Daily Gleanings: New Books (26 August 2019)

Reading time: 2 minutes

Christobiography cover imageNijay Gupta interviews Craig Keener on his new book, Christobiography. Craig summarizes the book, in part, saying that

A number of scholars are more skeptical of the Gospels’ portraits of Jesus than the evidence warrants. If someone wrote a biography today about a figure who lived fifty years ago, we wouldn’t start with the assumption that events fifty years ago are shrouded in legend and therefore reject any claim that we could not prove.

For the balance of the interview, see Nijay’s original post. For insight into Craig’s research and writing process, see his contribution to the “Pro Tips” series.


Understanding the Spiritual Meaning of Jerusalem book coverNow available from Brill is Antti Laato’s Understanding the Spiritual Meaning of Jerusalem in Three Abrahamic Religions. According to the publisher, the volume

analyzes the historical, social and theological factors which have resulted in Jerusalem being considered a holy place in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It also surveys the transmission of the religious traditions related to Jerusalem. This volume centralizes both the biblical background of Jerusalem’s pivotal role as holy place and its later development in religious writings; the biblical imagery has been adapted, rewritten and modified in Second Temple Jewish writings, the New Testament, patristic and Jewish literature, and Islamic traditions. Thus, all three monotheistic religions have influenced the multifaceted, interpretive traditions which help to understand the current religious and political position of Jerusalem in the three main Abrahamic faiths.

HT: Jim Davila

Bauckham, “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses” (2nd ed.)

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Bauckham, "Jesus and the Eyewitnesses" (2nd ed.) coverAvailable from Eerdmans is the second edition of Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. According to Eerdmans,

in this expanded second edition Bauckham has added a new preface, three substantial new chapters that respond to critics and clarify key points of his argument, and a comprehensive new bibliography.

For more information or to order, see Eerdmans’s website, Amazon, or other booksellers.

Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism (2016)

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Rick Brannan posted a couple tweets recently about 2016 articles from the Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism (1, 2). The journal had apparently fallen out of my list of RSS subscriptions somehow, so I was grateful for the prompt. The full list of 2016 articles in JGRChJ is:

Seth M. Ehorn and Mark Lee, “The Syntactical Function of ἀλλὰ καί in Phil. 2.4”

Matthew Oseka, “Attentive to the Context: The Generic Name of God in the Classic Jewish Lexica and Grammars of the Middle Ages—A Historical and Theological Perspective”

David I. Yoon, “Ancient Letters of Recommendation and 2 Corinthians 3.1-3: A Literary Analysis”

Stanley E. Porter, “The Synoptic Problem: The State of the Question”

Greg Stanton, “Wealthier Supporters of Jesus of Nazareth”

Review of Biblical Literature Newsletter (May 7, 2015)

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The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include:

Historical Jesus Audio

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Thanks to Anthony Le Donne for noting the availability of LibriVox recordings for D. F. Strauss’s Life of Jesus and Albert Schweitzer’s Quest of the Historical Jesus. LibriVox also has apps available for AndroidiOS, and Kindle users, and the iOS version (at least) allows downloading and storage for offline listening.

Select Kistemaker Works

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Select Works of Simon J. Kistemaker (6 vols.)
Select Works of Simon Kistemaker

Now garnering interest in Logos Bible Software’s prepublication program are 6 volumes of select works from Simon Kistemaker. The collection mostly contains items related to the Gospels but also includes an edited volume of hermeneutics essays and a survey of Calvinist history and thought.