NT Gateway Weblog

Jesus of Montreal (dir. Denys Arcand, 1989) has recently been released on DVD. Thanks to James Knox for sending me the press release:

Jesus of Montreal DVD Press Release

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Although this is a New Testament web log, there's an Old Testament site worth mentioning, not least because I often get asked the question "Is there an Old Testament Gateway?". In addition to iTanakh and the Old Testament Gateway, another useful site that's just come to my attention is The Old Testament and the Ancient Near East by Ralph W. Klein, Christ Seminary-Seminex Professor of Old Testament and editor of Currents in Theology and Mission. It's a good and pretty full collection of links, suitably broken down into digestible sections, with a memorable URL (http://www.ot-studies.com) and it's searchable. A couple of negatives: there's no indication of when the last update took place, so it's impossible to track new additions and changes to the site, unless I'm missing it somewhere. I'd also say that Prof. Klein has tried to cram too much onto individual pages, especially The World of Biblical Studies, which limits the usefulness of the search engine provided. Further, the frames set up means that the basic URL stays in the location bar throughout, making it hard work to bookmark or link to individual pages on the site. And he doesn't refer to the NT Gateway or the All-in-One Biblical Resources search, but I won't hold that against him : ) . In spite of the minor gripes, an excellent new site.

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While surfing round the Tyndale House web site, I realised that I hadn't added David Instone-Brewer's homepage to my Scholars pages. I've now corrected that. There's lots of Instone-Brewer elsewhere on the NT Gateway, but somehow I'd neglected to add his homepage. In addition to that Tyndale staff page, he also has a site called Background to the Bible which features, among other things, the fine web resource called Marriage and Divorce Papyri of the ancient Greek, Roman and Jewish world, a Featured Link back in March 2000. It's well-worth spending time surfing around Instone-Brewer's web site(s) -- there's lots there. One minor grievance -- he has one of those annoying sticky URLs that won't shift from your browser location bar when you hit "back".

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I mentioned recently Peter Head's homepage. The problem on it has now been fixed and it reads nicely again:

Peter Head's Homepage

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While in the mood, if you haven't seen this before, it's a treat:

The Brick Testament

First saw reference to this -- I think -- in my colleague David Parker's inaugural lecture, so it must be an academically respectable site.

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Since it's the weekend, here's a link I've recently been sent. It won't make its way onto the NT Gateway proper, but you might be amused by some of the jokes: Bible Jokes and Study OnLine.

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An addition to the Scholars pages, Brian K. Peterson. While updating that page, I see that Mark Allan Powell's page has gone missing. Anyone know where it's moved to?

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Jim's URL has changed to http://www.biblical-studies.org -- a bit easier to remember! I've adjusted the link on my Biblical Resource Index Pages on the gateway and have reorganised the order of the links (e.g. dropped Webnexus down the list now that it's not been updated for such a while).

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Here's the next batch, also courtesy of Gail Dawson's searches. If anyone has the time to do further searches, or comes across others of interest to NT scholarship, let me know and I'll post a notice here. In the meantime, I'll need to index these on their respective pages on the NTGateway (with the exceptions of the book reviews, which I don't as a rule index on the NTGateway -- would expand the site out of all proportion):

"Drinking Blood at a Kosher Eucharist? The Sound of Scholarly Silence"
Author/s: Michael J. Cahill
Issue: Winter, 2002

"Paul and the Victims of His Persecution: the Opponents in Galatia"
Author/s: Richard B. Cook
Issue: Winter, 2002

"John H. Elliott, 1 Peter: an appreciation." (Book Review)
Author/s: Paul J. Achtemeier
Issue: Fall, 2002

"The widow: homeless and post-menopausal." (term "widow" in the Bible)
Author/s: Carolyn S. Leeb
Issue: Winter, 2002

"Zechariah's unbelief and early Jewish-Christian relations: the form and structure of Luke 1:5-25 as a clue to the narrative agenda of the Gospel of Luke."
Author/s: Steven R. Harmon
Issue: Spring, 2001

"One form of social exchange or two? 'Euergetism,' patronage, and testament studies." (Roman and Greek ideas of patronage)
Author/s: Stephan J. Joubert
Issue: Spring, 2001

