Biblical Studies Carnival # 183

With the first of June comes the newest edition of the Biblical Studies Carnival. I want to thank Phil for the privilege of hosting it again. Ruben Rus of Ayuda Ministerial/Resources for Ministry hosted last month’s BSC. If you have not looked at it, stop and go check it out! The next two BSC’s will be hosted by Brent Niedergall and Kenson Gonzalez.

184 June 2021 (Due July 1) – Brent Niedergall, @BrentNiedergall 
185 July 2021 (Due August 1) – Kenson Gonzalez Viviendo para Su Gloria @KensonGonzalez

Before we take a look at this month’s contributions, please consider hosting a Biblical Studies Carnival. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading them each month. More than that, I have had the privilege of meeting new people. They have taught me with their expertise and knowledge in biblical studies (which is a broad category). You can contact Phil here.

Also, if you have a blog, or know of one that has not been featured, please contact the hosts. We would love to feature your contributions to the field of biblical studies.

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Hebrew, First Testament Studies

Christopher Page, of In A Spacious Place, has continued a series called Travels with HP (Hebrew poet) covering the psalms. For the month of May, Christopher has discussed Psalms 3-7.

Though not technically written in the month of May, this republication of “Jethro in the Bible” by Elie Wisel is an excellent read on the Biblical Archaeology Society page.

Peter Goeman encourages us to commit to the Biblical languages (I include it in this section, though it could easily be placed in Greek, New Testament Studies as well). In his post, Goeman shares a variety of quotes that focus on Luther’s love of the original languages.

Bob MacDonald has been as busy as ever. He has published numerous posts on the Hebrew scriptures. Check them out here.

Julia Blum (Israel Institute of Biblical Studies) writes “The Hidden Message” out of Genesis 38. In one of the most perplexing accounts in Genesis (of which there are many), Blum works through the narrative while raising helpful issues within the Hebrew.

Greek, New Testament Studies

Phil Long (Reading Acts) is working his way through the Gospel of Matthew. You will have to weave your way through the insane amount of reviews Phil does (I am beginning to think he reads more than he breaths!), but they are good.

Elijah Hixson made us aware of an open access catalog here. If you work with Greek Textual Criticism, you will want to check this out.

Theological Studies

Christopher Page, of In A Spacious Place, has addressed an opinion piece from David Bentley Hart in two posts (first post, second post) that focuses on hell. They will provoke your own thoughts, regardless of your personal views.

Brent Niedergall has posted several videos in his 300 Seconds of Theology series. He has discussed the attributes of God, the Triunity of God, and the Names of God. These videos (which are short, as the name indicates) are great summaries of deep theological topics. He usually connects to something well known (often a pop culture reference) that would be well worth your viewing. He also published a post on “A Theology of Backgammon.” I know the name will pique your curiosity, so I do not have to sell you on it!

Jim West of Zwinglius Redivivus addresses the topic When to Imprecate and When to Be Silent. He quotes Martin Luther, “A christian for the sake of his own person neither curseth nor revengeth himself.” He also wrote a post, Adolf von Harnack Explains Luther’s Disdain for Invented Theological Terminology that is an excellent read.

Philip Stern answers the question, “When Did Monotheism Emerge in Ancient Israel?” at Biblical Archaeology Society. He begins his post with a provocative statement, “While many biblical scholars view monotheism as a relatively late development within Israelite religion, I believe–based on evidence from early Israelite poetry–that the origins of biblical monotheism can be located early in Israel’s history, most likely by early in the first millennium B.C.E.”

Books, ACADEMIA & Publishing Issues

Jim West of Zwinglius Redivivus shares the “ultimatum” concerns frequently found in academia. He also shared his commentary on the entire Bible available for purchase here. The Person in the Pew commentary is, in West’s words, “the only series of Commentaries in modern history written by a single person on the entire Bible and aimed at layfolk.” Additionally, West points out the absurdity of Princeton not requiring students in classics to take Greek or Latin. Yes, you read that right, Princeton is not requiring students in classics to take Greek or Latin.

