Tag: New Testament

Daily Gleanings: Paul (26 December 2019)

Reading time: 2 minutes

In TC 24, Katja Kujanpää discusses the source of Paul’s quotation in Rom 11:35.

Typically, this is found in Job 41:3. But Kujanpää argues the source is actually a variant form of Isa 40:14.

According to the abstract,

Romans 11:35 is almost unanimously treated as a quotation from Job 41:3. Although it differs significantly from preserved Greek and Hebrew readings of that verse, few have questioned this attribution. In this article, I will argue that Rom 11:35 has nothing to do with Job but is a verbatim quotation from Isaiah. Scholars have mostly ignored the fact that Rom 11:35 agrees word for word with a Greek textual variant, a remarkably well attested plus in Isa 40:14. In the previous verse in Romans, Paul quotes Isa 40:13.

The essay draws attention to the importance of having as full as possible a sense of the Septuagintal textual tradition(s) when working on Paul’s (or the New Testament’s) use of Scripture.

It’s always possible that the source for a given New Testament quotation or allusion is represented in the apparatus rather than in the main text of a modern, critical Septuagint.

There are some cases where this possibility wouldn’t obtain (e.g., if a New Testament text has demonstrably influenced Septuagintal copies). But that doesn’t change the need to be on the look out for this possibility.

For the full essay, see TC 24’s webpage.

Daily Gleanings: Bezae (25 December 2019)

Reading time: < 1 minutes

In TC 24, Pasi Hyytiäinen discusses the “Evolving Gamaliel Tradition in Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis, Acts 5:38–39.” Hyytiäinen relies on the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM) to

challenge[] the common scholarly conviction that Acts in Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis (D05) represents a single cohesive textual tradition [and to] argu[e] instead that D05 should be understood as an evolving text, consisting of multiple textual layers without any trace of unified editorial activity.

For the full article, see TC 24’s webpage.

Daily Gleanings: Manuscript Preservation (7 August 2019)

Reading time: < 1 minutes

CSNTM has posted a video featuring Dan Wallace. The video introduces CSNTM and the balance of the post invites financial partners to join the effort.

Roger Pearse discusses Craig Evans’s 2015 article in the Bulletin for Biblical Research, “How Long Were Late Antique Books in Use?” (25.1: 23–37).

Pearse is critical of various points in Evans’s article but particularly appreciates “the first part of the article [that] is a dossier of evidence that ancient papyrus books could be in use for considerable periods of time, perhaps even a couple of centuries.” Pearse (and Evans) then both connect this observation to the claim of the Peter of Alexandria (d. 311) that the autograph of John’s gospel “was still around and that readings could be obtained from it.”

Daily Gleanings: Paul in RBL (10 July 2019)

Reading time: 2 minutes

In the Review of Biblical Literature, Bryan Dyer discusses Gregory Jenks’s Paul and His Mortality: Imitating Christ in the Face of Death (Eisenbrauns, 2015). Dyer summarizes,

Jenks wades through the Pauline writings and the apostle’s contextual background to address the question of how Paul thought about his own mortality. While Greco-Roman and Jewish thought certainly influenced the apostle,
it was the death and resurrection of Jesus, according to Jenks, that significantly impacted Paul’s own view of death. Countless books have been written on Paul’s understanding of Jesus’s death. Jenks asks a different question: How did Paul think about his own death? (1)

Dyer offers several critiques of Jenks’s argument (4–5) but also remarks, “these critiques aside, Jenks has offered
an engaging study of Paul’s view of mortality that should encourage others to dig even more deeply into this important theological issue.”

For the additional comments, see Dyer’s full review in RBL.

In the Review of Biblical Literature, Dean Furlong reviews Douglas Campbell’s Paul: An Apostle’s Journey (Eerdmans, 2018). Furlong reports that the book

has been warmly received in many quarters and praised for the accessibility of its scholarship. Indeed, it is a succinct work that skillfully bridges the gap between academia and the lay reader with its warm, conversational style. It is also a difficult book to categorize.… it is not a typical account of Paul’s life and theology. It seems more a series of mini-introductions to each of Paul’s letters, each of which attempts to provide some (usually helpful or provocative) sociologically informed context and to summarize Paul’s thinking while carrying its own devotional flare. Discussions of Pauline thought touch such themes as friendship building, communal relations, social capital, restorative justice, servant leadership, and God’s unconditional love. It seems clear that Campbell is attempting to distill the findings of many notable Pauline interpreters into this compact book, and this works, if one accepts that these findings best reflect Paul’s own theology; otherwise, the end result might not be quite as satisfying. (1)

For additional discussion, see Furlong’s full review in RBL.

Daily Gleanings: RBL (3 July 2019)

Reading time: 2 minutes

In the Review of Biblical Literature, Gordon Zerbe reviews Fiona Gregson’s, Everything in Common? The Theology and Practice of the Sharing of Possessions in Community in the New Testament (Wipf & Stock, 2017). According to Zerbe,

Gregson’s first stated interest is to discern common themes that occur across diverse examples and genres. A second core concern is to see how “the Christian theology and practice of sharing possessions in the NT texts” differs from similar examples in the surrounding culture. (1)

Zerbe’s primary evaluation is that

This book will be useful for Christian scholars and practitioners who are looking for a synthesized New Testament theology of sharing possessions in community. Disappointing to others may be the overtly apologetic and piecemeal (and not mainly illustrative) use of comparative materials, in search of finding how “the NT is consistently different from its surrounding contexts.” Others may find the choice of New Testament materials for investigation somewhat arbitrary or inconsistent. (4)

For the full review, see RBL‘s website.

In the Review of Biblical Literature, Jonathan Hicks reviews Jason Maston and Benjamin E. Reynolds’s edited volume, Anthropology and New Testament Theology (Bloomsbury, 2018).

According to Hicks, the volume tries to answer both the question of the New Testament’s teaching about humanity and the implications of this teaching for “decisions we make now regarding the right performance of a human life” (1). The volume includes contributions that address the New Testament’s anthropological context, traces human identity as sketched in various New Testament corpora, and concludes by “assisting readers to see how the volume’s contents might be brought into conversation with other disciplines/issues” (1).

Hicks’s main critique is that “more clarity is needed on how to move from the exploration of New Testament texts to the applicative sense of those texts for contemporary anthropological debates” (6). But overall, he finds the volume a helpful beginning to further discussion (6–7).

For Hicks’s full review, see RBL‘s website.