NT Gateway Weblog

Jim Davila draws attention to the completely revamped SBL site:

Society of Biblical Literature

The new site design is leaps and bounds better than the old one, which was -- frankly -- a bit of a dog's dinner. Much more intuitive and easy to use. There's a new forum on the front page:

SBL Forum, the new online presence of the Society of Biblical Literature. SBL Forum features essays, interviews, and news from the world of biblical scholarship, plus digital resources, opportunities in the field, and Society activities. Our premier issue celebrates the King James Bible, which was commissioned almost 400 years ago.

I've had a look round the rest of the site and most of it is the same material much better organised, e.g. the Biblical Fonts page is looking good. One development is that it seems that the Journal of Biblical Literature now has free back issues. You only have to log in with your SBL membership number for the current issue. This tidies up the way the old site was, with one year freely available (2000) and the rest requiring log-in. One minor complaint -- some of the old URLs appear not to forward to the new site. I always think that that is a mistake; but so many people do it.

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There are still daily stories all over the American media (still very little here in the UK) about The Passion. There's a report from a baptist pastor in Orlando, Florida called Steve Smith -- "Two Films of Tremendous Value". He was invited to one of the private screenings and he loved it; he has also seen The Gospel of John and he loved that too. You couldn't find a bigger contrast than in "Will The Passion Crucify the Jews?" by Rabbi Tovia Singer, but he hasn't seen the film. As Jim Davila reported yesterday, there is news that an Australian distributor has been found.

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More from Christianity Today's "Biblical Archaeology week"

Christian M.M. Brady, What Do the Stones Cry Out?

With the subtitle, "Beware of claims that archaeology disproves -- or proves -- the Bible is true". And

David Neff, CT Classic: "Listening to the Fifth Gospel"

Not the Gospel of Thomas, I'm afraid, but "The sun-baked ruins of the Holy Land have a story to tell", an article from 1990.

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I am happy to find a copy of my book The Synoptic Problem: A Way Through the Maze half price -- at the SPCK Online Bookshop, £7.50. I thought it a bit overpriced at £14.99 when it first came out, so it's good to see it's now available a bit cheaper. So if you haven't got your copy yet, here's your chance! Apologies for the self-promotion, but if I can't peddle my own wares, who can?

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In today's Herald an obituary of R. E. O. White who died aged 89 on September 4.

Rev R. E. O. White, Obituary

White was author of several books on the New Testament including The Biblical Doctrine of Initiation (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1960). His Festschrift appeared in 1999, S. E. Porter and A. R. Cross (eds.), Baptism, the New Testament and the Church: Historical and Contemporary Studies in Honour of R.E.O. White (JSNTSup, 171; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999).

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Jim Davila also links to his blog entry August 2 2003, which links to a Washington Post article updating Crossan & Reed's Top Ten Archaeological Discoveries. It sent me back to the book, John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L. Reed, Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts (London: SPCK, 2001); their top ten archaeological discoveries for excavating Jesus are on pp. 1-6; I was curious to see which one drops out of the top ten to be replaced in the article above by the James ossuary. The one that drops out is the Apostle Peter's House (p. 3). As it happens, this is present in Witherington's list.

But in contrast with Witherington, Crossan and Reed distinguish sharply between "Archaeological Discoveries" and "Exegetical Discoveries". BeliefNet have the full excerpt from the book available here:

The Top Ten Exegetical Discoveries for Excavating Jesus

I'm not entirely comfortable, in spite of the caveats ("Not everyone will accept or believe the discoveries to be true", p. 6, etc.), with putting the Dead Sea Scrolls (no. 1) and the Nag Hammadi codices (no. 2) along with source-critical theories, even where the source theories are rightly the consensus (no. 3, Marcan Priority). I can go and look at the Dead Sea Scrolls in Jerusalem or the Nag Hammadi codices in Cairo -- these are more than "exegetical" discoveries. But I'm not confident about several others on the list -- especially dependence of Matthew and Luke on Q (no. 4), the independence of Thomas (no. 6) and the common sayings tradition in Q & Thomas (no. 7), but also probably the existence of an independent source in the Gospel of Peter (no. 9). No. 4, the existence of Q, I have given my reasons for finding unpersuasive (see the Case Against Q); no. 6 (independence of Thomas) will have to await my book and no. 7 falls with those two.