For those familiar with the BSC, it will come as no surprise that Phil Long of Reading Acts has reviewed numerous books over this month. They include: A Commentary on James, John Through Old Testament Eyes, Proverbs: A Shorter Commentary, Transformative Word Series (three volumes), and The Theology of Jeremiah.

Peter Gurry posted a review of The Daily Discoveries of a bible Scholar and Manuscript Hunter: A Biography of James Rendel Harris.

Travis Bohlinger posted the most recent academic jobs in Biblical Studies and Theology here.

Biblical Studies Carnival 177

The month of November, though filled with celebrations of Thanksgiving and combatting the COVID-19 virus, witnessed an incredible amount of production for biblical studies. Jim West of Zwinglius Redivivus, hosted Biblical Studies Carnival 176 last month. If you missed it, you need to go back and learn about the Puppies! Next month’s host will be Phil.

I am sure I missed quite a bit. If you know of someone who contributes to the various fields involved with biblical studies, please contact me through my contact page.

If you are interested in hosting a biblical studies carnival, or if you know of someone who might be interested, please reach out to Phil! Now, to the Carnival!

New Testament studies

Phil Long has been working his way through the Gospel according to Matthew. These studies cover a variety of topics that develop in the ninth chapter of the Gospel.

• Jesus Has Authority Over Sin- Matthew 9:1-2
• Sin and Sickness- Matthew 9:1-8
• Is Matthew the same as Levi? Matthew 9:9
• Jesus Calls Matthew to Follow Him- Matthew 9:9
• Who are the Sinners Who Eat with Jesus?- Matthew 9:10
• Why Doesn’t Jesus Fast?- Matthew 9:14
• Why Does Jesus Call Himself a Bridegroom?- Matthew 9:15
• What Did Jesus Mean by “Old and New Wineskins”?- Matthew 9:16-17
• Jesus Raises the Dead- Matthew 9:18-26

The Amateur Exegete posted “Israel’s Davidic gospel–Scribes of the Kingdom.”

Hebrew studies

Bob MacDonald of Dust has been working on an enormous project that provides greater ease with his published concordance. He explains the project in greater detail here. A few examples of his work are the studies of the Hebrew roots גם-גת with accompanying biblical references. Another post covers the Hebrew roots שם. Be sure to keep up with his work as he progresses. Another post that you need to check out is “The revelations of a musical concordance.” This is a fascinating post in which Bob provides an example of words/prepositions and helps in interpreting. In that post he writes, “Here is a method of finding inconsistencies in my division in the semantic domains.” I believe his work will yield profitable results for Hebrew studies.

Kim Phillips posts many discussions of Hebraic issues and important dialogues covering biblical and Talmudic Hebrew.

Michell Knight, cohost of the Foreword podcast, discusses a variety of issues involved with the Hebrew Scriptures. These discussions focus on reading books like Judges and Joshua, as well as issues of judgment.

Textual criticism

The blog Exegetical Textual Criticism has many helpful articles ranging from the “infinitesimal points” to interviews. There are numerous posts this month that, if you are involved/interested in textual criticism, you will want to examine.

REformational studies

Jim West has produced an enormous amount of materials for Reformational Studies. These range from quotes, to excerpts of a variety of leaders, to images.

Book reviews

As usual, Phil Long of Reading Acts, produced several helpful book reviews. Personally, his review of Dual Citizens: Politics and American Evangelicalism piqued my interest. His review has landed this title on my “to get” list. Phil also reviewed Navigating Tough Texts by Murray Harris. The title reveals the nature of the work, and for those involved with regular preaching/teaching, it should be on your list to get. Another review is offered for Rebels and Exiles: A Biblical Theology of Sin and Restoration. In addition to these three reviews, Phil also reviewed the following:

• The Bible Explainer
• Amos, Jonah, & Micah

Though not always a review, Ayuda Ministeral/Resources for Ministry provides a wide range of books for biblical studies. Check it out here.

Brent Niedergall reviewed The Curse in the Colophon. After providing some biographical information on the author, Edgar Godspeed, Brent briefly reviews the book. Brent also reviews Linguistics and New Testament Greek by David Alan Black and Benjamin L. Merkle. His final review covers J. V. Fesko’s The Need for Creeds Today.

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