enns on “ancient near eastern thought and the old testament” and paul helm

28 December 2007 — art

This summer I reviewed John Walton’s newest book, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament. The review can be found here. Peter Enns has just posted a helpful review of the same book. I say “helpful” because Enns includes the outline of the book and many positive points as well as some points of criticism where Walton fails “to connect the dots between the evidence and the conclusions drawn with respect to the nature of Scripture.” Enns then illustrates this with some well thought out examples from Walton’s book which, for me, were the most helpful part of the review. I encourage everyone to read both Walton’s work and the review by Enns.

Enns has also just added an excellent response to Paul Helm’s review of Inspiration and Incarnation. You can find that response here. I’m glad Dr. Enns finally wrote a response to this review because I also felt the review to be flawed on many accounts.

Posted in Book Review, Old Testament, Peter Enns. 16 Comments »

from the forest itself comes the handle for the axe

27 December 2007 — art

Pictured is the title page of Midrash Tehillim from the 1909 version of the Jewish Encyclopedia.

One of the reasons that I love to read the Jewish midrash is because I find the interpretations fascinating. Some might find them odd or even contrived, and many times the interpretations are a bit fantastic, but I continue to read with amazement.

For those who are unfamiliar with the midrash, Renee Bloch, in a very influential 1955 essay, summarizes five key points of the midrash very nicely:

(1) Its point of departure is Scripture in that it is a reflection and meditation on the sacred texts, the Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Old Testament. Leave a Comment »

peter enns

21 December 2007 — art

Dr. Peter Enns, Old Testament professor extraordinaire, now has a blog called “a time to tear down | A Time to Build Up,” a line from the greatest book of the Bible, Ecclesiastes, as well as the title of a book on Ecclesiastes by Michael Fox (check the “Suggested Reading” page).

I’m looking forward to learning from Dr. Enns even more. If you haven’t read it already, one of the best books I have read in my life was written by Dr. Enns and is entitled Inspiration and Incarnation. You should read it immediately…twice.

HT: Tony.

Posted in Peter Enns, The Loop. 1 Comment »

christmas

19 December 2007 — art

I’m home in Florida for the Christmas break. Because I was leaving Philly, my girlfriend and I had to exchange Christmas gifts on Monday night.

Guess what she got me???? Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Oh Life. 11 Comments »

defining the gospel

12 December 2007 — art

Some people have taken issue with N.T. Wright’s definition of “the gospel” and I have attempted to see why, but I cannot. Wright bases his definition of “the gospel,” oddly enough, on two passages within Paul where he explicitly states what the gospel is: Romans 1.1-6 and 1 Corinthians 15.3-5 (which was, most likely, an early church creedal formula that Paul quotes).

Romans 1.1-6
1 Παῦλος δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ κλητὸς ἀπόστολος ἀφωρισμένος εἰς εὐαγγέλιον θεοῦ 2 ὃ προεπηγγείλατο διὰ τῶν προφητῶν αὐτοῦ ἐν γραφαῖς ἁγίαις 3 περὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in N.T. Wright, New Testament. 10 Comments »

interview with thomas dunelm

10 December 2007 — art

This is probably old news for most of you, but Bishop N. T. Wright (one of my heroes), was recently interviewed by a student, Trevin Wax, at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. You can listen to the full interview here (To download: Mac users->option+click; Windows users ->wake up).

Or you can read a transcript of the entire interview, question by question, here.

Of course, the best thing to do would to read Wright’s work, and do so fairly, but Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in N.T. Wright, Pipes Cigars and Alcohol (PCA). 7 Comments »

gervais on genesis 1-3

4 December 2007 — art

I have debated putting this video on my blog for a few weeks. The reason is because Gervais uses some unfortunate language (read: naughty four letter words) in this part of his comedy routine. Ricky Gervais (pictured), along with his friend Stephen Merchant, wrote the first (and best) version of The Office that ran on BBC Four for two series from July 2001 to November 2002, with two concluding Christmas specials that ran on BBC One Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Old Testament. 10 Comments »

enoch the prophet

4 December 2007 — art

I wrote a short paper on Jude’s quotation of 1 Enoch 1:9 for my course on the Epistles and Revelation that was entitled “Enoch the Prophet.” The paper had to be short so I was unable to explore all of the implications of this quote, but those implications continue to intrigue me. The commentaries that I studied were unable to explore all of the implications of the quotation; of course, that is not the fault of the commentators. Issues such as this are better suited for discussion in academic journals or monographs. However, after reading the commentaries, monographs, and academic journals I couldn’t help but leave feeling cheated out of a full explanation. There are so many interesting issues that Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in NT's Use of the OT, New Testament. 13 Comments »

resurgence 08: text and context

2 December 2007 — art

This year’s Re:surgence conference is going to be focused on understand the text in context. I won’t be able to make it out to Seattle for the conference, but they always put the audio and (some of) the video on their podcast during the weeks following the conference. I’m excited to hear what the conference speakers will say since understanding Scripture in context is one of my passions and is extremely important Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Mark Driscoll, Peter Enns. 2 Comments »

tim keller: the reason for god

1 December 2007 — art

Tim Keller’s new book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, is due to come out this February 14th. Publisher’s Weekly just put a very positive review of the book on their website. Tim has also written a short explanation of why he wrote the book.

I’m really looking forward to reading this book, although the fact that my nose is stuck in a book might put a damper on my Valentine’s Day date with my girlfriend!

Posted in The Loop, Tim Keller. 2 Comments »