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Jim Davila also comments on the Ben Witherington III article and has some links to details on the shroud Shimon Gibson unearthed in 2000. There was an excellent documentary on this last year on ITV, made by CTVC. I've just taken a look at the CTVC web site and see that that documentary is now available on video (see CTVC sales). I mention it because a couple of people from the U.S. got in touch with me at the time the documentary was broadcast as someone in the UK who could video it and asked if there was any way they could get a copy. So if they are still after it, now it can be purchased.

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In relation to yesterday's blog about the prolific Ben Witherington III, Wieland Willker has pointed me to an FAQ on the Turin Shroud web site:

Has DNA testing ever been performed on the Shroud?

The answer is not very promising for Witherington's hope that DNA from the shroud will correlate with DNA from the James ossuary.

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A New Testament scholar who has seen The Passion expresses his opinion on Beliefnet:

'You Can't Whitewash the Events of the Bible', Interview with Darrell Bock

Bock is an evangelical scholar at Dallas Theological Seminary. He's pretty sympathetic to the film. Having read Paula Fredriksen's and Amy-Jill Levine's radically differing assessments, it is difficult to know what to make of Bock's analysis.

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Christianity Today has now posted a second article by Ben Witherington III:

Top Ten New Testament Archaeological Finds of the Past 150 Years

Witherington concludes his list, not surprisingly in view of his other article in the current Christianity Today, to say nothing of his book on the subject, with the James Ossuary. Yet the most controversial element in his "Top Ten" will undoubtedly be the Shroud of Turin. I must admit that this one surprised me -- I didn't realise any serious NT scholars defended the authenticity of the shroud since the carbon dating; perhaps that just shows how ignorant I am. But also it's surely not an "archaeological find", is it? No-one dug this up, unlike the 2,000 year old Jerusalem shroud unearthed by Shimon Gibson in 2000.

Even more startling to a sceptic like me are Witherington's hopes for DNA testing on the bone box and the shroud:

So, I like to say, James is in the box, and Jesus is on the box, because of the resurrection. And perhaps, if we are able to test the bone fragments of the box soon, and compare the DNA evidence to the evidence produced in the '80s about the gene string and DNA derived from the blood samples on the Shroud, we may just have a double confirmation of the artifacts I have discussed at the beginning and end of this essay. Stay tuned.

I wonder how many share Witherington's optimism? Certainly not me, I'm afraid. I'm also a bit surprised about a major omission from Witherington's list, the Nag Hammadi codices and especially the Gospel of Thomas. Perhaps I spend too much time with Thomas, especially these days, but I can't imagine that P52, which is in Witherington's Top Ten, can be a more important discovery than the massive find of the Nag Hammadi codices, can it?

Witherington remains extraordinarily prolific -- there's an interesting little piece also just posted called Inside CT: The Article We Didn't Print, which showers praise on Witherington and reveals that apparently he wrote the above mentioned article in just one day.

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I've just added a Notice on the Annual Conference on the Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament, organised by Steve Moyise. See the Notices page or go to:

Annual Seminar on the Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament

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Just announced, the latest Biblica on-line:

Biblica Fascicle 84/3 (2003) (scroll down).

