Marc Chan Chim Yuk, Jesus' Sayings in the Triple Tradition

In Bible Software Review Weblog, Rubén Gómez draws attention to the following online Festschrift, quite an unusual phenomenon:

"What Does the Text Actually Say?"
A Festschrift in Honour of Dr Richard K. Moore
with articles by Evelyn Ashley, Michael Bullard, Marc Chan, Tim Finney and Alan Gordon and notes of appreciation from Barbara Aland, Ann Harding, David Neville, Ken Panten, Michael Welte and Geoff Westlake.
Published at http://purl.org/RelTech/books/RKM/, 2002.

Given my interest in the Synoptic Problem, I was drawn in particular to the following article:

Marc Chan Chim Yuk, "Jesus' Sayings in the Triple Tradition of the Synoptic Gospels"

Essentially, what the author does is to look into the actual degree of verbatim agreement between the Synoptics in triple tradition material, showing that the average is about 26.4%, a figure lower than the 50% figure mentioned by Sanders and Davies in Studying the Synoptic Gospels (see article for reference). But the study also concludes that:

It has revealed quite positively the fact that the correlation of Jesus' sayings in the Triple Tradition of the Synoptic Gospels is twice as high as the correlation for the surrounding narratives.

And it sees this as evidence that:

This indicates that the words of Jesus were treated with very high respect and thus transmitted and reproduced with care.

The last sentence rather took my breath away since it seems to go far further than the evidence allows:

There are still problems that have not been solved but the overall trend in this article points towards the fact that indeed the sayings of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels do represent what Jesus actually spoke during his ministry on earth.

It's a shame that a generally useful essay overreaches itself in the end, not least in that the topic it begins with is the avoidance of claims that are not supported by appropriate evidence. One or two other comments on the essay:

(1) It's a shame that the essay perpetuates the lore that there are essentially two alternative solutions to the Synoptic Problem, the Two-Source Theory and Griesbach, with no mention of Farrer (Marcan Priority without Q). This is particularly disappointing in an essay that begins and ends with E. P. Sanders and Margaret Davies's Studying the Synoptic Gospels which not only discusses the Farrer theory at length but also comes down broadly in support of it (see some quotations from it).

(2) The author recommends a colour coding scheme apparently devised by a certain Karawara Gospels Project. The article explains that this system was designed by Richard Moore, in whose honour this Festschrift was produced, in 1987-8. David Neville, author of two books on the Synoptic Problem, mentions this same project in his Thanks to Richard Moore, in the same volume. I am happy to see that the scheme is effectively identical to the one I came up with and recommended in my The Synoptic Problem: A Way Through the Maze! It takes advantage of the fact that there are three Synoptics and three primary colours, and works with that. This has always seemed so intuitive to me that I am surprised that more have not tried the same thing, so I am reassured to find someone independently coming to the same conclusion. However, when it comes to computerizing the scheme, they adjust Luke's yellow to grey "since yellow is barely visible when printed", and they make similar adjustments in the various combinations. I understand the problem here because when I went from the manual colouring of my Synopsis to trying to represent it on-line, the first problem was indeed the faintness of the yellow. But the solution I have used in my on-line synopsis examples has been to avoid the problem by simply providing a grey background rather than a white one. Then the yellow shows up better than anything.

Unfortunately, there are no examples of the colouring provided in the article, no doubt because it was originally projected as a print volume (see note 4) rather than an on-line one.

David Parker and Scholars: O, P, Q

I have moved my colleague Professor David Parker's homepage to our main Theology web site in Birmingham because its old server had become defunct. I've made the adjustment also on the NT Gateway's Scholars: O, P, Q and at the same time have serviced the other links on that page.

Update (21.40): Thanks to Markus Öhler for a speedy reply to an email I sent earlier. He informs me that his old and extensive homepage has been taken down ("Sie war veraltet und stilistisch auch untragbar") but he has a new, shorter page: Markus Öhler. The pages for AG-ASS are still available.

