NT Pod 26: The Case Against Q, Programme Notes

I uploaded the latest episode of the NT Pod yesterday, NT Pod 26: The Case Against Q. It is the fourth and final episode in the current series of back-to-back episodes on the Synoptic Problem that I have been running in tandem with my New Testament Introduction class here at Duke.

For those who may be interested in reading more about this topic, I have a few suggestions. The New Testament Gateway has a section on the Synoptic Problem, which gathers together different resources on the issue, including websites like Stephen Carlson's Synoptic Problem Home Page and Mahlon Smith's Synoptic Gospels Primer.  There is also a Books and Articles for those who want to take things a little further.

I have a website related to the specific topic of this podcast and it is called the Case Against Q Website.   This has been on the web now for 13 years, which is quite a long time in internet history.  When I had a book published on the topic in 2002, I turned the site into a companion site for that book.  Now eight years later, I am wondering about turning it back into a free-standing site.  But that does, of course, depend on whether I can find the time to update it.   You can find lots of material on the topic there, including articles by Farrer, Goulder and me about the Farrer theory, which affirms Marcan Priority but dispenses with Q.

Website all back

My website is all back this morning, now that I have shelled out a bit extra cash for more bandwith. I think I'll keep the extended episodes of the NT Pod on my Duke server space since they are so much larger than the standard episodes and since more people have downloaded them than I expected. I am planning also to back up the NT Pod as a whole to my Duke server space.

Website bandwith issues

My website went down tonight because my monthly bandwidth limit had been exceeded. This took me a little by surprise because the last time I looked, a couple of months ago, I was only using 5-10% of my monthly allocation. The thing that has made all the difference is the unexpected success of the NT Pod. In particular, it never occurred to me that people would want to download the extended episodes in such numbers. It was only something of an experiment, to take class recordings and package them as extended episodes of the regular podcasts. Well, it is gratifying that people are enjoying the podcasts, but since this has forced the site to go down, this is a quick post to explain that it should be back again soon. I have parted with more money for extra monthly bandwidth allocation (1,000 GB) and I have also moved the extended episodes to my Duke server space, along with other recent episodes. So at the moment, you should be able to access a lot of the NT Pod via its website or via iTunes U. Let me know if you have trouble getting to it.

My main website itself is still down, though, and in the mean time, you can get to an older back up here at Duke.

I hope to have everything completely fixed and back to normal by tomorrow.

Only the true Messiah denies his divinity

We discussed the Messianic Secret in my New Testament Introduction class at Duke yesterday, and on this topic I can never help thinking of one of my favourite scenes in Life of Brian. Brian, who is being pursued by a crowd who want to proclaim him the Messiah, makes clear that he is not the Messiah. Some bright spark comes up with the line, "Only the true Messiah denies his divinity!" The exchange is towards the end of this four minute clip. Only two or three people, out of a hundred and thirty in the class, had seen Life of Brian, so this is to whet their appetites too:



Incidentally, this is a fine example of the use of Youtube by official organizations. Since Monty Python put clips like this on Youtube, sales of their DVDs apparently multiplied massively. There is a lesson there for online marketing that is still not understood by very many people.

Clark lectures 2010: Teresa Okure

This year's Clark Lectures at Duke are to be given by Teresa Okure. On the original schedule, the first lecture was to be tomorrow, but this has been adjusted now so that both are on Wednesday. From the Divinity School's website:

Teresa Okure Presents 2010 Clark Lectures

A professor of New Testament and gender hermeneutics at the Catholic Institute of West Africa, Okure will speak on Feb. 17. Please note schedule changes made on Feb. 15.

Teresa Okure, professor of New Testament and gender hermeneutics at the Catholic Institute of West Africa, will present the 2010 Duke Divinity School Clark Lectures on Feb. 17.

She will present “Reading the Gospel Miracles as Parables: Mark 5:1-20 as an Example” at 8:30 a.m. in Room 0016 Westbrook. She will present “Rediscovering ‘the New’ in the New Testament,” at 12:20 p.m. in Room 0016 Westbrook.

Both lectures are open to the public.

Okure, who lives in Nigeria, is a Sister of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. She also has served in various leadership roles at the Catholic Institute of West Africa, including academic dean, dean of student affairs, and head of the Department of Biblical Studies.

A member of various national and international theological and biblical associations, Okure is a well-known biblical scholar who has lectured widely both nationally and internationally. She is the founding president of the Catholic Biblical Association of Nigeria (CABAN) and a co-editor of the new Biblical Commentary Series, Texts@Contexts, the first volumes of which are due to appear in November, published by Fortress Press.
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Gerry Adams on Judas's Betrayal, The Bible: A History

Tomorrow's Times carries an article on the forthcoming fifth episode of The Bible: A History, which focuses on Jesus and is presented by Gerry Adams. The article is headed I know why Judas betrayed Jesus, says Gerry Adams in Channel 4 documentary. Except that he does not. The documentary does not actually discuss Judas at all. (I am series consultant, which is why I have seen and contributed to these materials). The Times has apparently taken this material from Helen Bond's op-ed piece for Bible and Interpretation over a month ago, Jesus through the eyes of an Irish republican (not "her blog", as the piece incorrectly has it). Helen was discussing there her conversations with Adams and how they had caused her to think about the Historical Jesus, but no discussion about Judas appears in the programme.

