Forthcoming Magazine Teaser

America's Next Top Model Shock

Here comes the bride

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=110232968103

Thanks to our friend Ed Babinski for sending the link!

Video: A Drive-by Baptism. Almost.

He had the dirty laugh off to a tee. All he needs is a bit of training in the administration of liturgical pronouncements and we are talking ‘power evangelism’

If Zwingli were alive today, what would he do?

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German documentary on Karl Popper online

Society of Biblical Literature, here I come

Purchased the plane tickets yesterday. Can't wait to land in New Orleans.

Usual theological vocabulary for the day

Some of the Church Fathers really knew how to insult, calling people 'mad', 'beasts' etc. I sometimes wonder, in our fuss to be 'nice', if this is an art we have lost. Hence I introduce a new blog series of useful theological vocabulary, especially aimed for undergraduates to swell their lexis for the years of study that follow. So to the first:

Wackjob

Can play a very useful descriptive function in certain contexts.

Example setence:

Just the other day, a ‘friend’ told me of a lovely discussion page where one fundamentalist chap had decided to caution the author of the blog for quoting C S. Lewis, ‘for he is not a Christian’, and all because Lewis didn’t fit his own wackjob frigging messed up pile of theological wackiness.

A random thought

‘The apophatic method, whether in our theological discourse or in our life of prayer, is seemingly negative in character, but in its final aim it is supremely positive’ (The Orthodox Way, by Bishop Kallistos Ware, p.166)

As I read that tonight, I couldn’t help wonder if historical-critical biblical scholarship is the exegetical equivalent of the apophatic method.

Separated at birth?

Robert Duvall and Rudolf Bultmann

Seven things to do to cheer yourself up

Years of experience has made me a wise man. If you are feeling down, and not even Baywatch seems to help

1. Put a lot of Tobasco sauce in your work colleagues tea
   
2. Flick bogies at old people
   
3. Make remarks to insecure teenagers about the spots covering their faces
   
4. Regularly throw out the metaphorical baby with the bathwater.
   
5. Visit a conservative Christian friend's flat, and swap all of their John Piper books with Funk, Ehrman and Lüdemann volumes.
   
6. Take only the King James 1611 Version to your 'emergent' bible studies, and use the word 'repenteth' a lot.
   
7. And read Douglas Campbell's brilliant, I repeat brilliant tome, The Deliverance of God. Loren Rossen has written an impressive review here, and I can only agree with his enthusiasm. I think it is the most important book to have been published since Sanders' Paul and Palestinian Judaism. I had the pleasure of meeting Douglas last week and we had a good chat about his book and a forthcoming project which will also be a huge interest. A great guy. A worldview shaking book. Though this sort of thing is often said, I mean it most seriously: This one should become compulsory reading for any Pauline aficionados. More from me about this one anon.

Wheaton’s Theology Conference 2010

A heads up: Wheaton's 2010 Theology Conference will take place April 16-17, in honour of and in dialogue with NT Wright, including a great line-up of speakers including Richard Hays, Kevin Vanhoozer, Sylvia Keesmaat, Marianne Meye Thompson, Markus Bockmuehl and, of course, Wright himself.

http://www.wheaton.edu/Theology/theo_conf/index.html

New Cornelis Bennema book

A heads up. This guy has good judgment, and he writes very clearly.

(click to enlarge)

God the Father

Our good friend, Heather Moffitt, has written a nice reflection on parenting ... based on the book of Numbers! Have a read here. I like her parting shot: 'Like the Israelites, our children are not a problem to solve'.

To be honest, I often treat myself as a problem to solve, and I always end up in a tight, cramped place with little love to show to others. I have become convinced that God loves it when we drop our 'self-help' spiritual pieties, cut ourselves more slack, stop taking ourselves so seriously and enjoy life. But it seems to take a good deal of maturity to realise that.

Ecumenical reflection of the day

This 'Jesus Billboard' has been making the rounds in blogdom recently (apparently first blogged here).

My thoughtful reflection can be limited to a sentence: This is theological impoverishment to the extreme, and I wonder what on earth those who produced were thinking. Is it not our reflections on the cross that most clearly reveal the level of our theological healthiness?

Heroic little boy

The Onion can be rather erratic, but occasionally they come up with something really funny and profound.

"I want the blood"!

The Deliverance of God – Doug Campbell’s new tome on justification in Paul

I reviewed Campbell's earlier book, The Quest for Paul's Gospel, here and the esteemed author was kind enough to engage my critiques in the comments section. In retrospect I wish I had pushed home the points I made in the post rather than raise different, and less cogent, matters in the subsequent discussion. But that is in the past.

In the past because Campbell's new tome, The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), is now the definitive statement of his proposals, and in my opinion they are formulated in a far more convincing and penetrating fashion that in The Quest.

Not having finished the book yet I cannot write my final judgments, but his critique of Justification Theory (also summarised in The Quest) is quite breathtaking, and his analysis of the significance of Sander's and co is genius.

This is truly a groundbreaking and important book. I don't think I will ever read Paul the same way.

But to work through this book from beginning to end will require scheduling – it is over 1,000 pages. But it is deliciously provocative, a joy to read, filled with all manner of 'aha!' moments with many clever (nay, brilliant) twists. Of course, I may wish to tone down my enthusiasm as I read on, but I just had to say something now – cos it has me excited!

By the way, there is no foreword by Tom Wright, as in the book graphic on the Eerdmans site. I have read speculation (i.e. it may be untrue) that Wright agreed to write the foreword, but withdrew having realised the depth of his disagreement with Campbell's thesis. Wright does provide, at least, blurb on the back cover.

Book Review: The Messiah myth: the Near Eastern roots of Jesus and David By Thomas L. Thompson

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Bauckham - Crossley debate

Some apologise for not blogging, which I find a bit odd - like apologising to your vicar for drinking apple juice instead of orange juice. I.e. unnecessary. Of course, I do feel I should apologise for all of the usual biblioblog pigswill you have had to tolerate in the absence of my insightful posting.

Truth is, I freeking love summer holidays. Slopped on the sandy shores in Corfu like a beached whale, surrounded by books, drinks, beautiful wife, and grinning like an idiot. That week's holiday was my high point anyway. And I've been enjoying all manner of brilliant books the whole summer. Most recently I've started into Doug Campbell's brilliant, deliciously provocative and important tome The Deliverance of God (thanks to the kind folk at Eerdmans for the review copy). More on that anon.

Anyway, a while ago Justin Brierley, of the Premier Radio show Unbelievable, e-mailed me to ask for suggested dialogue partners for Richard Bauckham on the question of Jesus and the eyewitnesses. One of the two names I suggested happily ended up on the show, namely James Crossley. Now available are both parts of the debate between Richard and James. Here is part 1, and here is part 2. Enjoy!