SBL Forum May

The SBL Forum now has its latest content for May uploaded:

SBL Forum: May

From the practices of ancient scribes to the ordeals of the dissertation and latest book, biblical scholars are passionate about writing. This month SBL Forum features articles about writing in the past and in the future, plus insight for students writing dissertations, teachers in community colleges, and selected poems.

On Philo of Alexandria blog, Torrey Seland draws attention to one of the new articles, Ronald Hock, Writing in the Greco-Roman World.

In previous months, the beginning of the month sees the major content getting uploaded and then selected articles will be added as time goes on. I'll keep an eye on it for additional updates and, of course, post here.

How good is Google?

Today's Guardian Online has a nice little feature that attempts to put Google to the test:

On your marks, get set, search ...
Google, the world's most popular internet search engine, is about to offer shares to the public. It has built its reputation on being the fastest and most accurate way to find information. But is the internet really the quickest way to access facts - and get them right? We put Google to the test against more old-fashioned methods.
Ros Taylor, Oliver Burkeman and Stephen Moss

On the whole, Google does pretty well but doesn't always beat the telephone and the library. The article shows that you need both ingenuity and experience to get the best out of Google. And, of course, it does not add on the time for travelling to the library or the cost of making phone-calls. Here I am sitting at my PC and Google is so handy. But here's my concern: we are already getting to the stage where some students think that if Google can't find it, it doesn't exist. This perception might well intensify as the internet gets more comprehensive and as Google continues to find ways to pinpoint its searches. In the main I celebrate the fact that so much information is so straightforwardly accessible, but is it going to lead to more frustration in the future when people then fail to find what they need on the net?

Zeba Crook's Homepage

Back in December on Hypotyposeis, Stephen Carlson mentioned Zeba Crook's English Reader's Synopsis. I have now added Zeba Crook's homepage to my Scholars: C page:

Zeba A. Crook Homepage

As you will know if you peruse Scholars' Homepages, they vary enormously, from just a page with a paragraph or two prepared by support staff, to entire web sites with variety of useful resources. This is a good one, with CV, list of publications, course materials, some links and an introduction to the project mentioned above, on which more anon.

Elaine Pagels on The Spirit of Things

Following on from my previous blog entry, a quick look around that Spirit of Things web site shows up some other interesting things too. You can read presenter Rachel Kohn's essay Who is a Fundamentalist? And why does it Matter?, which features some critical comments on The Passion of the Christ, and there is the entire transcript, again, for this episode of the programme:

The Suppressed Christian Tradition

In the late 1970s Elaine Pagels published The Gnostic Gospels, putting into the public domain a suppressed Christian tradition, which the church regarded as 'heretical'. They were the Gospels of Mary, Philip and Thomas, found at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945. Now a world-famous scholar, Pagels argues against the term "Gnostic," which was a term of reproach, and reflects on the gospels' similarities to Kabbalistic and Buddhist thought.

Like the Lüdemann programme, it is very interesting reading. Just one excerpt touching on her recent work on the Gospel of Thomas and its relationship to John:

what I realised as I was reading the Gospel of Thomas, is that there is teaching there, that is shared with the author of the Gospel of John. Other scholars have pointed out the strong similarities between John and Thomas. They’re both written for someone who already knows the basic story, they’re both written as supplemental and advanced teaching, they’re both written speaking about the Kingdom of God not as something coming at the end of time, but as the present spiritual reality, and they both have what you might call mystical elements to them.

But as I read that, and looked at the work of those scholars who’ve observed the enormous similarities between the two, I came to the conclusion, and to me it was a surprise, and it was unwelcome and it seemed very strange, but I realised that the only way one can make sense of the relationship between these Gospels is to see that whoever wrote the Gospel of John knows the kind of teaching you find in Thomas, and thinks that it’s been taken there in the wrong direction.

