Biblical Studies Carnival 171 (May 2020)

I am happy to host the Biblical Studies Carnival this month! Our previous Biblical Studies Carnival 170 was hosted by Peter Goeman at PeterGoeman.com.  He did an excellent and thorough job, and you can check it out here: https://www.petergoeman.com/biblical-studies-carnival-170-april-2020/ Thank you Phil and Brent for the privilege. The Biblical Studies Carnival is a way to highlight a month’s worth of articles, blogs, videos, etc. for different fields involving or connected to biblical studies. Phil and Brent are always looking for volunteers, particularly for July and August.

Next month’s host is Jim West at Zwingli Redivivus (https://zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com/). I am looking forward to his post!

On New Testament Studies

Richard Fellows wrote an article on Paul’s companions, titled, “Chuza and Joanna as Andronicus and Junia, prominent apostles.” In this post Fellows dives into great detail about these two companions of Paul. He provides charts with the Semitic names, Latin names, and Greek names, providing reasons for the name selection. You can check it out here: http://paulandco-workers.blogspot.com/

Gary Greenberg (bio here), recently published another book titled  The Case for a Proto-Gospel: Recovering the Common Written Source Behind Mark and John. In Gary’s own words, “It is, to the best of my knowledge, the first systematic study of every incident in the Gospel of John (except for speeches, discourse and “I Am” sayings) that cross-references almost every incident in the Gospel of Mark (except for speeches, discourses, parables, doublets and most exorcisms) and establishes a direct literary relationship between both gospels, both as to story content and substantial sequential agreement in story order.” Not only would the book be a wonderful addition to your textual studies, he is also blogging a series discussing this proto-gospel.

• His introductory post is here: http://biblemythhistory.com/im-starting-a-blog-series-on-the-case-for-a-proto-gospel/
• His second post, which discusses “the basic principles of current gospel source criticism and where [he] introduce[s] some new ideas that enhance our understanding of gospel origins.” Check it out here: http://biblemythhistory.com/the-case-for-a-proto-gospel-and-standard-source-criticism-theory/

In her blog, ENGENDERED IDEAS, Dr. Lyn Kidson shared a post titled, “Temple Prostitutes or Virtuous Priestesses?” In this article, Dr. Kidson sets out to dissect James’ speech to the early church (see Acts 15:22-29). She examines the four prohibitions and seeks to understand James’ injunction against fornication. You can read more here: https://engenderedideas.wordpress.com/2020/05/24/temple-prostitutes-or-virtuous-priestesses/ You can also follow her on Twitter, here: https://twitter.com/lyn_kidson In addition, here is a list of her work: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lyn_Kidson

Phil Long of Reading Acts is continuing his series through the book of Revelation. For the latest posts on Revelation, see:

• https://readingacts.com/2020/05/28/war-in-heaven-revelation-127-9/
• https://readingacts.com/2020/05/27/escape-to-the-wilderness-revelation-12-5-6/
• https://readingacts.com/2020/05/26/the-dragon-and-the-stars-revelation-123-4/
• https://readingacts.com/2020/05/21/who-is-the-woman-in-revelation-12/
• https://readingacts.com/2020/05/19/the-war-of-the-dragon-revelation-12-15/
• https://readingacts.com/2020/05/18/gods-temple-in-heaven-and-the-ark-of-his-covenant-revelation-1119/
• https://readingacts.com/2020/05/15/the-seventh-trumpet-revelation-1115-19/
• https://readingacts.com/2020/05/14/the-death-of-the-two-witnesses-revelation-117-14/

In addition to his Revelation series, Phil has also posted several helpful reviews!

 

On Greek

Here are some helpful articles, videos, and other resources to help with Greek studies.

Ariel Sabar writes an interesting article on the supposed oldest fragment of Mark’s Gospel. Sabar provides the backdrop of the fragment while working through the weaving web of theft and deception. You can read about that here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/museum-of-the-bible-obbink-gospel-of-mark/610576/

Peter Williams writes about the new Nestle-Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece, 28^th rev. ed., “If I were just allowed one book to assist my study of the New Testament, this edition, with its 114 year history, would be it.” Williams’ article is detailed, providing an examination of the “main changes,” “comparative statistics,” and “versional citations.” But, warns Williams, “For quick orientation to the witnesses in a variation unit I will reach for my NA28 first, but might still regularly consult NA27.” That is, don’t throw away your NA27! Williams provides a detailed examination of this monumental work to NTTC. Learn more about it here: https://marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org/peter-williams-on-the-nestle-aland-novum-testamentum-graece/

