From AKMA and Mark I learned that Brooke Lester had asked his Facebook friends, “I know the answer before I ask, but: Do we have no good, critical, open-access Intro to Old Testament textbooks?” I have no idea what Brooke said, because this conversation is not on Anuma, and I’m not in the favoured few [...]
Browsing Posts in Bible: OT
Brooke commented on my post Did Jeremiah confess? Or: Laments, complaints & confessions? There’s a somewhat analogous issue in Dan 9:4b-19, with the pious deuteronomistic prayer that contrasts theologically and ideologically with the apocalyptic narrative framework. The scholarship has move over time from: a) those who deny the issue (“Daniel wrote it, there’s no contrast, [...]
Lake Tekapo, New Zealand Jim West, in typically forthright style (and with no evidence or argument provided – come on Jim ante up, present some reasons for your opinion!) links to and pooh-poohs a short post “Jeremiah: Memoirs or Laments? (Jer 11:18-20; 12:1-6; 15:10-21, 17:14-18; 18:18-23; 20:7-13)” by Don C. Benjamin at Bible and Interpretation. [...]
My colleague Dr Tim Meadowcroft and I are teaching a MTheol/DMin course on “Isaiah and Empire” this semester. The more we have prepared for the course the more aware we have become that, despite the fact that most readings of the book of Isaiah see it as set against several (traditionally three) distinctly different Impreial [...]
I’ve finally got to read James Linville‘s Amos and the Cosmic Imagination I know it was published back in ’08, but books (especially expensive European books take a while to get to our library down here ;) The book itself is stimulating, not least because he seems to be starting in the right place i.e. [...]
The best loved Psalm is also one which comes alive the most when a little contextual light is shone upon it. <A Psalm of David.> Yhwh is my shepherd, I shall not be needy. Shepherds did not drive their flocks, or leave them out on the hills to fend for themselves. Because of the protection [...]
For the article I am writing I am looking closely at various proposals for understanding the structure of the book of Amos. Once again I am struck by the variety of positions scholars can take. The issue of course is the evidence we use to convince each other. We weigh that evidence differently. For example [...]
I am nearing the end of the literature review section of my article on the Structure of Amos. There is nothing like such an exercise to encourage one to examine the nature and worth of scholarly publication. As an undergraduate student, newly converted to a quasi-literary or historical discipline (Biblical Studies) from the rather different [...]
As an INFP (on the MBTI) I naturally tend to avoid obvious solutions in favour of more “creative” ones – often to the exasperation of innocent bystanders, like parents, spouse, colleagues and in more recent days children. As a preacher, this tendency means that I have seldom treated the familiar Sunday School Story passages. I [...]
I’ve been podcasting my way through the E100 (100 “essential” Bible readings designed to give a good overview introduction to the Bible). Today we got to Exodus 12: E100-19: Exodus12: A great festival, but a huge theological problem. I faced a dillemma, the podcasts are billed as 5 minute Bible, so I can’t go much over [...]