Gerd Lüdemann, A Letter to Jesus

Thanks to Gerd Lüdemann for sending over this link. It is an Australian radio programme called The Spirit of Things and this episode from 4 April 2004 is an interview with Gerd Lüdemann:

A Letter to Jesus

Gerd Ludemann is a world-renowned New Testament scholar at the University of Gottingen in Germany. After publishing 'A Letter to Jesus' declaring his loss of faith, the University of Gottingen, removed his courses from the theological faculty. A cause celebre among biblical scholars, Ludemann's predicament raises issues about the relationship between scholarship and personal faith. In this special interview Ludemann bares his soul and his thoughts about who Jesus really was.

There is a full programme transcript available from the link above -- would that more radio programmes would provide this! This excerpt shows Lüdemann summarising his journey away from Jesus:

First I examined the Resurrection of Jesus, because I was told by my church, and by the confession of the church, that the risen Lord is the Lord of the universe, and I wrote a book about the Resurrection, had to conclude that Jesus didn’t rise, that his body rotted away and that Resurrection meant the vision of the risen one, that is a vision, a dream. And nobody will trust his or her dream, so I had to abandon that approach of theology to trust in the risen one, and I turned to Jesus, and thought, Well, if he didn’t rise, there’s a possibility that the authority of Jesus’ words and deeds might be the basis of future faith.

So I was looking for a new way of believing or remaining a believer. And I had to conclude that roughly 85% of the words of Jesus actually go back to the community that made these words up and don’t go back to Jesus, which created another crisis. I had to ask Who was Jesus? Why should Jesus be the basis for my own religion? Because historical investigation showed that Jesus was a Jew and did not go to the Gentiles. So basically I had to decide either to follow Jesus and become a Jew or to respect Jesus as a Jew of his days and abandon Christianity, or at least traditional Christianity, and that’s what I did.

What next?

I'm still here. I've just hit one of those periods where work is so ovewhelming that I've not had time to blog. Where I did manage to get some time at the weekend, you may have noticed that I added some more reflections on The Passion of the Christ. This is not because I had nothing else to blog about or nothing else to say but because I have been working on an article on this with a tight deadline, now past. Now that I'm all Passion-ed out, what next? One thing to look forward to is the Visual Bible International's Gospel of Mark film. I have mentioned this before (Three Other Jesus films), but here is a little more news from a Globe and Mail article by James Adams called The Gospel's second coming:

In the meantime, Drabinsky is continuing with plans to start shooting The Gospel of Mark in late August or early September, using Toronto and Spain as locations. Jeff Sackman said he's "open to the idea of Mark in theatres for 2005," but "it will depend on what transpires in the market between now and then. I assume there are dozens of Christian-themed movies in various stages of production and there could be a glut." At the same time, "I think this experience proved there is a theatrical market" for high-calibre Christian fare.

No more news yet on Regardt van den Bergh's The Lamb.

Hyam Maccoby obituary

Jack Kilmon on Xtalk mentions the sad news of the death of Hyam Maccoby. This obituary is from The Independent:

Professor Hyam Maccoby
Stormy petrel of biblical scholarship and author of books on Jesus, St Paul and Judas Iscariot
Albert H. Friedlander

Historical Accuracy of The Passion of the Christ

In comments on my post about the harmonizing tradition in the Jesus films, Bill points out that the reaction people are making to The Passion of the Christ relates to the explicit claim that this film was historically accurate. I think that this is a useful corrective to my post. I would add a couple of points by way of response, however. First, I've seen a toning down of the claims about historical accuracy in this film as time has gone on. Have a look at the official Passion of the Christ web site, for example. There are no claims here, in the film's official publicity, of historical accuracy. Indeed in "Background Information", it writes under "Sources" that:

It was adapted from a composite account of The Passion assembled from the four Biblical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. (My emphasis)

This actually comes pretty close to describing the work of harmonizing. Gibson himself writes, in the "Foreword" to The Passion (Tyndale House, 2004):

There is a classical Greek word which best defines what "truth" guided my work, and that of everyone else involved in the project: aletheia. It simply means "unforgetting" . . . . It has unfortunately become part of the ritual of our modern secular existence to forget. The film, in this sense, is not meant as a historical documentary nor does it claim to have assembled all the facts. But it does enumerate those described in relevant Holy Scripture. It is not merely representative or merely expressive. I think of it as contemplative in the sense that one is compelled to remember (unforget) in a spiritual way which cannot be articulated, only experienced.