"How unclean were tax-collectors?"
Author/s: Hyam Maccoby
Issue: Summer, 2001

"Matthew 6:9-13//Luke 11:2-4: an eschatological prayer?"
Author/s: Jeffrey B. Gibson
Issue: Fall, 2001

"Opening blind eyes: a revisioning of Mark 8:22-10:52."
Author/s: Marie Noel Keller
Issue: Winter, 2001

"The Jesus Movement and social network analysis: (part II. The social network)."
Author/s: Dennis C. Duling
Issue: Spring, 2000

"Jesus' eating transgressions and social impropriety in the gospel of Mark: a social scientific approach"
Author/s: Dietmar Neufeld
Issue: Spring, 2000

"Editorial dilemma: the interpolation of 1 Cor 14:34-35 in the western manuscripts of D, G and 88."
Author/s: D.W. Odell-Scott
Issue: Summer, 2000

"Hyam Maccoby, Ritual and Morality: the Ritual Purity System and Its Place in Judaism." (Book Review)
Author/s: John F. Craghan
Issue: Fall, 2000

"Of what charges? (Luke 16:1-2)." (parable of the dishonest steward)
Author/s: John G. Lygre
Issue: Spring, 2002

"The Bride of Christ (Ephesians 5:22-33): a problematic wedding."
Author/s: Carolyn Osiek
Issue: Spring, 2002

"Andries van Aarde, Fatherless in Galilee: Jesus as a Child of God." (Book Review)
Author/s: Robert L. Mowery
Issue: Summer, 2002

"John Paul Heil, The Transfiguration of Jesus: Narrative Meaning and Function of Mark 9:2-8, Matthew 17:1-8, and Luke 9:28-36." (Book Review)
Author/s: John F. Craghan
Issue: Summer, 2002

"Networks and exchanges: Ephesians 4:7-16 and the community function of teachers."
Author/s: Peter W. Gosnell
Issue: Winter, 2000

"Titus: epistle of religious revitalization."
Author/s: Kenneth D. Tollefson
Issue: Winter, 2000

"Thomas L. Brodie, The Crucial Bridge: the Elijah-Elisha Narrative as an Interpretive Synthesis of Genesis-Kings and a Literary Model for the Gospels." (Book Review)
Author/s: Robert Karl Gruse
Issue: Winter, 2000

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Here is the first batch of individual articles of interest from the on-line Biblical Theology Bulletin. The difficulty with FindArticles is that it doesn't have a browsing facility on a given journal, so one has to proceed by a series of searches. Anyway, these all courtesy of Gail Dawson's searches, for which many thanks:

"Why Does the Gospel of Mark Begin As It Does?"
Author/s: Santiago Guijarro
Issue: Spring, 2003

"Healing stories and medical anthropology: a reading of Mark 10:46-52"
Author/s: Santiago Guijarro
Issue: Fall, 2000

"Rethinking the Judean past: questions of history and a social archaeology of memory in the first book of the Maccabees"
Author/s: Mario I. Aguilar
Issue: Summer, 2000

"Jesus, healer of the Canaanite woman's daughter in Matthew's gospel: a social-scientific inquiry."
Author/s: Stuart L. Love
Issue: Spring, 2002

"Exegetical eschatology, the peasant present and the final discourse genre: the case of Mark 13."
Author/s: Bruce J. Malina
Issue: Summer, 2002

"Improving Bible translations: the example of sickness and healing."
Author/s: John J. Pilch
Issue: Winter, 2000

"Spaces and places, whence and whither, homes and rooms: 'territoriality' in the Fourth Gospel."
Author/s: Jerome H. Neyrey
Issue: Summer, 2002

"Time, communion, and ancestry in African biblical interpretation: a contextual note on 1 Maccabees 2:49-70. "
Author/s: Mario I. Aguilar
Issue: Fall, 2002

"The construction of Galilee as a place for the historical Jesus-Part I"
Author/s: Halvor Moxnes
Issue: Spring, 2001

"The construction of Galilee as a place for the historical Jesus--part II."
Author/s: Halvor Moxnes
Issue: Summer, 2001