The Patrologist recently began a series through the book of Ecclesiastes on YouTube. In the videos, he reads the Greek out loud, provides comments on the syntax, and helps the viewer gain more from the passage. You can check his videos out here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKvJmmtC1JYVLMdTTT98bAw

In addition to those videos, the Patrologist also offers many helpful blog posts on his blog, The Patrologist, which can be examined here: https://thepatrologist.com/ You can also follow him on Twitter (which I highly suggest you do, should you be a Twitterite) here: https://twitter.com/ThePatrologist

Brent Niedergall has also been busy producing several helpful posts for Greek studies. First, Brent shared a post titled “NFM and Textual Criticism,” in which he discusses “a method that makes classifying manuscripts into text-types a simple and objective task.” Read on here: https://niedergall.com/nmf-and-textual-criticism/ And for a free resource, check out https://github.com/jjmccollum/jude-nmf In another post, Brent discusses discouragement from BDAG, overviewing several citations host of primary sources, particularly as they relate to Fragment 144. Learn more about that here: https://niedergall.com/fragment144/ Finally, Brent produces part 1 of a study on διότι. Brent attempts to determine a deeper understanding of this word that appears 22 times in the GNT. Read part one here: https://niedergall.com/dioti-deep-dive-part-1/

On Hebrew

Daniel Gurtner shared a fascinating article (with accompanying video) by Ariel David on how researchers read a Torah scroll heavily damaged without opening it. In addition to the fascinating method (they used a particle accelerator), this method offers hope for future scrolls that may be too brittle to unroll. Check it out here: https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/.premium.MAGAZINE-particle-accelerator-to-help-read-dead-sea-scrolls-too-fragile-to-unroll-1.8821595

Joan Taylor, Dennis Mizzi, Marcello Findanzio share their discoveries of missing texts. They begin their wonderful post, “We really didn’t mean to find any missing texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls.” Read how they were able to use multispectral imaging to decipher texts. Here is the article: https://scroll.in/article/962810/how-my-team-and-i-accidentally-discovered-text-on-the-dead-sea-scrolls You can learn more about Joan and her team here: https://dqcaas.com/the-international-network-team/ as well as keep up with their research here: https://dqcaas.com/

John Meade shared a fantastic article, combining Hebrew and textual criticism for the Easter celebration. In the article, he reminds us of the need for an ethical and intentional scholarship when he writes, “The Bible’s authentic textual history won’t be confirmed by sensational discoveries. It will be confirmed by patient study and analysis of the evidence we possess and by responsible discoveries of provenanced artifacts, like the well-known Dead Sea Scrolls.” You can read the article here: https://equip.sbts.edu/article/resurrection-really-happened-textual-criticism-easter/

On Rabbinic/Judaic Studies

A special thanks to Bob MacDonald for passing this along. Celebrating their seven-year anniversary, TheTorah.com features a host of “academic and rabbinic scholars.” While the link provided offers “reflections” of each of the scholars. The benefit, however, is in the links under each individual. If you conduct research in this field, you will want to check this out: https://www.thetorah.com/blogs/seven-years-of-critical-torah-study-scholars-and-rabbis-reflect

Here are the list of scholars, by clicking on each name you will be taken to their reflection which provides a link to the author’s page:

• Prof. Yairah Amit

• Dr. Gábor Balázs

• Dr. Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo

• Prof. Rabbi Tamara Cohn Eskenazi

• Dr. Tova Ganzel

• Dr. Rabbi Yitz Greenberg

• Prof. Ed Greenstein

• Prof. Menachem Kellner

• Judy Klitsner

• Prof. Rabbi Marty Lockshin

• Rabbi Asher Lopatin

• Prof. Rabbi Dalia Marx

• Dr. Rabbi Jeremy Rosen

• Prof. Tamar Ross

• Prof. Jonathan D. Sarna

• Dr. Hacham Isaac S. D. Sassoon

• Prof. Rabbi Ismar Schorsch

• Rabbi Ron Stern

• Prof. Chaim I. Waxman

• Rabbi David Wolpe

• Rabbi Elaine Zecher

Prof. Cynthia Chapman posted a helpful (and detailed) study of Ruth and her transition to an Israelite. At the end of the post Dr. Chapman writes, “As family members tuck into the cheese blintzes, they should realize that through the shared ingesting of the flour-based crepes, they are reaffirming their kinship ties in a way reminiscent of Boaz and Ruth’s simple meal of roasted wheat dipped in sour wine.” For more, see: https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-substance-of-kinship-how-ruth-the-moabite-became-a-daughter-in-judah