And from the Diane Sawyer interview on February 17:

Asked whether he considers his film the definitive depiction of the passion, Gibson said: "This is my version of what happened, according to the gospels and what I wanted to show — the aspects of it I wanted to show."

And from the Christianity Today interview with Gibson:

Struck: How did you find the balance between staying true to the Scripture and your creative interpretation?

Wow, the Scriptures are the Scriptures—I mean they're unchangeable, although many people try to change them. And I think that my first duty is to be as faithful as possible in telling the story so that it doesn't contradict the Scriptures.

Now, so long as it didn't do that, I felt that I had a pretty wide berth for artistic interpretation, and to fill in some of the spaces with logic, with imagination, with various other readings. ('Dude, That Was Graphic')

But second, the claim about historical accuracy is one that has a familiar ring to it when it comes to Jesus films. Consider, for example, the Jesus film:

The attention to biblical accuracy catapults you back into the life and time of Jesus Christ. You walk the same historical streets, you experience the same wonderful miracles, and you are touched by the power of God as you relive the most important events in the history of mankind.

Or consider the publicity for Jesus of Nazareth:

This epic production is acclaimed for its thorough Biblical and historical accuracy, with six hours of superb acting, beautiful music, and outstanding cinematography. (DVD publicity, e.g. here)

Or consider most recently The Miracle Maker:

Extensive historical and geographical research and the advice of leading biblical experts have ensured the greatest accuracy. (Official website)

I am not trying to claim that Icon Productions have not made inflated claims for their own film, but my point is that the claims of historical accuracy are pretty common in the publicity for Jesus films.

Herod Antipas in The Passion of the Christ

I am intrigued by the portrayal of Antipas in The Passion of the Christ. What are the sources for this portrayal? Several have suggested that it is in large part derived from Jesus Christ Superstar. A review on Net Monster's Movie Reviews, for example, comments

So Gibson's portrayal of Herod as an overweight buffoon appears to be less based upon historical evidence than a direct crib from Jesus Christ Superstar. Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice should sue.

Or see this review on Cool Stuff. That one scene is the source for the other is possible. Have a look at Antipas in another recent Jesus film, The Miracle Maker, in which the opening line of Herod's greeting has almost the same intonation as Herod's greeting in Superstar, "I've been waiting to see you . . . ." The depiction of Herod in that one song in Jesus Christ Superstar is so memorable that it cries out for imitation. But I can't think of any other elements in The Passion of the Christ that appear to be derived from Jesus Christ Superstar. The best analysis I have read of the scene is in Robert Gundry's The Burden of the Passion (see also previous comments):

The treatment of Herod Antipas, to whom Pilate sent Jesus and who sent Jesus back to Pilate, exhibits Gibson's artistry-and homework as well-at its most subtle and thorough. The drunken feast that Jesus' entry interrupts recalls the drunken feast at which the severed head of Jesus' forerunner, John the Baptist, was served to Herod on a platter. Herod's wife Herodias is present here as she was present there. But Herod wears a woman's wig and mascara. Why this womanish portrayal of him despite his heterosexual marriage? Well, it was Herodias who manipulated Herod against his will to have John the Baptist beheaded. To represent her dominance over Herod, Gibson makes him effeminate. There is more. On his way to Jerusalem some Pharisees had said to Jesus, "Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you." But Jesus answered, "Go tell that fox for me, Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. . . . It is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem" (Luke 13:31-33). The Greek word behind "fox" is feminine, so that Jesus is calling Herod a vixen, a female fox-not an animal to be afraid of or to run away from. Gibson matches Herod to Jesus' slur.

