Phil’s a nifty guy. He tends to be too peaceable but I suspect that’s because he’s Methodist or Anglican or Episcopalian or something soft Arminian. But he’s still likeable.
While I am nifty, I am not sure how Jim managed to get every other description wrong…
Jim did a real carnival, The Official September Carnival: Wrath and Judgment Edition. Jim explains that the “current governmental policies have made us all a little poorer and are set to make a lot of people a lot sicker. Reason enough for wrath….To be fair, there’s not much wrath or judgment in the posts this month, so you’ll just have to imagine that as I wrote the carnival, it was I myself who was filled with wrath and judgment.” he also tagged this carnival with “AI is trash.” (Ironicly, I used AI to fix his original sentence.)
I think this infographic is important because it shows that Reddit and Wikipedia make up two-thirds of AI’s training data. I am less inclined to hate Wikipedia these days. There is plenty of well-curated data on incredibly trivial topics. Who hasn’t researched studio guitar players in LA in the late 1960s? And even before AI took over the search engine world, if I needed technical support, I often limited my Google searches to Reddit anyway, since the site has fifteen years of people complaining about stuff, resulting in plenty of quick answers to why some app doesn’t work quite right. The main problem is that there is also a great deal of misinformation, outdated information, and nonsensical complaining on these sites that will be filtered into the AI training data.
Applied to biblical studies, Wikipedia may be a good resource for obtaining a quick definition or confirming the date of an obscure manuscript. In the early days of Wikipedia, someone said, ‘Wikipedia is not a bad place to start your research, but a terrible place to end your research.” As a veteran university professor, I would rather have my students use Wikipedia than a devotional posted on Youth Pastor Bob’s Blog of Fun and Worship from 2004.
I have utilized AI to accomplish some impressive tasks. For example, I recently converted the table of contents of an essay collection into SBL style references and then exported that list to a file, which I imported into EndNote. That took about ten minutes to figure out and another ten seconds to do the work. This saved me a considerable amount of time. However, if I used AI to summarize those essays, then I have not learned. Worse, if I used those summaries in an academic essay (such as a class paper, a sermon, or even a blog post), I would be misrepresenting generative AI as my own work. That is an academic honesty problem, not far from plagiarism.
However, generative AI poses a significant challenge for biblical studies. It is fast, easy, and sometimes it yields results. Using AI as a fancy search engine is not a real problem. However, using it as a substitute for careful reading of God’s word is a serious issue, especially for those who teach and preach in local churches. If the goal is spiritual transformation, it cannot be achieved with a well-crafted AI prompt.
So what’s next for the Biblical Studies Carnival? Old friend and traveling companion Claude Mariottini will host the carnival for November (due December 1). As you can see, I need a volunteer for the October carnival (due November 1). If you are interested in helping out, please contact me: plong42@gmail.com. I’d love to have a volunteer for that month, or early 2026. If you are curious about what it takes to host a carnival, please shoot me an email, and we can discuss it further.
Welcome to the Summer 2025 Biblical Studies Carnival. I have combined July and August into a single carnival, as most Academics are off being academic for the summer (or prepping for fall classes) and the BiblioBlogs are slower for these months. I also did not get a volunteer for either month, so I was trying to make things easier for myself.
Jim West will take the September carnival (due October 1), then old friend and travelling companion Claude Mariottini will host the carnival for November (due December 1). As you can see, I need a volunteer for the October carnival (due November 1). If you are interested in helping out, please contact me: plong42@gmail.com. I’d love to have a volunteer for that month, or early 2026. If you are curious about what it takes to host a carnival, shoot me an email and we can talk about it.
Old Testament
Dustin Burlet reviews the new Anchor Bible commentary on Genesis 1-11 by Ronald Hendel. Replacing Speiser’s dated (and brief) AB commentary, this new commentary is “The culmination of over thirty years of research, this long-awaited study by leading Genesis scholar Ronald Hendel is the first comprehensive scholarly commentary on Genesis 1–11 in a generation” (from the blurb).
Claude Mariottini, now professor emeritus at Northern Baptist Seminary, has completed several book projects and has returned to blogging this summer. Here is his Claiming Innocence in Psalm 44:22
New Testament Scholar Ian Paul asks, “Is evolution and an ‘old earth’ compatible with Genesis 1 and 2?” This is a Q&A drawn from a Facebook discussion with evolutionary biologist Zachary Arden. Arden says he seeks “to undermine the dichotomy of creation versus evolution as I find it to be unhelpful and inaccurate.”
