Reuven Chaim Klein hosts the Biblical Studies Carnival #224 for January 2025 at The Rachack Review. Although this is the first time he has hosted a Biblical Studies Carnival, he has done several Jewish Book carnivals over the years. Reuven says, “This month’s roundup features a diverse collection of essays, book reviews, and podcast episodes that I’ve come across in my readings. Whether you’re a seasoned scholar or simply passionate about the study of the Holy Scripture, I hope you’ll find something here to spark your curiosity and deepen your understanding.” A fascinating collection of links, with many blogs I was unaware of.
As always, I am looking for volunteers for the Biblical Studies Carnival in 2025. Check out my mine from last summer to get an idea of what people include in the Carnival. But every Carnival is different, so you can feel free to include more theology, church history, archaeology, or whatever biblically related discipline interests you. I would love to have a host who knows more podcasts to focus on that aspect of biblical studies on the internet.
I will host the next carnival (unless someone else would like to), and Jim West will take March 2025 (due April 1).
Contact me (plong42@gmail.com) or on the shambling horror that is Twitter these days (plong42). I am plong42 on Bluesky as well.
Welcome to the Biblical Studies Carnival for November 2024. I spent a week in San Diego attending dozens of papers and meetings (along with several dinners, etc.) As always, I have a wonderful time, eat too much, and buy many books. But the world of BiblioBogging goes on….so here is my list of the best of November 2024.
Since he loves the Xmas season so much, Jim West will host the carnival for the holidays. A brand new host, Reuven Chaim Klein, will post the January 2025 carnival on February 1, 2025 on his blog, The Rachack Review. As I always say, I am looking for hosts for early 2025. Contact me via email, plong42@gmail.com if you would like to discuss hosting.
Christoph Heilig has a detailed discussion of the Paul within Judaism section, The Future Past of Paul within Judaism: How It Will Have Become a Successful Paradigm (If It Will Have). “I have never witnessed an SBL session that sparked so many subsequent discussions throughout the rest of the meeting, nor one where there was such universal agreement that the field cannot continue with business as usual after it.” Helig wants to see a stronger commitment to the actual interpretation of Pauline texts (and, at times, other Jewish texts).
I sat in on the Historical Paul section, which featured a series of papers entitled “Paul within Judaism within Acts.” Essentially, “What can Acts contribute to Paul within Judaism studies?” For many SBL Acts scholars, the answer is “not much,” primarily because of the assumed second-century date for Acts. However, the “Paul within Judaism within Acts” does not yet have much to say about historical Paul because traditional Acts scholars tend to consider Paul a prototypical convert (from Judaism to Christianity). But this is highly anachronistic (both in terms of what Judaism and Christianity mean, as well as importing modern ideas of conversion onto Paul’s experience.
Bob MacDonald has been working through the Psalms on his blog, Dust. Use the sidebar since the posts are not in canonical order. If you have not read Bob’s musical observations on the Psalms, you should spend some time on his blog. Quite remarkable.
Ian Paul asks, Is Mark 13 about the end of the world and Jesus’ return? “In Acts 2.17–21, Peter appears to understand what is going on in front of him in exactly the same words that Jesus uses in Mark 13.24 and following—all happening within the life of that generation.” (spoiler alert: there is some already /not yet in this answer).
jayman777 at Biblical Scholarship posted a collection of translations of the late fourth-century Syrian bishop Apollinaris of Laodicea, Comment on Matthew 27:5, the death of Judas. Apollinaris quotes Papias to justify harmonizing the accounts of Judas’s death in Matthew and Acts. There is a wealth of these kinds of posts on Jayman777’s blog, so maybe bookmark this one for further reading.
At Behind the Gospels, John Nelson asked, Was Jesus an Apocalyptic Prophet? He begins with Mark 13:30, “This generation will not pass away…” and later he answers three common objections. These posts cover some of the same ground as Tucker S. Ferda, Jesus and His Promised Second Coming: Jewish Eschatology and Christian Origins (read my review here).
Marg Mowczko asks, “Who is God’s Servant in Romans 13:4?” She concludes: “Paul was not asking the Roman Christians to unnecessarily submit to foolish or harmful leadership. Nevertheless, he wanted the Christians to be compliant with Roman authority so that they could avoid wrath, violence, and persecution. Paul understood the political tensions of his time.”
Adam Renberg continued a series on Mothers of the Church. This time, Adam comments on Egeria. Be sure to read this if you only know Egeria from her pilgrimage.
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein at The Rachack Review reviews Divine Doppelgängers: YHWH’s Ancient Look-Alikes, edited by Collin Cornell (Eisenbrauns, 2020). He concludes, “This book presents a thought-provoking exploration of the relationship between the God of the Bible and the deities of the Ancient Near East… As an Orthodox Jew, I appreciate the respectful and scholarly manner in which these thorny issues are handled, even if the answers are not always clear-cut or even acceptable to me.”
Kavin Rowe, Method, Context, and Meaning in New Testament Studies and Studies in Luke, Acts, and Paul. Eerdmans, 2024. (Reviewed by Phillip J. Long)
Candida Moss, God’s Ghostwriters: Enslaved Christians and the Making of the Bible. Little, Brown and Company, 2024. (Reviewed by Ben, The Amateur Exegete)
Robert M. Bowman Jr. and J. Ed Komoszewski, The Incarnate Christ and His Critics: A Biblical Defense. Kregel Academic, 2024. (Reviewed by Phillip J. Long)
Françoise Briquel Chatonnet and Muriel Debié, trans. by Jeffrey Haines, The Syriac World: In Search of a Forgotten Christianity. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2023. (Reviewed by Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent).