Includes:

Jean-Noël ALETTI, "Romains 4 et Genèse 17. Quelle énigme et quelle solution?" , Vol. 84 (2003) 305-325

Hanna ROOSE, "Joh 20,30f.: Ein (un)passender Schluss? Joh 9 und 11 als primäre Verweisstellen der Schlussnotiz des Johannesevangeliums", Vol. 84 (2003) 326-343

Floyd PARKER, "The Terms "Angel" and "Spirit" in Acts 23,8", Vol. 84 (2003) 344-365

Tobias Nicklas, "‘153 große Fische’ (Joh 21,11) Erzählerische Ökonomie und ‘johanneischer Überstieg’" , Vol. 84 (2003) 366-387

John TOPEL, "What Kind of a Sign are Vultures? Luke 17,37b" , Vol. 84 (2003) 403-411

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Jim Davila reports on an article in Christianity Today -- Ben Witherington III's defends its authenticity:

Bones of Contention

I wonder how long it took the editors to think up that headline?

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No sooner had I announced its demise than Michael Luper's Greek Helps returns with a new URL (click link or go to Learning New Testament Greek).

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If you fancy a good laugh, have a look at a new thread on a bulletin board at the Ship of Fools web site:

Parables that didn't make the grade

Features the parable of the two hamsters, the parable of the shepherd who found his lost sheep but then the other 99 went missing and more. Some of them amused me, anyway.

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With a new term approaching, I've been checking my Learning New Testament Greek page and am sorry to see that several good sites have gone missing. No sign of Michael Luper's Greek Helps or of Bruce Robertson's Accent Quiz Applet, the latter great fun. Clyde Wilton's complete on-line course has gone too. If anyone knows of the whereabouts of these, I'd be grateful to hear, but Google has not managed to dig them out if they are still around somewhere.

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If you haven't visited Holy Land Photos before, let me recommend it -- packed full of hundreds of quality photographs of the Holy Land. Version 3 of the site has just been announced. The site is especially worth visiting for the current featured collection -- the Galilee (Jesus) Boat

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Bible and Interpretation have just published an essay by Gerd Lüdemann in which he summarises the concluding section of his book Jesus After Two Thousand Years: What He Really Said and Did (London: SCM, 2000 and Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus, 2001):

The Life of Jesus: A Brief Assessment

It's a challenge that all Historical Jesus scholars should try -- to produce a brief sketch like this. It is reminiscent of E. P. Sanders's attempt to do something similar at the beginning of Jesus and Judaism. With Lüdemann's, I can't help thinking that he pauses just a bit too long on certain of his own idiosyncracies, e.g. he labours the point on Jesus' having been "fathered in dubious circumstances". Have a look at Lüdemann's characteristically outspoken assessment of Jesus at the end of the piece too.

One nerdy point I can't resist making: Bible and Interpretation do not seem to have mastered the art of representing umlauts on the web, but it's quite a simple bit of code, ü in which "u" is the letter to receive the umlaut (etc.).

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Today's Beyond Belief on Radio 4 is apparently about "Religion and Cyberspace" so I'll be listening. Don't know who will be on the programme -- it's not me.

Religion has embraced the internet as enthusiastically as any big business, and you can read up on the weird and wonderful as well as the mainstream faiths through your computer.

But has the world wide web changed the way we worship? Does it lessen the significance of the body and the importance of meeting others face to face? And could we ever have a spiritual experience in cyberspace?

If you're not in the UK, listen live on the internet at 4.30 p.m. BST (BBC Radio 4 web site here) or the programme is archived not long afterwards for you to listen to.

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I finally got round to ordering my copy of the CD of the new Jesus rock opera !Hero yesterday (see blog entry on !Hero) and had one of those very annoying on-line ordering experiences where I went through screen after screen filling in details and then finally, right at the end, found out that the cheapest international shipping rate for the $13 CD was going to be $41! What a racket! So my advice -- if you're outside the US, don't buy it from the !Hero web site. Surf around and you should be able to find a better deal (as I eventually did). Why don't these people put the shipping costs upfront?

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Rodney Decker has developed further his "Galilee" Greek font (new release version 1.02). It includes bold and italic faces for the font.

Galilee Greek Font

That links to a page about the font -- useful stuff. One of the drawbacks of some of the other free fonts available on the web is that they don't have information pages like this, particularly useful for those starting out with it for the first time.

