Daily Gleanings (20 May 2019)

Mike Aubrey points to a full set of video recordings of lectures from the recent SEBTS conference on linguistics and NT Greek. I’ve included this playlist below as well. The “hamburger” button in the upper left-hand corner will expand the playlist contents with a list of speakers and their topics.


Larry Hurtado reviews Michael Dormandy’s recent TC essay, “How the Books Became the Bible:  The Evidence for Canon Formation From Work-Combination in Manuscripts.”

Daily Gleanings (17 May 2019)

Peter Gurry and John Meade discuss Phoenix Seminary’s “Text and Canon Institute.”


Freedom discusses how to improve work performance by minimizing distractions.

The essay is pitched mostly toward employers or those in supervisory roles. But we biblical scholars often work in some ways as our own self-supervisors. So the essay should translate over fairly easily to be helpful even for those of us who don’t have direct reports.

Daily Gleanings (2 May 2019)

I recently did a blog post series on expanding your research materials.

In this same vein, Mark Hoffman discusses the “Library Extension” for Chrome and Firefox. As Mark summarizes,

Once you add the extension in either of the those browsers, an icon appears in the toolbar. Click it on to select your available public library and some educational institution ones. If your library system offers it, it will also allow you to connect to Hoopla and OverDrive.

It’s not a perfect system. Depending on which edition or version of a book you select, you will get different results. And your public library probably doesn’t carry that technical volume on an advanced biblical topic.

In any case, this is a handy way to see if your local library has a book you can check out, and sometimes it is even available as an eBook or an audiobook.

I’ve just installed the extension myself and am interested to see what it may turn up.

HT: Kirk Lowery


Michael Kruger abstracts a longer essay of his and concisely discusses the possibility that 1 Timothy quotes Luke.

For the full essay, see Louis Dow, Craig Evans, and Andrew Pitts, eds., The Language and Literature of the New Testament: Essays in Honor of Stanley E. Porter’s 60th Birthday (Brill, 2016), 680–700.

To do so and still afford to read anything else, perhaps interlibrary loan of this one chapter might be a good option. 🙂

Bulletin for Biblical Research 24, no. 4

The Bulletin for Biblical Research 24, no. 4 contains:

  • John C. Poirier, “An Ontological Definition of ‘Canon’?”
  • Jason S. DeRouchie, “The Heart of YHWH and His Chosen One in 1 Samuel 13:14”
  • Richard Whitekettle, “Like a Fish and Shrimp Out of Water: Identifying the Dāg and Remeś Animals of Habakkuk 1:14″
  • E. Ray Clendenen, “Salvation by Faith or by Faithfulness in the Book of Habakkuk?”
  • Preston M. Sprinkle, “Romans 1 and Homosexuality: A Critical Review of James Brownson’s Bible, Gender, Sexuality

PhD Studentships at Aberdeen

Christian Askeland highlights four PhD studentships available at the University of Aberdeen set to engage the topic of “Authority and Texts: Concepts and Use,” considering questions like:

What constitutes authority and provides authenticity to texts and what is the role of textual criticism? How should authoritative texts (including religious, legal, and other texts), be used and interpreted, and how is this issue determined? Is investigation of the contextual meaning of texts at their time of composition necessary to understanding and respecting their authority, or do different criteria exist which influence readings of texts?

For the official announcement, see here.