"Interpreting the Bible with the Value Orientations Model: History and Prospects"
Author/s: John J. Pilch
Issue: Summer, 2002

"Jesus was not an egalitarian: A critique of an anachronistic and idealist theory."
Author/s: John H. Elliott
Issue: Summer, 2002

"What kind of canon do the lectionaries constitute?"
March 22 2000 by Gerard S. Sloyan

" 'Thus faith comes from what is heard' (Romans 10:17): how much of the Bible do people hear?"
June 22 2002 by Gerard S. Sloyan

Plenty to feast on here! I'm particularly pleased to be able to access Elliott's piece on "Jesus was not an egalitarian". I'd recently read the second part of this on early Christianity, which was published in Biblical Interpretation, I think this year, and the first part in BTB has been on my reading list. It's a provocative critique of a current trend in Historical Jesus (and other NT) studies, especially Crossan & Schuessler Fiorenza but also others.

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I'm grateful to Gail Dawson for drawing my attention to the presence on FindArticles.com of full-text articles from Biblical Theology Bulletin. I hadn't spotted this before when indexing Harvard Theological Review and other journals on the NTGateway. I've added the main link to my Journals page. Now is the more hefty task of adding the individual relevant articles. As far as I can tell, the archived material is 2000 to the present, i.e. it doesn't go back quite as far as HTR and others. Still useful to have it on-line for free; my institution doesn't subscribe to it so a boon for me. I'll list the ones Gail has dug out later today.

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Here's another one of interest from the (new to me) Priscilla Papers:

John Kohlenberger III, "What About the “Gender Accurate” TNIV? A review of the recently published Today’s New International Version." (PRISCILLA PAPERS Spring 2002: 16:2, pp. 1-9).

It's an excellent piece, a model of good comparative study of Bible translations; I particularly like the wealth of examples from TNIV and other translations. I must confess that I hadn't realised that there was a Today's New International Version. Kohlenberger explains the history of the emergence of this translation, which -- because of the controversy it generated among evangelicals -- will not replace the New International Version but will exist alongside it. TNIV has its own website:

Today's New International Version TNIV Bible

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Recently published article by Gordon Fee:

The Cultural Context of Ephesians 5:18–6:9 (PDF)

Its subtitle is "Is there a divinely ordained hierarchy in the life of the church and home that is based on gender alone?" which will give you some idea of the target audience. It's from a journal / magazine I hadn't heard of before, called PRISCILLA PAPERS (Winter 2002: 16:1). An excerpt to give you a taste:

"The fact that our cultural assumptions are so different from theirs makes it difficult for us even to imagine how absolutely radical and earth-shattering the Christian gospel sounded in their ears. Take especially Paul’s conclusion to his argument with the Galatians over true ecclesiology, having to do with Jew and Gentile as members together in the one household of God. “In Christ,” he says, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ.”
But such a revolutionary statement was not intended to abolish the structures, which were held in place by Roman law. Rather, it was intended forever to do away with the significance attached to such structural differences, which pitted one group of human beings against another. And the most radical thing of all was that such people—Jew and Gentile, slave and free, men and women—shared a common meal together, itself a cause for cultural shame, and thus celebrated their Lord’s death until he was to come again—which, as 1 Corinthians 11:17–34 makes clear, created onsiderable tension for the traditional householder. No wonder the world had such difficulty with these early Christians, and why they were considered to be “haters of humanity,” because they so willingly broke the rules—not by tearing down the structures, but by making them ultimately irrelevant! Such people are greatly to be feared as the worst of all possible anarchists.
So what in the end is it that makes our present text so radically countercultural? What Paul obviously did not do was to demolish the structures and create new ones. What was radical lay in his urging those who are filled with the Spirit and worship Christ as Lord to have totally transformed relationships within the household." (pp. 7-8).

