Here is the question. When Paul says, “for us one God the Father…, and one Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 8:6), are the terms “God… Lord” between them a reference to the shemaʿ: “Hear, Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deut. 8:6 LXX*)?It has become a stock argument of those holding… (
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The NIV is unusual in translating en morphēi theou hyparchōn in Philippians 2:6 as “being in very nature God,” but the translation nevertheless reflects a widespread and longstanding assumption that to be “in the form of God” means to share in his nature or essence or being.Scholars know… (
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My argument about the other encomium, in Colossians 1:15-20, is that it makes Christ Jesus the beginning of a new political-religious order, in which government in heaven and government on earth have been reconciled.1Hitherto the rule of God and rule over the nations of the Greek-Roman… (
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Crispin Fletcher-Louis has written a monster book—nearly a thousand pages—about the Christ encomium in Philippians 2:6-11: The Divine Heartset: Paul’s Philippians Christ Hymn, Metaphysical Affections, and Civic Virtues (Wipf & Stock, 2023). About 20% is available on Google Books… (
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In his book Messianic High Christology: New Testament Variants of Second Temple Judaism (2021), Ruben Bühner sets out to demonstrate that a high christology is compatible with Jewish messianism. The title says it all. The title may turn out to be a contradiction in terms.Chapter one looks… (
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In traditional Reformed interpretation, Romans 12:1-15:7 is regarded simply as a piece of Christian parenesis—that is, practical and ethical instruction or exhortation to be followed in all times, in all places. The letter tends to get sectioned thematically: justification by faith in the… (
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I don’t want to make this an issue about trinitarianism; it is to my mind simply a matter of literary-historical perspective. Seriously. But what was the author of the Johannine letters—let’s call him John—getting at when he warned that “many deceivers went out into the world, those not… (
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At the beginning of Euripides’ play Bacchae, the god Dionysus—the god of “wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre,” according to Wikipedia—enters and delivers a monologue. He identifies himself as “son of… (
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The New Testament gospel came in two parts—two proclamations distinct from each other with respect to content, audience, and geographical reach.The first proclamation was addressed to Israel. It was that the God of Israel would soon “judge” his unrighteous people and inaugurate a new order under… (
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There is an argument that there is a third creation account in the Old Testament, in addition to the two creation accounts of Genesis 1-2, in which God as storm deity defeats the chaos monster of the sea in order for dry land to emerge.Dahood, notably, argued that translation of Psalm 74:13-14 has… (
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I was at a fairly mainstream but non-traditional Anglican Church in east London on Sunday—mostly singles and young families. We had a good, thoughtful, and well presented sermon about the offence taken by the people of Nazareth at the wisdom and mighty works of Jesus (Matt. 13:53-58). I tried not… (
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Ever wondered why the Jerusalem crowds turned against Jesus so abruptly—cheering him into the city at the start of the week, yelling for him to be crucified at the end of it? Lots of scholars think it all very improbable. We’ll get to that in a moment, but first some reflections on a hermeneutic… (
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I saw this book in the Al-Faisal Museum for Arab-Islamic Art in Riyadh. It is described as a manuscript that sheds light on the “most important teaching methods employed by scholars and educators of Arab-Islamic civilization.” It’s not dated, but it’s going to be pretty old.The notice with it… (
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Did Paul proclaim a universal gospel? “Of course he did,” you mutter. Or: “Of course he did, you nutter!” What use is a non-universal gospel?Well, on the train from Jeddah to Medina, I came across this paragraph in Neil Elliott’s Paul the Jew under Roman Rule: Collected Essays (2024):… (
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According to the classic definition, an “evangelical” is a person who believes in and acts upon the “gospel”—in New Testament Greek the euangelion. As understood by evangelicals, the gospel is a statement about the significance of Jesus’ death on the cross: by his “blood” he made atonement… (
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In his encomium in praise of the exalted Christ in Philippians 2:6-11, Paul says that “in the name of Jesus every knee should bow… and every tongue acknowledge (exomologēsētai) that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Phil. 2:10-11*). Interpreters of the Early High Christology school often point out… (
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I have dealt with this question a few times, most recently in “How Paul can proclaim one Lord Jesus Christ and not compromise Jewish monotheism,” and in a chapter in In the Form of a God: The Pre-existence of the Exalted Christ in Paul. But it has come up again:Paul distributes the key… (
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There’s something odd about Mary’s Magnificat.Why does it occur at this point in the narrative, at the moment of her arrival at the house of Zechariah and Elizabeth, rather than after the annunciation?Why is it based so obviously on the story of Hannah’s barrenness and the marvellous conception of… (
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This is how we traditionally debunk the Christmas traditions to get at what the story was really all about: there was no star the night Jesus was born; we do not know how many wise men there were; Joseph and Mary were not turned away from an inn; Jesus was not born in a stable (are we… (
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Paul asked me what I thought of his essay “The Biggest Fallacies About Religion and Politics” on Daily Kos. Paul, I think it’s a great essay, well worth reading. I agree with the general thesis that “Christianity” (for want of a better word) is always “political” (for want of a better word). But… (
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