New Testament – Page 3 – The Two Cities

Review of As it Was in the Beginning by Mark D. Owen

Apr 2, 2016

Owens, Mark D. As It Was in the Beginning: An Intertextual Analysis of New Creation in Galatians, 2 Corinthians, and Ephesians. Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2015. Paperback. 241 pages. Retail: $29.00. ISBN: 9781498202404 In As It Was in the Beginning, Mark D. Owens compares “new creation” concepts in Galatians, 2 Corinthians, and Ephesians through an intertextual analysis that focuses on Old Testament allusions and traditions. He suggests that the three letters exhibit a close correlation in...

A Memorial for I. Howard Marshall

Jan 24, 2016

I once attended a funeral for a man (lets call him “Joe-Bob”) who was renowned in our little town in South Dakota for his regular place at the local bar. It was a unique affair with testimonials that praised Joe-Bob’s happy outlook on life, his ability to hold his alcohol, and his consistent appearance at the third seat down from the tap. Joe-Bob’s widow poignantly pointed out that, even though Joe-Bob was dying of cirrhosis...

I. Howard Marshall, a Legend

Dec 14, 2015

I first received the news of Howard Marshall, one of the most influential New Testament scholars in the world, passing away late Saturday night. Several blog posts are cropping up containing tributes and summaries of his life and work. In this blog post, I thought I might add a few personal notes about my experience of I. Howard Marshall I came to the University of Aberdeen to do a PhD in New Testament knowing that...

Review of Hidden Criticism? by Christoph Heilig

Nov 14, 2015

Heilig, Christoph. Hidden Criticism?: The Methodology and Plausibility of the Search for a Counter-Imperial Subtext in Paul. Wissenchaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testamentum II.392. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015. 160 pages + 39 pages bibliography & indices. Softcover. Retail: €69.00. Questions concerning the New Testament’s relationship to aspects of the Roman Empire—and in particular the political claims of Caesar as “lord” and the religious worship of the Roman rulers in the imperial cult—have been at the forefront...

Review of The Birth of the Trinity by Matthew W. Bates

Oct 31, 2015

Matthew W. Bates. The Birth of the Trinity: Jesus, God, and Spirit in New Testament & Early Christian Interpretation of the Old Testament. Oxford University Press, 2015. 234 pgs. ₤55 (Hardback). ISBN 978-0-19-872956-3. In his recent monograph, The Birth of the Trinity: Jesus, God, and Spirit in New Testament & Early Christian Interpretation of the Old Testament, Matthew W. Bates provides an alternative account of the origins of trinitarian doctrine. His thesis is that, “in...

Reading Other Peoples’ Mail

Jun 12, 2015

Returning from the mailbox, you flip through the stack that is your recent prize. You begin the important task of separating the pertinent letters from the ones that will be quickly discarded without even being read. Postcards and invitations in one stack, ads in another; bills, the things you wish you could throw away, on the right; another pile that is placed closest to the trash belongs to the mis-delivered. A Mr. So-and-So has not...

Review of Text and Tradition in Performance and Writing by Richard Horsley

Sep 14, 2014

Richard A. Horsley. Text and Tradition in Performance and Writing. Biblical Performance Criticism Volume 9. Cascade Books, 2013. 2014. 340 pgs. $32.00. Paperback. Richard Horsley’s, Text and Tradition in Performance and Writing, is volume nine of the Wipf and Stock series Biblical Performance Criticism. Due to significant overlap in the content of several of the chapters, I have elected to sketch the book’s general contours rather than offer a chapter by chapter summary. The foundational...

Review of The Oral Ethos of the Early Church by Joanna Dewey

Aug 31, 2014

Joanna Dewey. The Oral Ethos of the Early Church: Speaking, Writing, and the Gospel of Mark. Biblical Performance Criticism Volume 8. Cascade Books, 2013. 204 pgs. $24.00. Paperback. Joanna Dewey’s recent volume, The Oral Ethos of the Early Church: Speaking, Writing, and the Gospel of Mark, represents one of the many important studies in Wipf and Stock’s recent series on Biblical Performance Criticism. For the sake of economy, I will not summarize every article collected...

Review of The World of the New Testament edited by Joel Green and Lee Martin McDonald

Aug 23, 2014

Joel Green and Lee Martin McDonald, editors. The World of the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013. 640 pages. Hardcover. $49.99. The World of the New Testament (WNT) is a reference work covering a wide range of topics relating the historical background of the New Testament (NT). The volume is divided into forty seven entries contributed thirty four scholars. Entries vary in length, the shortest is only four pages while the longest is twenty...

Review of Justification Reconsidered: Rethinking a Pauline Theme by Stephen Westerholm

Jul 19, 2014

There continues to be a swirl of popular interest in the now not-so-new “New Perspective on Paul.” In Justification Reconsidered: Rethinking a Pauline Theme, Stephen Westerholm attempts “to update and to make more widely accessible earlier work” (viii), and thus demonstrate why he has not been persuaded by recent “revisionist” readings of Paul. The concise work consists of six chapters, each of which attempts to briefly describe key proposals from six scholars associated with the...