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Here's a great web site I ran across recently:

Form for Comparing Ancient Texts

It's designed by Kenneth Banner , a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania. Basically, it generates up to four frames allowing you to compare the ancient texts of your choice -- just tick the boxes and press "Create Frame". The site uses existing texts hosted elsewhere on the web. In one way that is a disadvantage: it means one has to keep a careful eye on the URLs of the texts linked (e.g. Thomas appears to be down because Banner has linked to a now defunct URL); but in another way it is a great advantage -- a properly "collaborative" effort, drawing on different sites on the net and not waiting to transcribe texts afresh. None of the texts are tagged by pericope (contrast John Marshall's Five Gospels Parallels) and all are English translations, but I can imagine this site being pretty useful; and I can imagine others doing similar things.

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I began a revision of the NTGateway: E-Lists page in July and I've only now got round to completing it. I've updated URLs where necessary (and noticed that Acts-L's old homepage has vanished) and have belatedly added several groups: Biblical Languages, Biblical Studies, E-Matthew and G-Megillot.

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I've just received an announcement of Bart Ehrman's new book. The publisher's publicity is reproduced below:

LOST CHRISTIANITIES: The Battles for Scripture and Faiths We Never Knew
by Bart D. Ehrman

ISBN: 0-19-514183-0; 336pp.; $30.00; Date of Publication: October 2003


LOST CHRISTIANITIES examines the recently rediscovered lost books, along with others that were marginalized but recognized for centuries. Ehrman considers how the twenty-seven books of the New Testament came to be accepted as canonical Scripture, discussing the battles that raged between "proto-orthodox Christians"—those who eventually compiled the canonical books of the New Testament and standardized Christian belief—and the groups they denounced as heretics and ultimately overcame. Who belonged to this proto-orthodox Christian group, on what grounds did they make their selections, and when? This is a fascinating exploration of the nature of these early conflicts, what was at stake, what the opposing views were, how the parties involved conducted themselves, what strategies they used, and what literature they revered, copied and collected while despising, rejecting, and destroying others. LOST CHRISTIANITIES is broken down into three major parts. The first, “Forgeries and Discoveries,” looks at several literary texts, from a legendary account of Thecla, a female companion of the apostle Paul to a Gospel claiming to be written by Judas Thomas, supposedly Jesus’ twin brother. The second, “Orthodoxies and Heresies,” considers broad social phenomena including groups such as the Jewish-Christian Ebionites to “Gnostics.” And finally, “Winners and Losers,” which considers the conflicts that raged amongst the different groups which eventually led to the twenty-seven books taken to be sacred, inspired, and authoritative.

The implications for modern-day Christianity are astounding. Had the New Testament taken a different form, it is possible the people in the Western world might still be worshipping the ancient gods of Greece and Rome. The effects and impacts on the evolution of civilization are deeply tied to the rise of Christianity. LOST CHRISTIANITIES will provoke rethinking, advocate educating oneself on one’s beliefs, and trigger immense controversy.

Bart D. Ehrman (M.Div., Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary) is the Bowman and Gordon Gray Professor of Religious Studies at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In addition to dozens of book reviews and more than 20 scholarly articles, he has written or edited eleven books, including most recently Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (Oxford University Press, 1999) and The Apostolic Fathers for the Loeb Classical Library (Harvard University Press, coming in 2003).

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I've just added a link on my Celluloid Jesus pages to Jesus Films - Reviews, a link that was there but I took down when the site disappeared and now it's back again. I intend to add some links to the two forthcoming Jesus films, Mel Gibson's Passion and the Visual Bible's Gospel of John; I'll get round to these asap. If you haven't been following the debate over the Gibson Jesus film, let me recommend you take a look through Jim Davila's Paleojudaica.com for lots of interesting links to media stuff about it.

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There's a new(ish) site listing PhD students' weblogs from around the world. It's at PhDweblogs.net; 80+ so far listed; nothing on the Bible as yet.

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One of the depressing things about running the NT Gateway is the number of links I have to remove, and on a regular basis. I've just removed the links for all of the Featured Links, February 2002, which included a body called the Electric Press and who reproduced entire books on-line including several of interest to NT scholars. I wonder what happened to them? Perhaps they went bust. I always think it's a shame that so much effort all over the internet goes into projects that are disappear within a year or two. Another disappearance is dabar.org which used to feature a wealth of material for Biblical scholars (Featured Links, January 2002); Tom Thatcher also used to host his huge web site there. He mentioned to me some time ago that he was taking it down to revise it, but I don't know that it's ever returned. If any of you hear of the whereabouts of any of these disappearing web sites, I'd be happy to hear about it.

