NT Gateway Weblog

The Times Obituaries announces a memorial service for Henry Chadwick, at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, on 27 September, 2pm. Further details at that link. Previous posts on Henry Chadwick will shortly be available under the label below.

Labels: Henry Chadwick

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Latest from the SBL Review of Biblical Literature under the NT and related heading. In the tradition of always bigging up fellow-bibliobloggers, it is good to see a strong review for Michael Bird's new book. Since I am teaching Paul this term, I am encouraged to read it:

Michael F. Bird
The Saving Righteousness of God: Studies on Paul, Justification and the New Perspective
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6245
Reviewed by Martin Meiser

William P. Brown, ed.
Engaging Biblical Authority: Perspectives on the Bible as Scripture
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6118
Reviewed by Craig L. Blomberg

Reta Halteman Finger
Of Widows and Meals: Communal Meals in the Book of Acts
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6181
Reviewed by Steve Walton

Ronald E. Heine
Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church: Exploring the Formation of Early Christian Thought
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6283
Reviewed by Martin C. Albl

James A. Metzger
Consumption and Wealth in Luke's Travel Narrative
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6160
Reviewed by Kenneth Litwak

Ruth Anne Reese
2 Peter and Jude
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6349
Reviewed by Wilhelm Pratscher

David M. Scholer, ed.
Social Distinctives of the Christians in the First Century: Pivotal Essays by E. A. Judge
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6185
Reviewed by Tsalampouni Ekaterini

I will also catch up with the backlog of RBL alerts soon.

Labels: Review of Biblical Literature

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Each autumn ("fall") since 2006 I have taught a course that once belonged to Ed Sanders, "The Life and Letters of Paul". The title is perfect, especially for someone like me whose interests are more historical than theological. This is now the third time I have taught this course at Duke and this time I have expanded enrollment to over 100 students. This represents something of a challenge, but a challenge I enjoy. People talk much less in a bigger group, but at the same time the occasion somehow feels more major and a bit less low key. The larger group allows gives one a real variety of students, and I was happy to discover yesterday that I have the full range of students from freshers (still called "freshmen" here, a term British universities abandoned decades ago) to finalists ("seniors").

The age range requires some thought. In the UK, most universities now group into different "levels" and it would be unusual to have first years with finalists. In this class, I have some people just out of high school, who will be doing their first university writing for me, and others who are right at the end of their Duke careers, with tons of writing experience. I am lucky, though, to have three excellent teaching assistants and what we will do together is to make sure that the freshers are encouraged along the way.

I have introduced a couple of changes since I last taught the course. One thing is to introduce a third piece of assessment. I tended to find that there was some anxiety among Duke students about a whole course being assessed on just two pieces of work, a "mid-term" and a final examination. Several of them would be worried about the long gap between October and December without any sign that they were sustaining or improving on their mid-term grade. So this time I am giving them three pieces, the mid-term paper in early October, an exegesis paper in November and a final paper in early December. The mid-term is their first chance to delve into nitty gritty introductory, historical questions and to do lots of targeted reading in preparation. The exegesis paper will then encourage them to test their skills with the primary text. The final paper will see how well they have coped with assimilating the course as a whole.

One plus this semester is that appear to have been given a room with windows in it, over in the Social Sciences building. So we are borrowing from other Arts and Sciences departments rather than from the Divinity School, as previously.

In future teaching notes this semester, I hope to reflect on the way that we are learning about Paul this semester. One of the big tasks for next week is to see whether I can get the punters as interested in Pauline chronology as I am. This is not an easy task. For most students, Pauline chronology is about as exciting as the Synoptic Problem, and we all know how much fun that is.

Labels: Teaching Notes

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At the weekend, the New Testament Gateway received its four millionth visitor. This million has taken 20 months (three million visits today, 11 December 2006), similar in time to the previous million (two millionth visitor today, 12 May 2005) but it is encouraging that so many are still finding the site useful. Those numbers include both the New Testament Gateway proper and this blog, but not my other sites like the Q website or Aseneth. Many thanks to you all for your continued support and encouragement. And I hope to be giving out some exciting news on the future of the New Testament Gateway soon.

Hello again, by the way. I have been away from the blogging machine for a while, enjoying England and France (Viola has pictures on The Americanization of Emily, with more to come soon). Term is under way here at Duke now and I am right back into teaching mode, with some teaching notes to come soon, I hope.

