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The Hypothesis of the Gospels with Dr. Ian Mills (Podcast)
Read more: The Hypothesis of the Gospels with Dr. Ian Mills (Podcast)In this episode, we’re joined by Dr. Ian Mills, who is Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics and Religious Studies at Hamilton College and the author of The Hypothesis of the Gospels: Narrative Traditions in Hellenistic Reading Culture (Fortress Press). Over the course of our conversation, we talk about how ancient readers understood the variation in…
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The Fourth Synoptic Gospel with Professor Mark Goodacre (Podcast)
Read more: The Fourth Synoptic Gospel with Professor Mark Goodacre (Podcast)In this episode, we’re joined by Professor Mark Goodacre, who is Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Duke University and the author of The Fourth Synoptic Gospel: John’s Knowledge of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (published by Eerdmans). In our conversation we discuss Prof. Goodacre’s thesis that John knew and used each of the…
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Writing and Rewriting the Gospels with Dr. James Barker (Podcast)
Read more: Writing and Rewriting the Gospels with Dr. James Barker (Podcast)In this episode we’re joined by Dr. James Barker, who is Associate Professor in the Department of History at Western Kentucky University and the author of Writing and Rewriting the Gospels: John and the Synoptics (published by Eerdmans). In this episode we discuss Dr. Barker’s theory of Gospel development, which entails the idea that each…
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No Room in the Inn? (Re-post)
Read more: No Room in the Inn? (Re-post)Everyone knows how the Christmas story goes. As Stanley Hudson vehemently asserted in the most recent episode of The Office (8.10 Christmas Wishes) regarding the sensitivity to celebrate everything but Christmas during the Holidays: I want Christmas! Just give me plain-baby-Jesus-lying-in-a-manger Christmas! When our culture boils down the Christmas event it looks like this: baby Jesus in a manger. We’ve seen…
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Asking More of the Right Questions This Christmas
Read more: Asking More of the Right Questions This ChristmasWe’re Getting Christmas Wrong Over the past few Christmases, I’m noticing an uptick in blog posts and essays about how Christians are “getting Christmas wrong,” that our old quaint stories about Jesus being born in an animal stable are historically implausible, and that our hymns and advent traditions are being “spoiled” by eminent historians who…
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The Best Commentaries on Luke
Read more: The Best Commentaries on LukeSince my thesis topic has me flipping through dozens of Luke commentaries each week, I thought I’d write a post on which commentaries are most helpful to me and why. Commentaries have five basic jobs: (1) give the reader a better historical understanding of the world in which the text was produced and (2) in…
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The Art of Translation: An Example from Luke 2.49
Read more: The Art of Translation: An Example from Luke 2.49The Text that Started It All I received this text message from a friend: “Quick…need a translation/explanation of Luke 2:49.” I found the necessity of a hurried response to be a bit peculiar. Who would need a translation of a verse so promptly? Nevertheless, I supplied my quick, and rather ‘wooden’, translation from the Greek…
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The Original Christmas Flash Mob
Read more: The Original Christmas Flash MobRecently, I saw a video of a flash mob that I thought you all should check out (if you haven’t already). I first saw it at a church service a few Sundays ago. Check it out: As I was watching this video initially I thought about how random it would be to experience one of…
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Echoes of the Old Testament in the New (Guest Post)
Read more: Echoes of the Old Testament in the New (Guest Post)I recently went to an Intervarsity meeting where we read the first half of Luke 18—the parable of the widow, and the prayers of the Pharisee and the tax collector. While everyone else read Luke, I was searching for the Old Testament parallel: what is Luke intending to echo in this story? The use of…
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What Happened After Easter?
Read more: What Happened After Easter?Following a day of worship, Easter egg hunts and family dinners (the odd combination of which deserves a blog post all its own), you might be ready to dive back into your weekly routine. But don’t miss what happened after Easter. In the rush to return to normalcy, take time to reflect on the rest…