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I'll also add links to one or two related blogs on the left. Paleojudaica.com you've heard me enthusing about already -- it's what got me interested in blogging. I've also now added RogueClassicism, which is run by David Meadows. I first got to know his name from the weekly Explorator newsletter, the latest of which was published on Sunday and can be accessed from the previous link. I'll add further ones of interest in due course.

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I've added a link to the Bible and Interpretation web page on the left (under External Links). There's always masses of interesting information there, and it's bang up-to-date. It was a Featured Link back in March 2001; and other than a brief blip last year, the site has kept up with the goods ever since. Fresh updates over the last day or so include links to yet more information and debate about the now notorious James ossuary.

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There have been one or two other reviews of Perrin's Thomas and Tatian on-line, Robert Shedinger in the Review of Biblical Literature and Paul-Hubert Poirier in Hugoye.

Speaking of Shedinger and Hugoye, have a look at William Peterson's Review of Shedinger, Tatian and the Jewish Scriptures if you haven't done so already. I don't recall ever having seen so damning a review. I haven't read Shedinger myself, so can't judge for myself, but this review is utterly devastating. I wonder if Shedinger is planning a response? I think that if I got a review like that, I'd be ready to pack up the academic life and start again. Wow. For a response to Peterson on another topic, see Kent Clarke's Rebuttal to William L. Petersen . . . also in the recent TC.

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Two new reviews by David Parker in TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism:

Reuben Swanson's Romans and Nicholas Perrin's Thomas and Tatian .

Go to: TC, Volume 8.

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Bob Shacht writes to me at blog@NTGateway.com to ask:

I'm not much of a blogger myself, but I see that you first outlined clearly how *you* intend to use the NTGateway blog. Then you give us an e-mail address for us to use to participate, but you don't really offer your vision of what kinds of things you'd like to see from others that would be suitable for the NTGateway blog. Do you see it primarily as a venue for posting information about changes in weblinks, new weblinks, meetings, etc, whether posted by you or others, somewhat like a bulletin board? (Wow. Takes me back maybe 10 years to think about electronic bulletin boards!) Or do you see it as a venue for discussion, like an e-mail discussion group such as XTalk, or John_Lit? Or how do you see a blog-- or more particularly, the NTGateway Blog-- doing something different from these older media? I'm a bit behind the curve on exactly what a blog is, but so far from what I've heard it seems like an excuse for a website owner to vent his or her own opinions about anything, without having to footnote it. Anyway, bottom line: please clarify your vision of how you'd like people to use this email blog address.

The short answer to this is that weblogs, as I understand them, evolve identities over the course of time. I'd like this one to evolve naturally in response to its users' comments and as my own idea of what's worth posting develops. The bottom line is, frankly, that if there's something that I find interesting that's relevant to the NT Gateway's theme, I'll post it. The NT Gateway is for material relevant to the acadmic study of the New Testament. This weblog is a part of the NT Gateway and so I'll post stuff that I think is relevant or interesting to the NT Gateway's users.

No, I don't necessarily see it as a venue for discussion, interaction etc. ; the e-lists are the best place for that. Yes, I do see it as for posting web links and the like but not solely for that. Yes, I may well use it as a venue to post my opinions about things; I'm not sure that footnoting makes a lot of sense in this kind of forum, though the hyperlinking of odd details to provide links to external information on a given topic is analogous to the academic footnote. So please use the email address to tell me about matters of news & interest to academic New Testament studies. Thanks for your questions, Bob.

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Reading Jim Davila's post reminds me that I forgot to add that there were three trips on the Friday afternoon, one to the Mingana Collection, one to the Coin Collection at the Barber Institute and one to the Botanical Gardens at the university. This is a society tradition -- the Friday afternoon is trips afternoon, to places of local interest, especially those that have some relation to Biblical Studies or the ancient world. Unfortunately I had to miss it this year because in a committee meeting.

