NT Gateway Weblog

Jim Davila reflects (who is blogging through his television set in an Atlanta hotel, itself a kind of feat of science-fiction) on the CARG abbreviation:

Science fiction readers will recall that in Keith Laumer's classic novel Dinosaur Beach the "Kargs" were evil Terminator-like robots from the future who came back in time to carry out dastardly deeds to change the course of history.

I'm sure the similarity in name is just a coincidence. Of course, I have presented a CARG paper myself iin recent years, so I would say that, wouldn't I?

BUWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Jeff Peterson had to explain the last phrase to me. Apparently it is used in blogeny as a kind of evil laugh -- practise saying it yourself with a kind of Dr Evil voice on.

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Ahead of a short presentation I am giving this afternoon in the CARG (Computer Assisted Research Section) here at the SBL Annual Meeting in Atlanta, I've uploaded a new trial version of my All-in-One Biblical Resources Search. There is more still to be done to it but so far I have done some work neatening up the look of the site, updating some of the searches and beginning (only beginning, I am afraid) a new page on the Greek New Testament. This is not formally released yet, but any feedback on it would be gratefully received, though please bear in mind that this is very much work in progress:

All-in-One Biblical Resources Search Version 3

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This link is courtesy of Bible and Interpretation: Christianity Today have reproduced an article from back in 1984:

CT Classic: Evangelical Scholars Remove Robert Gundry for His Views on Matthew

It is about the removal of Robert Gundry from the Evangelical Theology Society for the views expressed in his commentary on Matthew's Gospel, in which he suggested that the evangelist himself creatively embellished gospel materials. Apparently the Evangelical Theology Society subscribed to the inerrancy of scripture and this was felt to be incompatible with that doctrine.

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The big story emerging over the last few days is the inscription found on an ancient burial monument in Jerusalem mentioning Simon's name and a part of Luke 2.25. It has been publicised by Joe Zias here in Atlanta at the American Schools of Oriental Research in a talk yesterday. There are lots of news stories around about this. This link courtesy of Stephen Goranson from a Georgia newspaper called AccessNorthGa.com:

Archaeologist discovers parts of New Testament verse on funeral monument

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I've arrived safely in Atlanta and hope to be able to blog my way through the conference once I'm settled. So more later. I've adjusted the time indication too for Atlanta (i.e. what you see below on each blog entry).

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I depart soon for Atlanta, Georgia for the SBL Annual Meeting. I look forward to seeing some of you there. I also hope to be able to provide a few of my own reflections on the meeting as it goes on.

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On Saturday I am giving a short talk in the Computer Assisted Research Section (which by quirk of history is abbreviated CARG) on my All-in-One Biblical Resources Search. I am currently working on the latest version of the resource, deleting defunct searches, neatening up the code, adding fresh materials. I will preview elements of the new version in due course, but while I am updating I would be very grateful for any feedback on people's experience of the resource, especially things that I could improve. My guess is that there is a law of diminishing returns as one progresses through the site -- many use the Bible Versions and Translations page, some use the Biblical Resources page, few use the other pages. In fact I discovered to my horror this morning that there is very little on the General Academic and Religion Page that still works because of moving sites. The fact that I've not received a single email saying "What's gone wrong here?" suggests that that page, for example, is very seldom used. Anyway, if anyone does have suggestions for improvement, or feedback about what is most useful on the site, I would be happy to hear from them.

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I haven't now been able to connect to Religion-online for some time; I know that one of my correspondents has had the same problem. It seems that the site is down. Does anyone know if or when it will return? It is a massive resource of useful material -- this is one we really don't want to lose!

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Also today on Paleojudaica, a link to this article from the Jerusalem Post:

Ancient Jewish Village Uncovered in Jerusalem

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This one flagged up by Jim Davila. It's from the Society of Jesus USA web site, a short article by Bronson Havard:

Scholar says inscription about 'brother' of Jesus may be genuine

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Thanks to Bob Derrenbacker for notifying me of his new homepage at Regent College, Vancouver, now adjusted on the Scholars: D page.

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Two more papers relating to the NT on the SBL Program Units Page, and then I think that's pretty much the lot (i.e. no more on the web). These two are for the Wisdom and Apocalypticism in Early Judaism and Early Christianity section but are free standing on the site, i.e. located on the SBL site itself and not on a program unit page. Both PDF:

Adela Yarbro Collins - Composition and Performance in Mark 13

Rollin Ramsaran - From Mind to Message: Oral Performance in 1 Corinthians 15

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One more from the SBL Program Units Page:

Josephus Seminar 2003

Features the following full text papers, all PDF format:

John M G Barclay, "Josephus and his Audiences: Exploring Reading Options in a Commentary"

Jonathan J Price, "Josephus' reading of Thucidydes: A test-case in the BJ" [Response, Honora H. Chapman]