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Regular readers will know of my enthusiasm for Paula Fredriksen's scholarship, and also for her making available so much of her scholarship online. Her web page now boasts PDF reproductions of eighty of her articles and reviews. The newer additions are mainly reviews, all of them worth reading. Thanks too to the anonymous web presence who is supplying all these for us. A reminder of the URL:

Paula Fredriksen

Just imagine how much easier life would be if all scholars did this. This reminds me that I have a couple of articles of mine I should upload.

Labels: Paula Fredriksen

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A new article has been added to the latest Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism. It is the third to appear in Volume 5:

5.3, Jae Hyun Lee, Against Richard B. Hays’s ‘Faith of Jesus Christ’ [PDF]

Labels: Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism

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Watch out -- the closing date on this one is very soon:
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Job Opportunity: Research Fellow (Vetus Latina Iohannes)

A vacancy is now being advertised for a Research Fellow to assist in the preparation and publication of an edition of the Old Latin versions of the Gospel according to John.

The Vetus Latina Iohannes project has been running at the University of Birmingham for a number of years, and has already made available an electronic edition of the surviving Old Latin manuscripts of John at http://www.iohannes.com/vetuslatina/ .

The main duties of the Fellow will include assisting in the compilation of an electronic database of gospel citations in Church Fathers, the analysis of this material, and the preparation of a printed edition to be published in the 'Vetus Latina' series.

Applicants must have a PhD in a relevant subject, an excellent knowledge of Latin, the ability to learn relevant IT skills quickly, and the ability to work effectively as a member of a team. A good working knowledge of Greek, experience of database design and maintenance, and experience of working on a research project are desirable.

The post-holder will be a member of the University's Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing (www.itsee.bham.ac.uk).

Informal enquiries may be addressed to Prof. D.C. Parker (D.C.Parker@bham.ac.uk) and Dr P.H. Burton (P.H.Burton@bham.ac.uk).

The advertisement for the position may be found at:

http://www.vacancies.bham.ac.uk/vacancies/furtherParticulars.htm?refNo=A31036

The starting salary is £25,888 - £28,290 a year.
Applications close on 8th August 2008.
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Labels: ITSEE, Job advertisements

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There is now some news about the DVD release of The Passion (my coverage) including the cover (left); click to enlarge. There is no news yet on what extras will be available. This will be a UK release, already listed at Amazon.co.uk and the BBC Shop, the latter giving a release date of 6 October. The American release will presumably wait until after the broadcast on HBO, probably next year.

Labels: BBC Passion, Bible Films

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Several news sources are reporting the exciting news that the Codex Sinaiticus Project is to go online on Thursday this week. Deutsche Welle announces German University to Put World's Oldest Bible Online, but it looks like they are a bit confused -- the project is actually a British Library Online Project, though in collaboration with three other institutions including Leipzig, correctly today in the 24 Hour Museum:

Codex Sinaiticus Bible Reunited in British Library Online Project

A “unique treasure” of Biblical history is to be made available online for the first time through a collaborative project between The British Library and three other major international institutions.

The Codex Sinaiticus, considered to be the world’s most important Biblical manuscript, dates from the fourth century and is thought to be the earliest, most complete Christian bible.

The manuscript is however split up and housed in four different locations - London, Sinai, St Petersburg and Leipzig. This means that pages from one book of the bible manuscript might be housed in two or more different repositories . . .

There is a holding page on the official site in German and English. The 24 hour museum article gives a little more detail:

While the project intends to have all parts of the Codex Sinaiticus online by July 2009, this year’s initial launch will give access to 106 pages held by the British Library. These include the complete Book of Psalms and the Gospel of Mark.

A further 28 fragment pages from the British Library collection will also be added. These pages enable the online completion of a further six Biblical texts when joined with the parts of the manuscript housed at Leipzig University. These texts include 1 Chronicles, Jeremiah and Lamentations.

As well as translations of some parts of the manuscript from the Greek into English and German, the website will also allow users to explore cross-referencing between both the transcription and the image of the manuscript itself. For instance, pointing at a word on the transcription will highlight the equivalent word in the image.

I will add a link and a notice when the time comes on Thurdsay. For more on the project see:

ITSEE: The Codex Sinaiticus Project
British Library Press Release (2005)

And for recent blog notices, see now Progress in the Digitization of the Codex Sinaiticus on Elginism and Codex Sinaiticus to go Online this week on j. c. baker and The Codex Sinaiticus Project on Paleojudaica.