Meanwhile, Doug Chaplin offers his reflections on tonight's episode, "Daughters of Eve", over on Clayboy, and I have been meaning to mention The Independent's write-up of last week's episode featuring Anne Widdecombe.

Update (18.20): Jim West comments.

Michael Goulder obituary in Birmingham's Buzz

David Parker has written a fine obituary of our former colleague Michael Goulder in Birmingham University's Buzz news service:

Buzz Obituaries

. . . . He had one of the most original and powerful minds of his generation, and spanned the very separate fields of Hebrew Bible and New Testament studies in a way unique in the second half of the twentieth century. His most important contributions to New Testament scholarship included arguing long and forcibly for a fresh view of the relationship between the Gospels that overthrew a long consensus and led to a new generation of scholarship. He was also a noted authority on the Psalms.

Michael was incisive in debate, with a brilliant wit . . .

The entry also mentions the memorial service at St Francis Hall on 25 February at 2.30pm.

NT Pod 25: Q

Well, it was inevitable that in the end I would get to Q on the NT Pod. So to have waited until episode 25 might be thought of as some kind of achievement. This latest episode is the third in a back to back series on the Synoptic Problem, beginning with NT Pod 23: What is the Synoptic Problem? and continuing with NT Pod 24: Was Mark the First Gospel?. I am running these episodes alongside my New Testament Introduction course which I am teaching at Duke at the moment.

I had initially planned to do three back to back episodes on the Synoptic Problem, but decided that it would be better and fairer to take one episode to lay out the case for Q, the current one, and then to give my reasons for disagreeing with that case in the next episode. That one will be along soon.

I have also continued with the extended episodes of the NT Pod, using recordings of the lectures, and I will blogging those here in due course. In the mean time, NT Pod subscribers will already have received them.

The Bible: A History on the blogs

Over on the T & T Clark blog, Dominic Mattos notes the presence of several T & T Biblical Studies authors on TV. On The Bible: A History, there have been appearances from Francesca Stavrakopoulou (episodes 1-2) and Henry Wansbrough (episode 3), and Dominic also notes that I am the Series Consultant. And there are more T & T Clark authors to come, Paula Gooder in episode 4 ("Daughters of Eve" with Bettany Hughes) this Sunday, Helen Bond in episode 5 on Jesus (the Gerry Adams episode), James Crossley in episode 6 on Paul (the Tom Holland episode) and me in episode 7 on Revelation (the Robert Beckford episode). Larry Hurtado also appears in episode 6, though I don't think he's published with T & T.

Elsewhere on the blogs, Matt Page, in Bible Films Blog, comments on the Ann Widdecombe episode, The Bible: A History, part 3 and Doug Chaplin, in Clayboy, has comments on the same episode, Going clubbing with the Bible (mainly anyone who disagrees).

Michael Goulder on the Resurrection, Bibliography

I posted an audio clip yesterday of Michael Goulder being interviewed about the resurrection of Jesus. There have been several interesting comments on this, including on The Busybody. I should perhaps have added that the brevity of the interview (just four minutes) means that it gives one just a little flavour of Michael's thinking on the topic. My main reason for posting was to get a chance to listen to his voice again. I hope to publish more in due course. But for those who are interested in investigating his views on this subject further, he published several articles:

“Did Jesus of Nazareth Rise from the Dead?”. In J. Barton and G. N. Stanton (eds.), Resurrection. Festschrift Leslie Houlden (London: SPCK, 1994): 58-68

“The Baseless Fabric of a Vision”. In Gavin D'Costa (ed.), Resurrection Reconsidered (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 1996): 48-61

“The Explanatory Power of Conversion-Visions”. In Paul Copan, and Ronald K. Tacelli (eds.), Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment? : a Debate between William Lane Craig & Gerd Lüdemann (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 2000): 86-103

“Jesus' Resurrection and Christian Origins: A Response to N.T. Wright.” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 3 (2005): 187-195

That Top 50 Biblical History Blogs list

I and many others blogged about a blog offering the Top 50 Biblical History Blogs the other day. Over on BiblePlaces.com blog, Todd Bolen has sussed out what is going on over there in a well written exposé on How "Top 50" Lists Work. Looks like he is right on the money or, rather, their attempts to get to the money.

