We are announcing a new book that is scheduled to be published this summer (18 Aug 2021), James Barr Assessed: Evaluating His Legacy over the Last Sixty Years (ed. Stanley E. Porter; BINS 192; Leiden, Brill). The blurb states: James Barr is a widely recognized name in biblical studies, even if he is still best […]
Category Archives: scholarship
If you are a member of SBL (Society of Biblical Literature), you received the 2020 Annual Report, some 35 pages. The report begins with an introductory letter by Executive Director, John Kutsko, who writes on the idea of community. This is apt given the state of the pandemic that we have been experiencing for almost […]
Is it just me who sees the steep decline in the quality of New Testament scholarship? I don’t think so. I look at the numerous textbooks that are being published—I know, these do not, let me repeat, do not count as scholarship—and they are full of all sorts of useless nonsense designed to keep the […]
One of the results of the latest Society for New Testament Studies meeting in Marburg was the decision to bring the New Testament Greek seminar to a close after two terms of its meeting. The seminar had applied for renewal, as it is the only seminar dedicated to study of the Greek language. I was […]
The supposed first-century Mark fragment—now shown to be second or third century (P.Oxy. 5345; vol. 83; P137)—continues to raise questions throughout the blogosphere. After many blog postings and side discussions, including circulation of a supposed contract between Dirk Obbink and Hobby Lobby regarding selling some papyri, possibly the Mark fragment, a number of parties owe […]
Earlier this year, the Society of Biblical Literature posted the results of a member profile survey they conducted in January 2019. Among other interesting statistics, we wanted to highlight a particular one that stood out for us. While the various expertises of its members were too large and complex to reproduce in the profile summary, […]
I recently gave a talk on Paul the Apostle, entitled “Paul and the Contemporary Church: Learning from the Church’s Most Important Theologian and Church Planter.” I was asked to do this talk in response to some groups within the contemporary church who claim to find greater sympathy with Jesus than they do with Paul. Such […]
In a recent post at the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog, Peter Gurry shares some notes that he took at SBL Denver 2018 about the plans for the next editions of the NA29 and UBSGNT6. I too was sitting in that session where Holger Strutwolf was presenting the plans. But I did not take any notes, […]
I (Dave) remember a while back, a classmate with open book in hand exclaimed with much adoration, “Wow, look at this first footnote!” It was the first page of an essay in an edited book, where the body text of the first page of the essay turned out to be only three or four lines, […]
It has been about a month, but we wanted to provide a brief summary on the recent annual meetings of the Evangelical Theological Society, Institute for Biblical Research, and Society of Biblical Literature meetings in Denver, Colorado. Overall, it was another great year of presenting papers and listening to them, along with the usual social […]
