Category: Weblog
Hansen on Christian Community and Obedience
In commenting on Phil 2:12 in his recent Pillar series volume, Walter Hansen observes the following about Paul’s description of Christian community and obedience: The church is an eschatological community, a colony of heaven. But in order for the heavenly reality to be a present, earthly experience, believers need to work out the salvation promised…
Bauckham on the Gospels as Historical Sources
In this clip, Richard Bauckham briefly abstracts his own argument from Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=292NTf1cCNw&hl=en_US&fs=1]
Bromine, Chlorine, and the Temple Scroll
Robert Cargill reports that a recent test conducted by Italian scientists suggests that the Temple Scroll’s papyrus was “cured using water from the Dead Sea.” Cargill also mentions a forthcoming test that could reasonably demonstrate a connection between the scroll’s ink and the water of the Dead Sea. Even if it does so, however, Cargill…
Computing Ugaritic
Sunday, National Geographic reported that researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had successfully tested a computer system that, by itself, deciphered a substantial amount of Ugaritic “in a matter of hours” (MIT press release). This system is based on a statistical model developed by Benjamin Snyder and Regina Barzilay of MIT and Kevin Knight…
History and Collective Memory
Defending the legitimacy of the category of “collective memory,” Maurice Halbwachs observes the following: History is neither the whole nor even all that remains of the past. In addition to written history, there is a living history that perpetuates and renews itself through time and permits the recovery of many old currents that have seemingly…
Mburu, Qumran and the Origins of Johannine Language and Symbolism
Due out in a little less than one month is the revised version Elizabeth Mburu’s PhD thesis, Qumran and the Origins of Johannine Language and Symbolism. In the book, Mburu sets out to demonstrate that the sectarian Qumran document The Rule of the Community, provides linguistic clues which illuminate our understanding of how the author…