Especially since the 18th century, scholars have devoted much attention to separating out what they thought was “authentic” material about Jesus from subsequent interpretations that derived from circles of early Christians.  Particularly in the 20th century, this effort grew to a...

Especially in the first couple of weeks after my diagnosis of the relapse/return of my leukemia, there were scores of kind and encouraging comments sent via this blog site.  As they were nearly all of a highly personal nature, I didn’t think it proper to publish them.  But I read...

One of the books I’ve read during outpatient visits to the hospital over the last few weeks is a newly published book on Ernst Lohmeyer, a celebrated NT scholar who will be known to anyone in the field.  Among his numerous publications is his little monograph, Kyrios Jesus: ...

A reader of my previous posting raised several questions and made several assertions (some of them unfounded) that lead me to offer a few comments about the historical issues pertaining to the origins of Jesus-devotion and correct historical method in addressing them.

The first thing is to grasp...

(Several months ago, I was asked to write a contribution to a multi-author work on Jesus to be published in French, my contribution to deal with the origins of Jesus-devotion.  I was given a word-limit, and so had to be brief.  The result is something of a capsulized treatment of the...

The leukemia (AML) for which I was treated here last summer has reactivated, after some 9 months of remission.  The further treatment options are quite limited, and may only be palliative care of various sorts.  In any case, I am now fully occupied with exploring various arrangements for...

Craig Keener’s massive commentary on Paul’s epistle to the Galatians has recently appeared:  Galatians:  A Commentary(Baker Academic, 2019).  At xlvii + 848 pages, it is likely the largest commentary on this epistle.  But Keener is noted for his commentaries and...

In addition to the fragment of an early copy of the Gospel of Mark, the same volume of Oxyrhynchus Papyri includes a number of other texts that provide data worth noting.

The other identifiably Christian texts include a leaf of a LXX codex of the Psalms (P.Oxy. 5344, Ralfs 2228), dated by the...

Recent days have witnessed a dramatic turn of events in connection with the newly-published fragment of the Gospel of Mark (P. Oxy. 5345, now with the N-A number of P137).  One individual involved in the early days when the fragment was first mooted has written his account of things in an...

As I’m often asked for a short introduction to the line that I take in discussing earliest Jesus-devotion (some finding the 600+ pp. Lord Jesus Christ a bit too much to take in), I think that now I would recommend my little volume that appeared last year:  Honoring...

Today (28 June) in the church year marks the martyrdom of Irenaeus of Lyons (ca. 130-200? CE).  Likely born in Smyrna (in the Greek-speaking eastern area of the Roman Empire), at some point he moved to Roman Gaul, to Lugdunum (Lyons).  He became prominent in the church there, and after...

In reading a colleague’s draft essay I was reminded of a book that I found particularly helpful, but has received a disappointing level of notice, even, it appears, in scholarly circles.  I reviewed the book several years ago in the German journal, Theologische Literaturzeitung, but...

In an earlier posting I pointed to my review of Paula Fredriksen’s recent book, When Christians Were Jews(here), the review appeared in the online journal, Marginaliahere.

I point now to another essay-length review of the Fredriksen book (with some attention also to her studies of...

Readers of this and other blog sites with interest in NT textual criticism will have heard of a supposedly first-century fragment of the Gospel of Mark.  Yesterday, a new report came out from a senior figure connected with the Museum of the Bible (Dr. Michael Holmes), giving remarkable, even...

Among the comments responding to my posting about the depiction of the infant Jesus in Christian art, a couple of them prompt me to respond in another post.

One comment points to the way that visual representations of Jesus in art (and the movies too) in the West often give a blue-eyed,...

My wife is an art historian (specializing in 19th century British sculpture), so I’ve come to look more closely at art, and one of the things I’ve noticed in the many paintings of the infant/child Jesus is that he’s usually depicted as uncircumcised.

One is able to consider such a...

Reviewing Pardee’s otherwise excellent new book about “scribal harmonizations” in the Synoptic Gospels (here) led me again to think about the terms that we use in studying variant readings in texts.  In particular, Pardee, along with many other NT textual critics (including...

I commend a newly-published study of what is called “harmonization” of texts of the Gospels:  Cambry G. Pardee, Scribal Harmonization in the Synoptic Gospels, NTTSD, 60 (Leiden: Brill, 2019).  I have just completed a larger review for Review of Biblical Literature which...

Matthew Crawford informs me that his book on the Eusebian canon tables and their significance has just appeared:  The Eusebian Canon Tables:  Ordering Textual Knowledge in Late Antiquity (Oxford University Press, 2019), the publisher’s description here.

Eusebius (d. ca. 340 AD)...

In a number of publications over the last several years, scholars have drawn attention to the ground-breaking work of several early scholars who date from the late second through the early fourth centuries AD.  In particular, the massive and innovative projects of Origen (ca. 184-253 AD) are...

David Allen’s recent study of the appropriation and influence of OT texts on NT references to Jesus’ death is very much worth noting:  According to the Scriptures:  The Death of Christ in the Old Testament and the New (SCM Press, 2018).  I’ve just finished a...

In an earlier posting I mentioned Christoph Heilig’s book assessing claims about Paul’s stance vis-a-vis the Roman imperial regime (here).  He has just notified me that the book is now available “open access”, i.e., free to read.  See his note about the matter ....

I note with appreciation James McGrath’s newly-published review of my collection of essays, Ancient Jewish Monotheism and Early ChristianJesus-Devotion (Baylor University Press, 2018), in Review of Biblical Literature here.

As I’ve sometimes complained about reviews of my books that...

Another of the stimulating essays given in the recent colloquium in Edinburgh is by Jörg Frey, “Between Jewish Monotheism and Proto-Trinitarian Relations:  The Making and Character of Johannine Christology.”  I can’t do justice to this rich and thought-packed...

A multi-author volume on “digital humanities” and ancient manuscripts has appeared:  David Hamidović, Claire Clivaz and Sarah Bowen Savant, ed., Ancient Manuscripts in Digital Culture: Visualisation, Data Mining, Communication, DBS 3 (Leiden: Brill,...