In Judges 4-5, Deborah is clearly a judge, prophet and leader in Israel. As such, she is a model of female leadership in the Old Testament. Marg Mowczko surveys Seven Arguments Used to Minimise Deborah’s Ministry and offers a brief response for each.
On PaleoJudaica, a rare “comments enabled” post: Ezra and Nehemiah Pseudepigrapha? Jim Davila asks, “Why are there so many Ezra pseudepigraphical books, but not a single one on Nehemiah? The comment thread is an excellent discussion of the issue, including a brief note from Richard Bauckham.
Davila posted some links to new dating for the Siloam Dam. From the abstract: “Using well-established microarchaeological sampling methods, we reached a precise radiocarbon date of 800 BC for the Siloam Pool’s monumental water dam in Jerusalem.”
Joshua W. Jipp, The God Who Acts, Then and Now. This post is on the application of the book of Acts: “What do events from 2000 years ago have to do with how we think, act, and live today?”
John Andrew MacDonald completed his eight-part Quest for the Historical Paul at the Secular Frontier. He interacts with Nina E. Livesey, The Letters of Paul in their Roman Literary Context: Reassessing Apostolic Authorship (Cambridge Press, 2024). Livesey argues that none of the Pauline Letters are authentic and that there is no evidence for a historical Paul.
Brent Nongbri reports his article written with AnneMarie Luijendijk, “Codicology of Early Christian Books from Oxyrhynchus: Insights from a Papyrus Codex of Matthew (P.Oxy. I 2) and a Miniature Parchment Codex with 6 Ezra (P.Oxy. VII 1010)” ISAW Papers 29.3 (2025).
James McGrath posted a provocative piece on June 30, but I am including it here anyway. In Scholarship is Not Merely Skepticism, McGrath reposts his article on Bible and Interpretation, prompted by a negative review of my book Christmaker: A Life of John the Baptist by Rivka Nir (author of a book on John the Baptist that McGrath reviewed negatively). Aside from a scholarly debate, this is a critical discussion, as some scholars (and, more so, amateur biblical studies enthusiasts) believe that one cannot be an honest scholar if they actually believe things from the Bible. Spend some time on the AcademicBiblical subreddit for a taste of this. McGrath observes, “The Gospels contain stories of miracles, things that no historian can legitimately pronounce likely because of their inherent unlikelihood by definition. Unfortunately, in groups that label themselves “skeptics,” this often leads to the stance that therefore everything in the Gospels, including teaching and other mundane information, should be judged a likely fabrication…. We do need to be skeptical. We should not, however, be excessively skeptical.”
Michael Bird has some words on Using AI in Sermon Prep? He start with a long quotation from Frida, Mannerfelt, and Rikard Roitto, “Preaching with AI: An Exploration of Preachers’ Interaction with Large Language Models in Sermon Preparation.” Practical Theology 18 (2025): 127–38. The original article is excellent; follow the link and download a copy. Bird says, “AI is like a teaspoon. You can use a teaspoon to put sugar in your tea or to cook meth. It all comes down to how you use it.” More than 50% of people responding to a poll at the end of his post were okay with using AI for sermon prep. The problem is defining what “AI use” means. There is a wide range from using Grammarly (or similar tools) to asking ChatGPT to give you a three-point sermon based on Romans 12:1-2 with two illustrations and a joke.
It is summertime, and as the song says, the living is easy. Once the calendar hits June, academics head out to do whatever academics do in the summer. I like to find a comfortable chair and a good book (which is no different from any other time of the year). Most biblical scholars engage in reading, research, and finishing writing projects that are several months overdue. This summer, I travelled to China for two weeks, and since then, I have been working hard on an overdue manuscript. My blog posts have been scarce over the last two or three months, and for this, I apologize. I have some plans for the fall, but for now, I have a book to finish.
Last month, Jim West did the May 2025 Carnival, and it was a blast from the past: he repeated the 2013 carnival. Many biblio-bloggers have been busy in June, so here is a curated collection of links to the best biblical and theological posts in June 2025. Did I miss your post? Let me know about your blog, and I will try to include it in a future carnival.
As I always say, I am seeking hosts for the remainder of 2025. Contact me via email at plong42@gmail.com if you would like to discuss hosting a Bible Studies Carnival on your blog. I would love to have a host who is more into podcasts than I am.