Labels: British Library, Manuscripts

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More from Radio 4: Beyond Belief back on 23 June dealt with Paul. No one else on the blogs has mentioned it so far (Surely I am the only biblioblogger who listens to Radio 4). The contributors are Paula Gooder, Gerald O'Collins and Ed Kessler, all three great choices, especially Paula! You can catch it again on Listen Again from the previous link (just select 23 June St Paul from the drop down menu). If you don't yet subscribe to the podcast, you can do so at Beyond Belief: Podcast. One choice question that gets discussed: would Paul have circumcised his son if he had one?

Labels: Apostle Paul, BBC

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In recent weeks there has been an interesting discussion on several of the e-lists relevant to our field about whether, in fact, the e-lists are now dying. Andrew Bernhard has led the charge on this one and today posts a great summary post, also looking to the future. His answer to his original question is that the e-lists are not dying but that they are going through a period of transition. If you have not been following the discussion, you may be one of the reasons for the downturn on a lot of the lists. Here's the link to Andrew's post as it appears on Xtalk:

Are e-lists dying? (Final Post)

Andrew argues that many of the e-lists are in crisis, something he demonstrates by looking at figures on the number of posts, mapping a steady decline. But he suggests that the e-lists are not dying but are in transition, and there may still be a future for them.

I don't think that that the answers to this interesting question are straightforward, but I know that for myself and other fellow bloggers, blogging is one of the reasons for the changes in the e-lists. Many of us prefer to blog than to write an email. If I were to track my own e-list participation, I reckon it would have been much higher before I began blogging in 2003.

But I don't think that the growth of blogging is the major factor. Rather, our attitudes to email in general have changed. There was a phase when email was the latest thing. It was exciting, a whole new world of communication. Remember the thrill of receiving emails in those early days? When I joined b-greek nad Xtalk back in 1996, a large part of the experience was the thrill of receiving electronic communications -- this was not like anything else I had experienced. Back then it was fun to send and receive emails, and to do your scholarship that way. Not now. When I get back from time away from the computer, I don't think, "Oh great, tons of emails!" I think, "Oh no! Email mountain! How will I ever get through all of those?" Email was once exciting but now it is oppressive. Now we do everything by email and attention to our inbox is all about finding ways to get through it as quickly as possible. We are looking for excuses to by-pass, delete as many messages as possible. E-list material has to be relegated when there are tons of personal emails to work one's way through. I suspect that the growth of email oppression is in fact the largest factor in the changing face of several of the e-lists, not least as academics receive a larger proportion of emails than many others.

Labels: e-lists

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While I was away from the blogging machine, a major story broke and the media and the biblioblogs have been full of it, Israel Knohl's interpretation of a newly discovered text on a tablet called "Gabriel's Revelation". Syneidon has a good summary of the issues, with links, and several bibliobloggers have been on hand to provide intelligent, critical commentary of the kind that establishes a major contribution to the discussion, with up-to-date, accurate and cautious assessments that contrast with some of those from various media outlets. Particularly worthy of note are the contributions by Tyler Williams on Codex Blogspot, Knohl, "Gabriel's Revelation" Tablet and the Resurrection; The Messiah Tablet (with tons of links) and Joe Zias on the ‘Vision of Gabriel’ ‘Messiah Tablet’ Or Whatever You Wish to Call It on Jim West's blog; New Messiah Stone by Michael Bird on Euangelion; Messianism before Christ: Gabriel's Revelation by Stephen Cook on Biblische Ausbildung; The Vision of Gabriel by Ed Cook on Ralph the Sacred River; New Inscription Found: "Messiah to be Raised After 3 Days"?! and Messiah Tablet Confirms Published Dissertation by Michael Barber on Singing in the Reign. Jim Davila is on top of the news over on Paleojudaica, Vision of Gabriel, Vision of Gabriel Inscription, Vision of Gabriel, Vision of Gabriel Watch, Vision of Gabriel Watch and An Anti-Messiah. Excellent work here from the bibliobloggers, as ever up to speed and ready to provide intelligent commentary on the breaking stories of the day.

Labels: Messianism

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If you thought that your professors or deans weren't on Facebook, think again. In the Christian Century, Gregory Jones, the Dean of Duke Divinity School, has an article about Facebook:

My Facebook Friends
L. Gregory Jones

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