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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… ()
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… ()
How to tell the biblical story in a way that makes a difference: some lessons from Islamic educators
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… ()
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… ( | 2 comments)
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’… ( | 1 comment)
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… ()
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… ()
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… ()
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… ()
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… ( | 2 comments)
I ended my last post agreeing in principle with Ian Paul that preachers need to take the historical dynamics of the biblical narrative seriously, but disagreeing over the scope of that contention. It is not history only insofar as it sets up the… ( | 7 comments)
Following on from the piece on Tucker Ferda’s attempt to disconnect the coming of the Son of Man from the war against Rome, I happened to come across Ian Paul’s post this week about the second coming (“or something else?”) in Luke 21. He covers a… ( | 3 comments)
I made some general comments on the relation of the coming of the Son of Man motif to historical events in my previous post on Tucker Ferda’s book Jesus and His Promised Second Coming: Jewish Eschatology and Christian Origins. I really don’… ()
In an excellent interview on the Protestant Libertarian Podcast about his book Jesus and His Promised Second Coming: Jewish Eschatology and Christian Origins (2024), Tucker Ferda uses the expression “process eschatology” to register the… ( | 6 comments)
I said I would come back to Matthew Thiessen’s “incoherent” account of Paul’s eschatology, so here we are. Chapter four of A Jewish Paul: The Messiah’s Herald to the Gentiles is about Paul the “End-Time Jew.” Thiessen begins: “Paul never… ( | 1 comment)
I asked ChatGPT (Chat with Website) to summarise the “narrative-historical” approach to biblical interpretation that I pursue on this website. This is what it came up with. It’s not quite how I would have put it. I wouldn’t have said “… ()
In a lengthy Theopolis essay entitled “Pentecost and the Gift of a New Politics,” Alastair Roberts asks why Jesus had so little to say about the evil empire in their midst. “Jesus declares the coming of the kingdom of God: should not such a kingdom… ( | 4 comments)
Matthew Thiessen says that to understand the historical Paul we must relocate him in the world of first century Judaism, and here’s a book that does just that: Ben C. Blackwell, John K. Goodrich, and Jason Maston, eds. Reading Romans in Context… ()
Matthew Thiessen is keen to demonstrate that “Paul did not convert from an established religion called Judaism to a new religion called Christianity” (A Jewish Paul: The Messiah’s Herald to the Gentiles, 57). We can agree on that.His… ( | 7 comments)
In the introduction to his book A Jewish Paul: The Messiah’s Herald to the Gentiles (2023), Matthew Thiessen says that his broad aim is to present a reading of Paul that does not perpetuate an old “Christian” or “Lutheran” view of… ( | 1 comment)
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