An excellent analysis. I would add something I've just spotted from Emmerich's Dolorous Passion

He was seated on a pile of cushions, heaped together so as to form a species of throne, in a spacious hall, and surrounded by courtiers and warriors . . . .

. . . . . They all began at once to vociferate their accusations, to which Herod hardly listened, being intent solely on gratifying his curiosity by a close examination of Jesus, whom he had so often wished to see. But when he beheld him stripped of all clothing save the remnant of a mantle, scarcely able to stand, and his countenance totally disfigured from the blows he had received, and from the mud and missiles which the rabble had flung at his head, the luxurious and effeminate prince turned away in disgust . . . . (Emphasis added).

I am less inclined now to think that Superstar is the source for this depiction of Herod -- Emmerich alongside the Gospels, given Gundry's insights, are the more likely sources.

The harmonizing tradition in Jesus films

In Hypotyposeis, Stephen Carlson comments on the recent Crossan story about The Passion of the Christ in which there seems to be some criticism of the act of harmonizing the Gospel accounts for the film. Stephen writes (excerpted):

I certainly agree that having four gospels instead of one harmonized text has proven to be much richer theologically and historiographically, but I'm taken aback at the apparent per se objection to any harmonization of the gospels. Unless one is to film a single gospel straight through, which is not common, film treatments of Jesus are going to use a blended combination of the gospels. Does this mean that the genre of the Jesus film is fundamentally illegitimate? I just don't get it.

I share this surprise at the strong reaction amongst some scholars to the harmonizing in The Passion of the Christ, not least because this is an age-old tradition in the Jesus films and The Passion of the Christ is far from unique in this regard.

There are essentially four important exceptions to the general rule about the Jesus films harmonizing the four Gospels to produce their narratives, The Gospel According to St Matthew, Jesus (based on Luke), Matthew and The Gospel of John. Otherwise, the Jesus films have narratives in which characters, scenes, motifs and more are drawn together from all four Gospels and none of them. One could give many, many examples but one that I have drawn attention to in the past is Mary Magdalene in the number "Everything's Alright" in Jesus Christ Superstar:

The various stories of the anointing of Jesus (Matt. 26.6-13, Mark 14.3-9, Luke 7.36-50, John 12.1-8) are rolled into one in the number 'Everything's Alright', and unlike any of the Gospels, the one who anoints Jesus is Mary Magdalene (cf. Luke 8.2). And shortly before this, Jesus' reply to Judas' criticism of Mary ('Strange Thing Mystifying') utilizes another story still, the Woman Taken in Adultery (John 8.1-11):

'If your slate is clean, then you can throw stones
If your slate is not, then leave her alone.' (Do You Think You're What They Say You Are?)

I think it's important to understand not only the principle of harmonizing in Jesus films, but also the elements that are repeatedly found appealing by the different film-makers. Certain motifs from the Gospels repeatedly prove popular to the film-maker and can be seen again in The Passion of the Christ. The trial before Herod (unique to Luke, see 23.6-12); Pilate's hand-washing (unique to Matthew, 27.24) and "we have no king but Caesar" (unique to John, 19.15) are all very common in film depictions of the Passion, and not surprisingly crop up again in The Passion of the Christ.

But the issue of harmonizing is clearly one that strikes a real chord with many scholars viewing this film and it does make me wonder whether it is a result of their general lack of familiarity with the Jesus film tradition. Consider, for example, Emily Cheney in Gibson's Gory Story on the SBL Forum. She notes that "It is primarily Mel Gibson's Passion Play, not an accurate portrayal of Jesus' death and the events leading up to his death because we have four versions in the New Testament, not one" and adds:

He harmonizes the four gospels, not respecting how each gospel is emphasizing different aspects and is written for different audiences, at different times, in different places.