Veteran BiblioBlogger Jim West hosts Biblical Studies Carnival #221 for October 2024. Since Jim’s blog is “all Reformation all the time,” it is no surprise that he has quite a few Reformation posts in his Carnival. Jim says he decided that the Carnivals he hosts should reach beyond just the blogs and draw the best posts from “wheresoever they are found.” This includes substacks (which are blogs) and podcasts (which are talking blogs). he includes some grant information, which may interest some. I don’t think I saw any TikTok posts. Maybe we should all encourage Jim to become a lifestyle influencer on TokTok. I think he could pull that off.
If you made it to the end of his post, Jim observes, “Next Month’s should be pretty fun if it’s done right because it will cover SBL.” It will be good because I am hosting it, but yes…November is prime time for Biblical and Theological Studies on the internet. If you post a copy of your paper to Academia.edu or Humanities Commons, or your blog, let me know, and I will include it for those who could not attend SBL/AAR in person.
As always, I am looking for volunteers for the Biblical Studies Carnival starting in December 2024. Check out Jim’s Carnival or mine from this summer to get an idea of what people include in the Biblical Studies Carnival. But every Carnival is different, so you can feel free to include more theology, church history, archaeology, or whatever biblically-related discipline interests you. I would love to have a host who knows more podcasts to focus on that aspect of biblical studies on the internet.
Contact me (plong42@gmail.com) or on the shambling horror that is Twitter these days (plong42).
And remember, November 1 only means Christmas is coming….far too soon.
Ben the Amateur Exegete hosts Biblical Studies Carnival #220 for September 2024. Ben has hosted the carnival before and likes to keep it simple. He focuses on two broad categories: the Hebrew Bible (and related) and the New Testament (and related). That is what makes the Carnival fun; every host does things a bit differently. If you would like to host a Carnival and focus more on Theology or church history, contact me (email: plong42@gmail.com).
OG Biblio-blogger, epic tweeter, and occasional meme-lord Jim West will host the October Biblical Studies Carnival at Zwinglius Redivivus. Feel free to send a few links his way.
Welcome to Biblical Studies Carnival #219 for summer 2024. Yes, yes, I know it has been a while. Summers are slow times for academics. Between travel and writing projects, I have been very busy all summer and decided to combine the three summer months into one overly long carnival. I did this last summer, and no one complained.
I need volunteers in 2024 to keep the Biblical Studies Carnival going. Don’t hesitate to get in touch with me (email: plong42 @ gmail.com) and follow me there, too.
What does a Biblical Studies Carnival look like? Check out #218 from Bob MacDonald for a great model to follow. You are not required to follow the usual categories. We want different hosts to get other perspectives. I know many Biblical and Theological podcasts exist, but I don’t have time to listen.
Follow me on Twitter and DM me if that is your style. I am on Threads @plong42. Feel free to contact me and ask me anything about the Biblical Studies Carnival.
At The Bible and Interpretation, Daniel R. Schwartz contributes Modern Scholarship on 1–2 Maccabees in Its Historical Context. From his conclusion, “modern scholarship on 1–2 Maccabees well illustrates the truism that ‘all history is contemporary history.’” It’s worth reading the bibliography alone!
Michael Tuval at The Torah.com, Judaism Transforms in the Diaspora During the Second Temple Period. Excellent article using Maccabean literature, Sibylline Oracles, and other literature to argue that “even before the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. and the cessation of its sacrificial cult, the Jews of the Greco-Roman Diaspora had successfully created alternative Judaic systems in which the Temple did not play a crucial role.”
Jonathan Klawans, Biblical Pseudepigraphy: Are Falsely Attributed Biblical Texts Deceptive? “Is editing and writing in the guise of Moses, Solomon, or Daniel a legitimate literary convention justified because of the author’s inspired state? Or is this practice a form of deceit, even forgery?”
At Tyndale House, Josh Meynell takes a look at an Egyptian inscription from 1200 BC, which contains one of the earliest mentions of Israel in extra-biblical documents. “Many scholars consider Merneptah’s account to be closer to propaganda than real history, but, if anything, this makes this mention of Israel even more interesting.”
James McGrath uses AI to translate Syriac. “I’m excited by the possibility that humans can use AI to translate texts into English that never have been before. It can do this in a way that will be largely correct if the text is digitized accurately and the AI is trained on the relevant languages.”
Ian Paul asks, “Was John the first gospel?” He interacts with George van Kooten, who recently proposed that John was early and that Luke was dependent on John. This is a long, detailed article, and I will not spoil the conclusion for you (but he says no, John was not the earliest). But read the article. It is excellent.
Adam Renberg asks, “Didn’t Augustine have a weird theology of sex?” “Do Early Christians Hate the Body?” The short answer is, “While the early church did not hate the body, they did affirm the need for its discipline, along with Jesus and Paul.” Go read the article.
Brian Kaylor and Beau Underwood, Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Build Christian Nationalism. Chalice Press, 2024. Reviewed by Bob Cornwall.
Christopher B. Hays and Richard B. Hay, The Widening of God’s Mercy (Yale, 2024). Reviewed by Preston Sprinkle.
Passings
A tribute to Professor Alan R Millard (1937–2024) by Peter J. Williams, Principal at Tyndale House. Here is Lawson Younger’s tribute, “Alan Millard was a true gentleman and scholar, and a mentor and friend to many. He will be greatly missed.”
