Welcome to Biblical Studies Carnival #208 for June and July 2023. What happened to the June Carnival? I skipped it, hoping that by combining June and July, I would have a good-sized collection of posts for the summer. That’s my excuse. Not that I was traveling hither and yon all summer. I realize this messes up the cadence of numbers, but that’s how it is.
Jim West will host the August Carnival, but I do not have any volunteers after that. Contact me at plong42@gmail.com to discuss volunteering to host a Biblical Studies Carnival.
Old Testament
Erica Mongé-Greer at Scholarly Wanderlust, Genesis 1, Bereshit, and the Big Bang.
Claude Mariottini comments on Job 19:20, “I have escaped by the skin of my teeth). In June, he finished up his excellent series on Habakkuk. Go back and read his whole series on this overlooked minor prophet.
Sara Milstein on The Levirate Law: A Marriage Contract Clause That Became Legislation.
Naama Yahalom-Mack in The History of Iron in Ancient Israel and Erez Ben-Yosef and Aaron Greener Edom’s Copper Mines in Timna: Their Significance in the 10th Century.
Jeremy Hutton on Why Is David and Goliath’s Story 40% Longer in the MT Than in the LXX.
Jeffrey Stivason, The Message of Isaiah is a Message to Us.
Who is The Daughter of the King of the South (Daniel 11:6)? Marg Mowczko will tell you.
The Power of Genealogies and the Promise of Seed in Scripture. (The Bible Sojourner)
Is Leviathan a Fire-Breathing Dragon? B. J. Oropeza ruins fundamentalist preaching on Job 41 by correctly reading the text. Read this list on Biblical Monsters at Bible History Daily.
New Testament
Andrew Case (FreeHebrew.online) posted part 3 of this series on Why Didn’t the New Testament Authors Use God’s Name at Text & Canon Institute.
B. J. Oropeza, Should Women Keep Silent at Church? Rereading 1 Corinthian 14:34–35. “Paul would seem to agree that in worship assemblies, distractive talking is shameful and runs counter to Scripture. As such, the Corinthian wives were disrespecting the speakers and the Spirit who inspired them. The inspired speakers, I should add, could be either men or women. Paul did not prevent inspired women from speaking in the Corinthian churches; he only prevented uninspired chatterers from speaking.” He also has a great post on Wrongly Translating Romans 8:29–30.
At Scribes of the Kingdom, Last of the disciples: John’s death and the Johannine relocation.
Marg Mowczko on “Uncover-Cover” Words in 1 Corinthians 11:2–16.
Ian Paul has been busy in Matthew: Good and Evil in the Parable of the Weeds in Matthew 13, The kingdom as treasure, pearl, leaven, and net in Matthew 13, and The Feeding of the Five Thousand in Matthew 14.
Not to be outdone, Heather Thiessen (The Hermeneutrix, a.k.a., HAT) posted a study on Matthew 13 24-30, 36-43, then a reflection on the text. She followed this up with a study on Matthew 13 44-52, then a short reflection on that text.
Peter Goeman reads Matthew 13 and asks, “Do Jesus’s Kingdom Parables Support Postmillennialism?” I won’t spoil this one for you, but Peter is right.
Carl Rasmussen says the “Gate to Hell” (the Plutonium) in the ancient Greek city of Hierapolis is open. Like Carl, I have been disappointed by those chain-link fences around the site. Carl also has a post on the new work on a possible “prison of Paul” at Caesarea Maritima. I noticed this in May, about a month after work began on a cistern turned into a prison. I agree with Carl: Rome would unlikely keep a citizen in this underground space for two years!
Sean Martin is a new blogger at New Reality Online. In June, he has been focused on discipleship, posting on Michael J. Wilkins, Following the Master: A Biblical Theology of Discipleship and Costly Community in Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship. In July, Sean also wrote a five-part series on Spiritual Formation for LGBTQ+ Christians (part 1, establishing the discussion; part 2: Expositional and Theological Foundation; part 3: A Brief Ecclesiastical History; and part 4: Importance and Consequences of the Issue. You will just have to subscribe to Sean’s blog for part five (which was not published when I wrote this).
James McGrath and Tony Burke co-chair a new SBL consultation on John the Baptist.
The Transmission of Mark’s Endings in Different Traditions and Languages: Papers presented at the International Workshop, Lausanne, 2–3 June 2022; ed. by Claire Clivaz, Mina Monier, and Dan Batovici. Peter Gurry at Evangelical Textual Criticism also points out Three New Essays on Theology and Textual Criticism.
Peter Goeman asks, “Do a Pastor’s Children Need to be Believers? A Look at Titus 1:6.”
A Short* note on an article by Michael W. Martin and Jason A. Whitlark, Reconsidering the Context of Hebrews 13:7–14. *Yes, that pun was intended.
Archaeology
At least 125 tombs were discovered at Roman-era cemetery in Gaza.
Brent Nongbri rounds up the news on the (alleged) Oldest Codex (P.Hib. 113) and later asks: What Do We Mean By “Codex”?