Michael W. Wilson is one of the most consistent bloggers out there. He recently posted on The Mind of Jesus (Philippians 2) and The Lion of the Tribe of Judah and the Root of David (Revelation 5). Take the time to scroll through his blog and check out his other posts this month.
Marg Mowczko on “Real Examples of “Titus 2 Women” in the Roman World. In the introduction, she says, “In this article, I quote from several inscriptions that celebrate virtuous Roman women and which contain identical and similar words to those used in Titus 2:4-5. These words are about real women who lived in Roman society about 2000 years ago, and none of them appear to have been Christians.” Great article, gathering the right data to understand Paul’s language in Titus 2 (this should be published as a journal article). Read the whole thing.
Jim West posted an all-AGADE Biblical Studies Carnival. What does that mean? Jim is celebrating Jack Sasson’s long-running mailing list, AGADE. I subscribed to Sasson’s list many years ago. The SBL website says, “Jack M. Sasson, the Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Judaic and Biblical Studies at Vanderbilt University, has been collecting and distributing the Agade Mailing List for almost two decades, dating back to his position at The University of North Carolina, which still hosts the email distribution list. The Agade list forwards news and information of interest to scholars in biblical studies, Near Eastern studies, Late Antiquity, Judaica, Classics, archaeology, and even broad intellectual history. It is a valuable source of announcements, and these many guilds are in debt to Professor Sasson.”
You can access the AGADE archive here. This searchable archive goes back to 2015, although the mailing list is much older than that. Vanderbilt has an archive as well, although I am not sure how far that one goes back. To subscribe, send a blank email to listserv@unc.edu, and write (as the subject and in the first line): subscribe agade.
Maybe I should explain to the youths in the audience what a LISTSERV is. In the internet’s earliest days, people would curate topics and send daily emails to those who subscribed. I subscribed to the biblical Greek and biblical Hebrew listservs in the mid-90s. Many of these migrated to discussion forums or ceased to exist.
For April (due May 1), Hans E Kristensen of Australian Catholic University will host at his blog, Bible Archaeology and History. Hans is a first-time host, so check out his blog (or his papers on academia.edu). As I always say, I am looking for hosts for the rest of 2025. Contact me via email, plong42@gmail.com if you would like to discuss hosting a Bible Studies Carnival on your blog. I would love to have a host that is more into podcasts than I am.
February is the shortest month, but there was plenty of Biblioblogging. Welcome to the Biblical Studies Carnival for February 2025. Reuven Chaim Klein did a great job with the January 2025 carnival on The Rachack Review. As I always say, I am looking for hosts for the rest of 2025. Contact me via email, plong42@gmail.com if you would like to discuss hosting a Bible Studies Carnival on your blog. I would love to have a host that is more into podcasts than I am.
Jim West will host the carnival for March (due April 1). For April (due May 1), Hans E Kristensen of Australian Catholic University will host at his blog, Bible Archaeology and History. Hans is a first-time host, so check out his blog (or his papers on academia.edu).
William Ross celebrated International Septuagint Day (February 8) by giving a list of his publications on the Septuagint. He says he would be happy to send you copies if you do not have access to these journals.
Peter Goeman at The Bible Sojourner asks, “Does 666 refer to Nero in Revelation 13:18?” I will not spoil the post for you, but no, it’s not Nero. This post has a link to his podcast on YouTube.
Marg Mowczko discusses Origen on the Montanist Prophetesses. She says, “Apart from having women as leaders, emphasizing the role of the Holy Spirit and prophecy, and holding to some ideas which many in the broader church regarded as strange, the Montanists’ basic theological beliefs were not heretical.”
B. J. Oropeza revisits the Lord’s Prayer. His focus is on the sixth line, specifically. The word epiousion, “our daily bread.” Spoiler: he thinks I. H. Marshall’s compromise may be right. Read his post to see what that compromise is. Oropeza also asks if God’s Love is Unconditional or Unconditioned.
Michael Bird posted a link to the latest edition of his podcast “Ask N. T. Wright Anything” answering the question, “Was Paul a false apostle?” This post also includes Michael Bird’s video on the Roman imperial cults and its relevance to the apostle Paul and the Book of Acts.
Christoph Heilig thinks we need to think: The AI Revolution Is Moving Faster Than We Expected—Are We Ready? Not specifically on biblical studies, but Helig’s piece is a good overview of the state of AI in February 2025. That will all change in a month, so read what he has to say now.
