years ago.

Who Wrote the Bible? on Youtube

I've been updating my homepage over the last day or so, spurred on by having to complete my annual report at Duke. While updating the links on my Media Consultancy page, I came across something of possible interest. Back on Christmas Day 2004, Channel 4 broadcast a programme presented by Robert Beckford and entitled Who Wrote the Bible? I featured in one part of the programme, discussing the Gospels, and I recently came across it on Youtube. It's about eight minutes or so long and features the two of us walking around Rome discussing Mark, Matthew, Luke and John in turn:

Rowan Atkinson Gospel Reading

Over on the Christian Origins list, Zeba Crook posts a link to a fine three minutes or so of New Testament related comedy on YouTube:

Rowan Atkinson Gospel Reading

It's what NT scholars in the past might have called a "midrashic expansion" of the Wedding at Cana story in John 2. Or perhaps this is an earlier, more original version of the Cana story, its great primitivity demonstrated by the presence of a couple of locutions known to have originated in Q, i.e. "O ye of little faith" (Q 14.28) and "Weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth" (Q 13.28).