Or consider Ched Myers, Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ,” Anti-Semitism and the Gospel: Mark’s Trial Narrative as Political Parody, who remarks:

One of the many problems with Gibson’s film is that it weaves in strands from all four of our gospel versions (not to mention his own gratuitous additions). Attempts to “harmonize” what are four very different versions of the Jesus story have long been discredited because they give the editor such wide license to pick and choose. This effectively creates a “fifth” gospel—or in Gibson’s case, anti-gospel. The only way to unravel Gibson’s fabric is to examine each gospel separately, in order to see their different emphases and purposes.

I am intrigued by the comment here that harmonies have "long been discredited". Of course it is the case that we academic types love to pour over the Synopsis, but we are not marking an undergraduate essay on the Historical Jesus when we are looking at The Passion of the Christ but at a film that is part of a tradition of Christian story-telling. Or from an article interviewing Francis Moloney, Moloney: 'Scene After Scene is Just Wrong' in Passion Film, we read:

Moloney argued against the way in which Gibson selected different verses from different gospels. "Each passion story has its own point to make," he said, adding that if the film puts a selection of all of them together, what you get is a "juxtaposition of material that doesn't belong together." A classic example he mentioned was that the last words of Jesus in the gospels of Matthew and Mark, "My God my God, why have you forsaken me?" are "words of despair." The two writers "really wanted to show that Jesus really died an agonizing death, and that the answer of God to this death is the Resurrection in the very next chapter."

As with the other Jesus films, the cry from the cross "My God, my God . . ." is effectively recontextualized by the harmonizing, drawing in a selection of -- and sometimes all of -- the words from the cross. I quite agree that the harmonizing of the words on the cross does not allow us to understand the way in which Mark's narrative works, but then the film is not attempting to give us an exposition of Mark's Gospel.

Acts-L homepage

Martin Webber emails to point out that the old Acts-L homepage at Baylor University, along with the archive of older materials, has now disappeared. I've adjusted the link on my E-Lists and Luke-Acts pages so that they have only the Yahoo!Groups link. If anyone happens to know of the whereabouts of anything else for the list, I'd be happy to hear about it.

More on the Russian Biblical Studies site

I commented yesterday on Bible Studies - Русские страницы and drew attention to some concerns about articles of mine that have been reproduced there without permission. I wrote to the author of the site to express my concern and he emails me in response with an explanation. He says that he did ask for permission to reproduce many of the articles on the site but he could not always find the relevant email addresses and some people did not reply. Others, he says, may have just slipped through the net. So I had a look in my own correspondence and see that I did in fact write to the author of the site in response to an email he sent me on 27 November 2001. (I write well over 5,000 emails a year so it is not surprising that I forget some). My email of 27 November 2001 says that I am happy to encourage links to any of my articles but that I am not happy to grant permission to reproduce any of them. I might add that in some cases (e.g. Fatigue in the Synoptics) I do not own the copyright anyway and so cannot grant others permission to reproduce them. So I have asked the author to take my articles down.

The site in question has lots more articles and as far as I can see there are no statements about copyright or permission being granted. It is possible that there are others whose articles have been reproduced without permission; I have written to the author of the site to encourage him to add statements concerning permission where he has it, not least because I can imagine that others might be less gracious than I when their material has been reproduced without permission. I should add here that I think that what the author of the site is doing, bringing Biblical Studies to Russia, where books and journals are often scarce, is most valuable. For that reason it is all the more important to make sure that everything available on the site is there legitimately.

Text of AAR letter on-line

There have been comments here and elsewhere on the AAR decision to hold stand-alone meetings. The AAR web site have now made available the text of the response from the AAR board on this issue in relation to the petition organised by Karen King and Elaine Pagels:

A Message from the AAR Board

Robert Gundry article on The Passion of the Christ

I have commented previously on Robert Gundry's short article on The Passion of the Christ in the SBL Forum's Letters to the Editor. They have now re-ordered this page and sensibly given Gundry's article (as well as the other longer ones) a page of its own:

The Burden of the Passion
Robert H. Gundry

Stuart Miller on the "Who killed Jesus?" question

It is good to see the SBL Forum continuing to publish Letters to the Editor -- this brings alive the SBL pages as indeed a kind of "forum" for debate and discussion, adding a degree of diversity and interaction for the first time. The latest to be added is this interesting contribution:

The Question, Not the Answer, Is the Problem
Stuart S. Miller

The tendency to regard the defining moment in Jewish-Christian relations as the rejection by the "Jews" (as if the original followers of Jesus weren't Jews!) of Jesus at Golgotha rather than the rejection by Christians, subsequent to the crucifixion, of the halakhah, only serves to further deflect attention from Christianity's roots in Judaism. All the attention given to answering the question, "Who killed Jesus?" further misleads the adherents of both Christianity and Judaism from the truth. Christians continue to skirt the implications of their Jewish heritage for their faith and their relationship with the Jews. Jews, by responding defensively, only legitimize the falsifying of history that has allowed Christians for so long to regard them as the "Other." . . . .

. . . . New Passion plays, such as Mel Gibson's movie, only further mask the historical truth and do nothing positive for relations between Christians and Jews. The Church and Christian leaders need to set their own history and relationship with the Jews straight, not by readdressing, or compelling Jews to readdress, "Who killed Jesus?" but by finally teaching their adherents the undeniable truth about Christian origins. Empathy for the suffering of Jesus the Jew might then be transformed into a truly meaningful lesson.

Stuart S. Miller is Associate Professor of Hebrew, History, and Judaic Studies at the University of Connecticut at Storrs.

Update (7 January 2006): thanks to Stuart Miller for notifying me of the revised URLs for the above: access "article" and letter (PDF).

Tony Fisher's Greek NT Pages problem

Greg Bloomquist emails me to point out that the late Tony Fisher's Greek New Testament pages have encountered a problem -- one always gets an "Error! Database is busy . . ." message. I have written to a contact in the York University computing department in the hope that this can be fixed. It may be that in the long term we should approach York with a view to taking over the site so that it can be maintained on a more day-to-day basis. I will post any updates here. In the mean time, the Online Greek Bible provides a similar service if one is doing a simple search. That site is superior in one way -- it provides varieties of fonts for display, including unicode, but it is not able to tackle the more complex searches that Tony Fisher's site can. Also, I am not keen on the anonymity of the site -- I prefer web authors to be upfront about who they are.

Exploring New Testament Greek: A Way In

This new book has been announced from SCM Press:

Paula Gooder and Peter Kevern,
Exploring New Testament Greek: A Way In

This practical textbook for undergraduate students and serving ministers is specifically designed to teach the reader about New Testament Greek, and to enrich the readers understanding of Scripture. Features a regularly updated companion website with exercises and revision notes.

0334029422 £10.99 OUT MAY 2004

The site features an endorsement from me, indeed the only endorsement currently given there:

"· '… clearly fills a gap in the market.' Mark Goodacre, University of Birmingham"

I should therefore point out that I have not seen this book. I was asked to look at a book proposal in January 2003, and I have looked out my report and see that what I wrote was "This book proposal is a very interesting one, and it would clearly fill a gap in the market." I reported favourably on the book proposal, but listed several potential concerns too. I'll ask SCM if I can now have a look at the book.

Armin Daniel Baum homepage

On Hypotyposeis, Stephen Carlson draws attention to:

Armin Daniel Baum

He is at the Freie Theologische Akademie, Germany and this page features a CV and list of publications. I have added it to the Scholars: B page and have at the same time updated the links to several of the other pages there. (It still amazes me to see how few university sites bother to set up forwards from older pages. It is something I am always nagging about here, often to no avail. At least we have a set of good forwards set up from older pages in the Dept of Theology, but that's because I look after them).

Stephen also refers to one of Baum's articles available for download:

Die Diskussion der Authentizität von Herrenworten in altkirchlicher Zeit [PDF]

Note too several other articles of interest on the Freie Theologische Akademie site:

Artikel zum Download