One remaining thing to report: the third and final Main Paper was Bruce Longenecker on "Seducing the Ear: Lucan Aversion to Humps and Hollows". This was an interesting and well-received paper on "chain constructions" in Acts of the Apostles, a kind of narrative device / convention common in antiquity and used lots -- according to Longenecker -- in Acts. He argued that they occur at key moments and could provide important clues to vexed issues like Pauline chronology. I understand that this a selection from a 100,000 work manuscript Longenecker has recently completed on the topic. Questions afterwards focused a good deal on why the feature doesn't crop up in Luke's Gospel / suggesting perhaps it does occur in Luke. Good end to the conference, anyway.

Let me just my reflections on the conference by thanking the marvellous team that made it possible. Thanks to everyone, but very special thanks to Catherine Smith, Helen Ingram and Richard Goode who consistently went way beyond the call of duty, arriving early, leaving late, sometimes going without food (sorry about that -- I should have realised!), troubleshooting, planning, thinking, taking the initiative and being generally fantastic. And the most special thanks of all to Catherine who headed up the whole operation superbly.

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Jacob Knee has added his reflections on the BNTC on the Xtalk list. You can read them at:

Xtalk post 6 Sept 2003, Jacob Knee, re. BNTC

Also some thoughts from Jim Davila's blog here.

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To resume my narrative, Friday p.m. we have "Short Simultaneous Papers", 3 x 90 minute sessions running simultaneously, each 90 minute session divided in half, 45 minutes each for a short paper (25 mins.) and questions. Unfortunately, I missed a good deal of the one I opted for because of one of those mini conference crises that needed dealing with, but what I caught of it was good stuff. Steve Walton (London Bible College) and Jane McLarty (University of Cambridge) began with a paper on teaching Greek to intermediate (2nd / 3rd year) students, those who've done a year's introductory grammar. A super presentation with intelligent use of powerpoint and good handouts providing samples. They are working on a project that will ultimately be published, which tries to fill the gap in Greek teaching materials for intermediate students. Seems promising and was certainly well-received. A lot of people at the conference seemed to feel that we should do more of this kind of thing, i.e. more discussions about how we teach and in particular how we teach Greek, sharing good practice and the like. I was happy to see Steve & Jane plug the Greek Study day they've organised to take place in Birmingham on October 22, so I'll follow suit and plug it here too.

I have less to say about the other Short Paper I heard but it was an interesting presentation from Paul Middleton on September 11 through the lens of early Christian Martyrdom. Paul is apparently writing a graduate thesis on early Christian martyrs and this had encouraged some reflection on parallels between the early Christian martyrs' views and the views of the September 11 hyjackers. Several questioners attempted to push Paul on the lack of parallel between the early Christian martyrs and martyrdom with a view to murdering huge numbers of others.

The Main Paper in the evening session was a presentation by my colleagues here in Birmingham on the joys of attempting to create a Scholarly Digital edition of John's Gospel. It was an ambitious presentation -- six of the team (David Parker, Rod Mullen, Klaus Wachtel, Bill Elliott, Jon Balserak, Ulrich Schmid, and that wasn't the full compliment either) tackling an illustrated talk and dividing the whole up into little parts representing each of the elements in the project, Principio, Verbum , Byzantine Text Project, etc. Perhaps not surprisingly there were some blips with the technology. It was difficult for me to tell as a local how it came across too because I am pretty familiar with the characters and their work. But I was happy that the conference was finding a place for some text-criticism and text-editing. Klaus Wachtel also previewed for the conference the new Digital Nestle-Aland, showing some of the functionality using 1 John. If you'd like to look at some of the work they are doing, there are details on the web at Muenster: http://nestlealand.uni-muenster.de/.

So that was Friday through my eyes, with just Saturday left. Final narration and concluding reflections in due course. I should have added we also had a Business Meeting in which Prof. Morna Hooker was confirmed as the new President of the society, taking over from Prof. John Riches. John Barclay, the new Lightfoot prof. of divinity at Durham proposed a vote of thanks for John Riches's fine work as President of the society over the last three years. (And I'd add he's been a delight to work with and to get to know).

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