Miriam Ben-zeev, "Josephus' Ambiguities: His Comments on Cited Documents"

Claude Eilers, "Josephus' Caesarian Acta: History of a Dossier"

Tessa Rajak, "Who needs charters? Josephus in the light of Greek historiographical practice"

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There's a report here on Amy-Jill Levine's reservations about The Passion of the Christ based on a speech given on Sunday. The report is by William Kelly of Palm Beach Daily News:

Scholar airs reservations about early 'Passion' script

Amy-Jill Levine was one of those scholars who saw the early script of the film; usually they are described as an "ad hoc" group, but not here. This report perpetuates the claim that the script was "stolen", something Paula Fredriksen and others on the committee have denied.

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A useful tip picked up via an entry on AKMA's blog -- the tiny URL site allows you to create a "tiny URL" instantly from any very long one -- great to stop URLs wrapping in email messages etc.:

Tiny URL.com

I'd seen these tiny URLs on David Meadows's Explorator and never realised what they were. AKMA also suggests trying your initials on the end of a tiny URL to find out what comes up, for a bit of fun. (Mine's useless -- /msg gets a dead URL).

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I asked if anyone knew how to strike out text in html; David Mackinder kindly supplies the information: "the code is simple (but counterintuitive): it's 'del' within
angle brackets partnered with forward-slash 'del' within angle brackets -- it used to be 'strike', but that is now deprecated." So let me see if that works: "Three Versions of Jesus". Yep, looks like it; thanks David.

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There is a radio programme featuring Karen King on The Connection which is based in Boston:

Mary Magdalene Reconsidered

That takes you to the web page; click on "Listen to show" towards the bottom. It features both Karen King and Lesa Bellevie, the webmaster of a site on Mary Magdalene. It is 50 minutes long so a bit more depth than is usual in such programmes; there's a phone-in too. I've not listened to it all, but so far it is quite interesting.

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I recently mentioned the SBL Program Units Page. Here's another section that has some papers available on the web for reading ahead of the meeting:

Semiotics and Exegesis Section

(Unfortunately, it has one of those annoying hidden frames that keeps the original URL in the address bar). The papers available include:

Liliana M. Nutu, "A Veil of One’s Own? Identity and The Pillow Book"

George Aichele, "The Poetic Function and the Gospel in/of Mark: a Post-Canonical Reading"

Richard Walsh, "Three Versions of Jesus" [Jesus has a line through it. Anyone know how to do that in html?]

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Jim Davila draws attention to this article on the Jerusalem shroud:

Discovery of Jesus-era shroud to be aired at UNC-Charlotte

And he adds that Shimon Gibson will be presenting a lecture on this at the SBL Annual Meeting too; I can't see that on the SBL Site, but I may be looking in the wrong places. The article above mentions that "He will discuss the findings again Wednesday at the American Schools of Oriental Research conference in Atlanta." I've had a look at the ASOR web site and it seems that Gibson is presenting on the Friday -- abstract available here.

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Another article on Karen King on Mary Magdalene, with a photo:

Book probes Magdalene’s legacy
Author cites ‘Gospel of Mary’ in portrayal of 1st female apostle

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Stephen Carlson helpfully puts me right on Streeter on the Minor Agreements (see Goulder on the Minor Agreements); the view that τίς ἐστιν ὁ παίσας σε; were original to Mark 14.65 was apparently not Streeter's view, at least not in The Four Gospels. He followed Turner and anticipated Neirynck in arguing that the words were interpolated into Matthew from Luke. Since Stephen is quoting the 1926 edition, I'll double check my Streeter when I'm next in the office just in case (I mainly blog from home). But Streeter did originally hold a different view; I recall also that Tuckett changed his mind on this one, I think as a result of Neirynck's article on the topic, but this is another one that I need to look up.

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Latest Explorator has been posted by David Meadows:

Explorator 6.29

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Reviews of the Gospel of John are beginning to come in now, this one from the Washington Post:

'The Gospel of John': A Good-Faith Effort

It is particularly critical of the use of the Good News Bible for the translation, "a decidedly unpoetic and unevocative text". There's an error in the article -- "it makes sense that the company [Visual Bible International] would start with John" -- but it's their third departure, already having covered Matthew and Acts.

This review in the Orange County Weekly is more enthusiastic (and it makes the same mistake about this being the first project of Visual Bible International):

The Very Good Word: The Gospel of John converts without moralizing

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Eric Laupot has asked me to note that the follow-up to his article “Tacitus' Fragment 2: The Anti-Roman Movement of the Christiani and the Nazoreans”, Vigiliae Christianae 54 (2000), pp. 233-47, appears in Revue des etudes juives 162, nos. 1-2 (2003), 69-96.

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