Jim Davilla points out a Times of Israel story on a Half-shekel coin from revolt against Romans uncovered in desert cave. I never find cool stuff like that.
Book Reviews
Mark Ward explains What Makes a Bible Translation Bad and What Makes a Bible Translation Really Bad.
Joshua L. Harper, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and Haggai: A Handbook on the Greek Text (Baylor, 2023). Reviewed by Brent Nierdergall.
James D. Nogalski, The Books of Joel, Obadiah, and Jonah. (Eerdmans, 2023). Reviewed by Jim West.
Marc Van De Mieroop. Before and after Babel: Writing as Resistance in Ancient Near Eastern Empires (Oxford University Press, 2023). Reviewed at The Biblical Review. Here is Sophus Helle’s review at BMCR.
Noah Hacham, Tal Ilan, Corpus papyrorum judaicarum, Volume 5: The Early-Roman Period (30 BCE–117 CE) (De Gruyter and Magnes Press, 2022). Reviewed by William Horbury.
Charles Marsh, Evangelical Anxiety (HarperOne, 2022). Reviewed by Ansley Quiros.
I reviewed the following books here on Reading Acts:
- Tony Burke, ed. New Testament Apocrypha, Vol. 3: More Noncanonical Scriptures (Eerdmans, 2023).
- John D. Harvey, and David Gentino, Acts (Kerux) (Kregel, 2023).
- John J. R. Lee, and Daniel Brueske, A Ransom for Many: Mark 10:45 as a Key to the Gospel (Lexham, 2023).
- Walter T. Wilson, Matthew Volume 1 & 2 (Eerdmans Critical Commentary) (Eerdmans, 2023).
- John Walton, Wisdom for Faithful Reading Principles and Practices for Old Testament Interpretation (IVP Academic, 2023).
- Douglas D. Webster, The Psalms: Jesus’s Prayer Book (Kregel, 2023).
- Kenneth Berding, Paul’s Thorn in the Flesh: New Clues for an Old Problem (Lexham, 2023).
- Nijay K. Gupta, Tell Her Story: How Women Led, Taught, and Ministered in the Early Church (IVP Academic 2023).
- Jeffrey J. Niehaus, When Did Eve Sin? The Fall and Biblical Historiography (Lexham, 2020).
- Jeffrey Pulse, Figuring Resurrection: Joseph as a Death and Resurrection Figure (Lexham, 2021).
- Charles L. Quarles and L. Scott Kellum, 40 Questions about the Text and Canon of the New Testament (Kregel, 2023).
I also reviewed two volumes of IVP Academic’s ESBT series: Edward W. Klink III, The Beginning and End of All Things: A Biblical Theology of Creation and New Creation and M. Jeff Brannon, The Hope of Life After Death: A Biblical Theology of Resurrection.
When St Jerome Writes a Book Review…
Omnium Gatherum (miscellany or stuff I didn’t know what to do with)
On the anniversary of Rudolf Bultmann’s death, Jim West celebrated with a series of Bultmannian posts. Here are Jim’s two picks for the best book on Bultmann and a short note on Makers of the Modern Theological Mind: Rudolf Bultmann.
Thomas Creedy, On the Reading of Commentaries and Journey Deeper – Using Commentaries Devotionally.
Simonetta Carr introduces us to Elisabeth Cruciger – The First Lutheran Female Hymnwriter.
Why I am not (quite) an anarchist (HAT).
Who Can Be Called “Pastor”? On Southern Baptists, Ancient Bishops, and What Goes without Saying (Jacob Randolph at the Anxious Bench).
Philip T. Morrow at The Biblical Mind, Systemic Evils Aren’t Your Responsibility, They’re Ours. “I might be personally innocent of transgression, but my collective is not. And I can bear the (shared) responsibility of facing the problem without bearing its guilt as my own.” Listen to the Center for Hebraic Thought podcast for more.
Adam Renberg at the Anxious Bench, Where are the Mothers of the Church? On Patristic Theology and the Visibility Problem.
Why Are Most Ancient Roman Statues Headless? Spoiler: interchangeable heads.
The Faithful Politics discusses “QAnon, Chaos, and the Cross: Christianity and Conspiracy Theories,” a new book edited by Michael Austion and Gregory Bock.
Joey Cochran, Facing Fears with an Evangelical Faith.
John MacDonald concludes a long series, “No, Jesus Did Not Believe in the Inerrancy of the Bible: In Awe Of Jesus On The Cross.” The post includes links to John’s (many) posts on Trump’s propaganda.
Claude Mariottini liked Indiana Jones and the Antikythera Mechanism.
Can Orthodoxy Hide Heresy? On Apollinarius of Laodicea and Mark Driscoll (Adam Renberg at the Anxious Bench). If you read one article on Apollinarius of Laodicea and Mark Driscoll, it should be this one.
Thanks for your good work, Phil. This was excellent!
Thanks Spencer…Is it time for you to host a Carnival?