Tag: From the Bookshelf
Burnett Streeter and Proto-Luke
In his Four Gospels, Burnett Streeter articulates his view of the sources of Luke and proto-Luke as follows: The hypothesis I propose in no way conflicts with the generally accepted view that Matthew and Luke are ultimately dependent not only on Mark but on Q—meaning by Q a single written source. Most, if not all,…
History and Hermeneutics
To the extent that New Testament Studies is a historical discipline, it shares the features of other historical disciplines. Among these features are its own historical-affectedness: If we are trying to understand a historical phenomenon from the historical distance that is characteristic of our hermeneutical situation, we are always already affected by history. It determines…
Blogging and Biblical Studies: Thoughts from N. T. Wright and Thomas Kuhn
In his Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision, N. T. Wright reflects: It is really high time we developed a Christian ethic of blogging. Bad temper is bad temper even in the apparent privacy of your own hard drive, and harsh and unjust words, when released into the wild, rampage around and do real damage. .…
Excellence in Writing
In preparing for another revision of the Theological Writing Handout, I am rereading William Strunk and E. B. White’s little classic, The Elements of Style. The fourth edition contains a forward by Roger Angell, White’s stepson, where Angell recalls the following pattern of behavior from his stepfather: Each Tuesday morning, he would close his study…
Roland Deines on Halakah and Community Definition
In reading Roland Deines’ essay in Second Temple Judaism (“The Pharisees Between ‘Judaisms’ and ‘Common Judaism’”), I came across the following, astute paragraph: If it is correct that it was particularly halakah that constituted Pharisees as Pharisees, it is also true that it constituted Essenes as Essenes and Sadducees as Sadducees. The same can be…
Wisdom in the Muratorian Fragment
The Muratorian fragment curiously includes a book named “Wisdom” in the middle of its discussion of New Testament literature (see Westcott 562). The standard interpretation of this reference appears to be that the fragment refers here to the well-known Wisdom of Solomon (e.g., Carson, Moo, and Morris 492; Ehrman 241). The relevant sentence from the…