Decker is currently working on developing a Unicode version of the font, which will be a welcome development. If you don't know much about Unicode yet, it happens that Rod Decker has one of the best pages available for explaining it to the newcomer:

Biblical Language Fonts and Unicode

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One of the features of the RogueClassicism blog that I enjoy is "This day in ancient history". I've no plans to do the same thing here, but might from time to time mention the regular feature "Today in History" on the Ship of Fools Web Site. Among the offerings for today, this day in 1792 became Day 1 Year 1 in revolutionary France's de-Christianized calendar; it's St Mary Magdalene's day; today in 1823, Joseph Smith found the Book of Mormon on gold plates in a stone box buried on top of a hill in Ontario County, New York; and in 1984, in the heart of the miner's strike, the then bishop of Durham, David Jenkins, in the words of the web site, "made himself more notorious than ever by - in his own enthronement sermon - accusing Ian MacGregor, the boss of the mining industry, of being an 'imported elderly American'". Yes, I remember that. I wonder if the new bishop of Durham (with one intervening between him and Jenkins), Tom Wright, will be as controversial? Unlike Jenkins, he certainly won't be announcing his scepticism about the virgin birth or the bodily resurrection -- we can be sure of that. As it happens, I did hear a brief mention of him yesterday morning on BBC Radio 4's Sunday programme. Apparently he is one of those supporting a group called "Fulcrum", from the sound of it a kind of progressive evangelical group within the Anglican Church.

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It seems to be getting nastier all the time; here is one of the latest offerings:

Frank Rich, The Greatest Story Ever Told

Jim Davila comments on this in Paleojudaica.com, with updates.

There's a report about Rich's article here on NewsMax.com:

Phil Brennan, NY Times' Rich Lashes Out at Mel Gibson, O'Reilly

Then read Frank Brennan's response:

A Response to Frank Rich & the Times

Extraordinary to watch all this from the UK, where the story has hardly caused a ripple. I haven't met a single person yet who has even heard of the film, let alone the controversy surrounding it.

Meanwhile, a sentence from Russell Crowe is getting widely reported,

The Gladiator star was asked on radio what he thought of the film, which was shot entirely in Aramaic, Hebrew and Latin. Crowe slammed the project. "I think he's got to get off the glue," Crowe said. (e.g., see here).

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Peter Kirby announced today that he has uploaded, with permission, a version of Vernon Robbins's classic article on he "we" passages in Acts:

Vernon K. Robbins, "By Land and By Sea: The We-Passages and Ancient Sea Voyages", originally in: C. H. Talbert (ed.), Perspectives on Luke-Acts, (Perspectives in Religious Studies, Special Studies Series, No. 5; Macon, Ga: Mercer Univ. Press and Edinburgh: T.& T. Clark, 1978), pp. 215-242

Peter Kirby has also written his own survey of the passages mentioned in Robbins's article and has uploaded it to the same site:

Peter Kirby, "First Person Perspective in Ancient Sea Travel"

I haven't had a chance to read this carefully, but it seems that Kirby ends up with a negative response to Robbins's thesis. The site on which these articles appears is a new one, run by Kirby himself, and rather unpromisingly entitled "Did Jesus Exist?". He explains:

Many web pages present a point of view on the existence of Jesus, but they usually contain apologetics or polemic, not critical scholarship. DidJesusExist.com is dedicated to publishing articles distinguished by their attention to detail and reasoned approach.

It's good to hear about the "detailed and reasonable approach" but a great shame about the title. Let me appeal to Peter to rethink it: you've got a good mind, you think critically, you write well, you've been a great service to the academic community in the production of Early Christian Writings, The Gospel of Thomas Commentary and more, but scholars simply will not visit or take seriously a web site entitled "Did Jesus Exist?". You've lost a large part of your readership before starting. Besides, if there are essay reproductions like the one from Vernon Robbins, this is surely not directly relevant to the theme of whether or not Jesus existed, is it? The site looks promising -- please reconsider the title.

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Latest Explorator has just arrived, so I know it must be Sunday. Web version is at:

The Explorator Newsletter: 21 September 2003

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