Entries from January 2007

January 31, 2007

Secular Approaches to Christian Origins

April DeConick, Isla Carroll and Percy E. Turner Professor of Biblical Studies at Rice University, has joined the blogging world this past week with her Forbidden Gospels Blog. I’ve noticed because she’s been welcomed by bloggers at PaleoJudaica, The Busybody, Earliest Christian History, Hypotyposeis, Deinde (with a brief welcome and a longer critique of her [...]

January 29, 2007

Tests Schmests, Exams Ecschmams

Let me just say that I dislike, nay, despise tests. That’s not good for someone in academia, I suppose. I don’t look forward to taking my comprehensive examinations once I’m in a doctoral program, but worse than that, I don’t even like the fact that I have to take a midterm exam in my early [...]

January 28, 2007

Google reader and blogging the Didache

So I have just switched from bloglines to Google reader for reading various blogs and I appreciate Google’s format a lot more. You can even read posts I felt worthy of sharing here; mostly they’re interesting biblical studies discussions and resources, generally related to Christianity and culture, or just funny.
Anyway, through catching up on my [...]

January 27, 2007

The Klouda controversy

Here’s a story on gender discrimination that was brought to my attention on Jim West’s blog. It is one of those situations that I am both in disbelief and yet unsurprised.
FORT WORTH, Texas - A theology professor at a prominent Southern Baptist seminary said officials told her to leave because women are biblically forbidden from [...]

January 24, 2007

Does the New Perspective on Paul call Judaism racist?

There is a criticism of the New Perspective on Paul (NPP) that has come up in our Paul and the Law class several times (first initiated by Dr. Hagner himself) which I find both troublesome and intriguing. It goes like this: in its attempts to absolve 1st century Judaism of a legalistic image, the [...]

January 23, 2007

What do Anabaptists say about justification by faith?

In response to my last post, my friend Matt raised good questions about Anabaptists and their understanding of justification by faith. I started to copy down some quotes and felt like it was just too much material (and the material was just too good) for a comment, so I’m making a new post out of [...]

January 23, 2007

It’s not our issue: Anabaptists and the New Perspective on Paul

I would like to share some wisdom that was emailed to me about why Anabaptists might not be all gung ho about the New Perspective on Paul. I alluded to something similar in a previous post, but I think this puts it better. The email was from Dale Fredrickson, who is a NT PhD student [...]

January 20, 2007

An Anabaptist, Judaizing Paul?

I mentioned my search for sources where Anabaptists can be found wrestling with the New Perspective on Paul (NPP). After much searching through books and journals, it does appear that Anabaptist interaction with the NPP is scant. The primary resource, it seems, is Toews’ commentary on Romans. I have found, however, a short chapter in [...]

January 19, 2007

Sermon Conversation 2: How’d I do?

[Continued from the previous post . . . ]
The best feedback, though, came from our sermon conversation the other night. Here are some sermon excerpts and what was said about them:
Yet when we compare the story to other imaginative tales of Jesus the boy, Luke’s account seems tame. In the apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas, [...]

January 19, 2007

Sermon Conversation 1: My message

One of the most important aspects of my education, in my estimation, is learning how to communicate complicated bible-speak to “real people” in an accessible way. That is why I eventually want to be a teacher and a mentor for college students. That’s what I’m trying to do with this blog to some extent. Delivering [...]