Michael Goulder on the Resurrection and Losing Faith

This is a short clip from an episode of the BBC Radio 4 series Beyond Belief (25 March 2002) in which Michael Goulder was asked by Ernie Rea about his coming to doubt the resurrection of Jesus, and his giving up his Anglican orders:

Update (10 October 2018): If you can't see the audio player above, try this direct link to the audio file.

Michael Goulder: The Times obituary

Tomorrow's Times carries its obituary of Michael Goulder who died on 6th January:

Professor Michael Goulder: Biblical Scholar [dead link; see below]

Michael Goulder was Professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Birmingham, well known for his creative approach to the Gospels and the Psalms and for resigning his orders as an Anglican priest not long after contributing to The Myth of God Incarnate, a celebrated collection of essays that questioned the traditional Christian doctrine of the Incarnation . . .

Update (20 July 2010): The Times has now placed a lot of its content behind a paywall.  The obituary is still available to view at no cost at the link above, but now in a no-frills version and without the picture that originally appeared, and which I have reproduced here (left).

Update (23 February 2014): the obituary is now available at the following URL:

Professor Michael Goulder: Biblical Scholar

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Mary Daly Obituary

Tomorrow's Times also carries an obituary of Mary Daly, who died earlier this year:

Mary Daly: Feminist and Theologian

Mary Daly was one of the first American women to train as a Roman Catholic theologian. She became a controversial philosopher of religion, criticised for her audacity and creativity as “a radical lesbian feminist”. Her initial challenge to established theological doctrines and emerging feminist movements may not appear radical today but Daly’s “theology” shocked the Establishment. From the beginning, she challenged what she saw as the oppression of women; that is, the implicit “patriarchy” of the Catholic Church . . .

Douglas MacDowell Obituary

Tomorrow's Times has an obituary of Douglas MacDowell:

Professor Douglas MacDowell: Classical Scholar

Douglas MacDowell was one of the most distinguished Classical scholars in Britain and beyond. He occupied the Chair of Greek in the University of Glasgow from 1971 to his retirement in 2001, the longest period of office of any Glasgow Professor of Greek since Edmund Lushington, Tennyson’s brother-in-law, retired in 1877 . . .

The Palaeography Chair at Kings College, London

Over on Paleojudaica, Jim Davila draws attention to the scandal that the last Palaeography chair in the UK, at King's College London, is being eliminated. Jim notes an article in today's Guardian:

Writing off the UK's last palaeographer
The decision by a London university to axe the UK's only chair in palaeography has been met by outrage from the world's most eminent classicists. John Crace on why the study of ancient writings matters – and why history will be lost without it

Jim offers an important criticism of an otherwise excellent article,

One criticism of the piece though; it shouldn't assume that subjects like paleography can't bring in research grant money. The research councils and other funding sources recognize the value of such things and are quite willing to fund projects on them if they are well thought out.

Indeed. Some of the most successful units in gaining research grants have been those specializing in ancient texts. In addition to Jim's own successes, you need only to think of ITSEE at the University of Birmingham.

So what can be done? For a start, we can spread the word. There are already 4,774 members of this Facebook group:

Save Palaeography at King's London

5,995 people have signed the petition:

Save Palaeography at King's College London

When you're done, don't forget to tweet it. Moreover, if you have a blog, why not blog it too?

Top 50 Biblical History Blogs

Several bloggers are rightly celebrating their inclusion on a new list of the Top 50 Biblical History Blogs. Neither the NT Blog nor the NT Pod themselves make the cut, nor does the NT Gateway make it into the "other studies and study tools" section, but those absences give all the more room for all the other fine resources listed there.

NT Pod 24: Was Mark the First Gospel?

I uploaded the latest NT Pod at the weekend, the second in the current series of back-to-back episodes on the Synoptic Problem, asking Was Mark the First Gospel?. In it I cover some of the main arguments for Marcan Priority, but I decided to save the argument from editorial fatigue for another NT Pod later in the year.

I have also released two extended episodes, which use the audio from my recent classes on the topics, and I will post separately on those in due course.

KGO Radio Guest Spot on the Synoptic Problem

You can listen to my guest spot on KGO Radio's God Talk with Brent Walters either via their archive, which has a streaming and an mp3 download function. My contribution starts about seven and a half minutes in and lasts off and on for the hour. The broad topic is the Synoptic Problem, though it ranges onto related topics too.

Guesting on KGO Radio, Sunday morning

I'll be guesting on God Talk with Brent Walters on KGO Radio, tomorrow morning. The topic will be the Synoptic Problem. God Talk is on from 6am to 9am PST, which is 9am to 12pm my time here on the east side of the USA. I'll be on during the last hour of the show, between 8am and 9am PST, between 11am and 12pm my time. You can listen along on the internet if you are not in the San Francisco area, at KGO Radio. It will be my second time on the show; I did slot on Paul last June.