First-Century Mark Continues to Raise Questions

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 […]

Philology of Greek as the Most Used Method? Some Thoughts on the Recent SBL Survey

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, […]

Jesus Versus Paul?

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 […]

Thoughts about the NA29 and UBSGNT6

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, […]

The Annual ETS, IBR, and SBL Meetings 2018

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 […]

Book Announcement: The Gospel of John in Modern Interpretation (Porter and Fay, eds.)

Following the style of the Pillars in the History of Biblical Interpretation series (Wipf & Stock), a new series entitled Milestones in New Testament Scholarship has appeared. The first volume, edited by Stanley E. Porter and Ron C. Fay, is The Gospel of John in Modern Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2018). While Pillars focuses on […]

Celebrating John W. Rogerson

I was greatly saddened to learn of the death of Professor John W. Rogerson, who died Tuesday morning, September 4, of a heart attack in Sheffield, UK. Professor Rogerson was one of the great Old Testament scholars of his generation, as well as being an exceptional individual, loyal and devout churchman, excellent supervisor, and superb academic […]

In Memoriam: M.A.K. Halliday

One of the great linguists of the modern era, Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday—best known as M.A.K. Halliday and as the originator of Systemic Functional Linguistics—passed away from natural causes at the age of 93 (April 13, 1925—April 15, 2018). Halliday received his BA in Chinese language and literature from the University of London, did some […]

After “Forging Linguistic Identities: Language in the Nation, the Region and the World”

The conference, Forging Linguistic Identities, is now over (it was March 16-18), and two of our bloggers who presented at the conference, Stanley Porter and Hughson Ong, have returned home—having been part of an absolutely great sociolinguistics conference. This conference was one of the most enjoyable conferences I have ever had the pleasure of attending […]