nttoday

New Light on Secret Mark?

2008-03-10T10:36:00.000-07:00

Forthcoming by Brill (probably in June 2008) is the correspondence between Morton Smith and Gershom Scholem, edited by Guy Stroumsa. The blurb claims that the book will shed ‘important new light upon Smith’s discovery of a letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria refering to a secret Gospel of Mark’.

Well that sounds interesting.

Princeton Theological Seminary Announces Microsoft Initiative

2008-03-07T10:35:00.000-08:00

From the PTSem website comes this great news:

"Princeton Theological Seminary and Microsoft Corporation have entered into an agreement to digitize a large number of materials in the public domain from the collection of the Seminary library. This initiative will enable the library to contribute religion content to Microsoft’s Live Search Books service and thus increase worldwide access to its historic religion collection.

Princeton Seminary President Iain Torrance said, “This seminary exists to serve the church both near and far. Continuity, depth, and access are what make a library great. Microsoft will help us to be accessible as never before. We are really grateful for their partnership.”"

Read it all here.

Book Note: Das Lukasevangelium

2008-02-27T16:55:00.000-08:00

New from Mohr Siebeck:

Michael Wolter

Das Lukasevangelium

XI, 798 pages ( Handbuch zum Neuen Testament / 5).

Blurb:

"Michael Wolter legt einen ausführlichen Kommentar zum dritten Evangelium vor, der in der Tradition des 'Handbuchs zum Neuen Testament' steht. Er stellt die Jesusgeschichte des Lukas in ihren kulturellen Kontext und arbeitet ihre Beziehung zur jüdischen und griechisch-römischen Umwelt heraus. Ein Schwerpunkt liegt auf der formgeschichtlichen und narrativen Analyse der einzelnen Erzählungen. Über die rein philologische und traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung hinaus legt der Autor auch Wert darauf, das theologische Profil des Lukasevangeliums sichtbar zu machen. Demnach erzählt Lukas die Geschichte Jesu als ersten Teil eines Geschichtswerks (zu ihm gehört auch noch die Apostelgeschichte), das eine Epoche aus der Geschichte Israels darstellen will. In immer wieder neuen Anläufen macht er deutlich, dass Gott selbst es ist, der im Wirken Jesu an Israel zum Heil handelt und der durch Jesus in authentischer Weise repräsentiert wird. Gegen eine in der deutschen Lukasforschung lange vorherrschende Sichtweise zeigt die Kommentierung, dass es Lukas gelingt, die Geschichte Jesu vor einem Absinken in die 'Historie' zu bewahren und im Glauben der Christen lebendig zu halten. Als Leser hat Lukas nicht eine bestimmte Gemeinde, sondern alle Christen seiner eigenen Zeit und möglicherweise auch die Christen zukünftiger Generationen im Blick. Lukas will ihnen erklären, wie es dazu kam, dass die Erfüllung der alttestamentlichen Verheißungen Gottes für Israel in einen Trennungsprozess mündete, der eine Teilung Israels in die christliche Kirche einerseits und das Judentum andererseits zur Folge hatte."

ISBN 978-3-16-149525-0 sewn paper ca. € 49.00
ISBN 978-3-16-149526-7 cloth € 119.00

Bart Ehrman Lectures on 'Misquoting Jesus'

2008-02-21T11:17:00.000-08:00

A lecture by Bart Ehrman entitled Misquoting Jesus: Scribes Who Altered Scripture and Readers Who May Never Know (delivered last year at Stanford University) is available on YouTube. This is the first part:

Book Note: Der Brief an die Epheser

2008-02-16T10:48:00.000-08:00

New from Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht:

The latest installment in the Meyers Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament series:

Gerhard Sellin
Der Brief an die Epheser
1. Auflage 2008
496 Seiten, Leinen
78,90 EUR [D] Bei Abnahme der Serie: 71,00 EUR [D]
ISBN 978-3-525-51550-1

Publisher’s blurb:

"Der Epheserbrief, der im neutestamentlichen Kanon unter die 14 Paulusbriefe gerechnet wird, ist weder ein echter Paulusbrief – er zählt zu den sogenannten deuteropaulinischen Schriften: sein Verfasser ist ein unbekannter Paulusschüler –, noch wurde er ausschließlich an die christliche Gemeinde in Ephesus geschickt. Ursprünglich richtete er sich an alle damaligen Christen im südwestlichen Kleinasien. Der unbekannte kluge und philosophisch gebildete Verfasser lässt das Bild des (wahrscheinlich noch vor 70 n.Chr. in Rom hingerichteten) Apostels Paulus in seiner Zeit (zwischen 80 und 100 n.Chr.) neu aufleben.

Der Epheserbrief hat eine besonders enge Beziehung zum Brief an die Kolosser, der auch kein echter Paulusbrief ist, aber eine deutliche Vorstufe zum Epheserbrief darstellt. Gerhard Sellin übersetzt und kommentiert diese deuteropaulinische Schrift und vermittelt ein vertieftes Verständnis nicht nur des Epheserbriefes, sondern auch des Neuen Testaments.

Summary

In this new commentary on Ephesians Gerhard Sellin challenges former conceptions about the authorship of this so called Pauline letter. The letter to the Ephesians was not written by Paul himself but by one of his students. The commentary shows how the unknown author developed Paul’s theological heritage in terms of the theology that was influenced by a philosophy predominant in Jewish and Christian circles towards the end of the first century."

A Reader's Hebrew Bible: Free Excerpt

2008-02-15T03:26:00.000-08:00

A 61-page excerpt of A Reader's Hebrew Bible (forthcoming by Zondervan) is available here. James Spinti already has a review up.

HT: Stephen Cook

Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library: First Impressions

2008-02-13T06:03:00.000-08:00

I have recently laid my hands on a copy of the most recent edition of The Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library CD-ROM (with thanks to Machiel Kleemans of Brill Academic Publishers). Here are some of my very first thoughts:

Overall, this CD-ROM is extremely helpful. It allows you to simultaneously read the transcription and translation of all ‘sectarian’ writings, while it also gives a morphological analysis and glosses of every Hebrew/Aramaic word you scroll over. The best thing, of course, is that the scanned image of the scroll on which the transcription is based is just one click away. Usually these are black/white images (the contrast and brightness of which is adjustable), 1QpHab and 1Q34bis have colour images.

Since all Hebrew/Aramaic (and occasional Greek) has been morphologically analyzed, complex searches in all or part of the corpus are possible. The WordCruncher software that is included allows for special analyses of these searches, producing, for instance a ‘Vocabulary Dispersion
Report’ and a ‘Frequency Distribution Report’.

I was somewhat less impressed by the program’s interface which is graphically not very appealing and, more importantly, does not work very ‘intuitively’. Moreover, the fact that it is a standalone application instead of a module of e.g. Libronix means that 1) you’ll have to figure out a whole new search method and 2) you cannot ‘link’ this CD-ROM to other software. It would have been nice, for instance, to have the DSS root forms linked to a digital version of HALOT.

Other than that, this CD-ROM is an extraordinarily helpful tool. It is simply indispensable for the DSS specialist and recommended for all others working in the field of early Judaism.

Its price may seem excessive (Euro 272,- / $ 405,-), but is, of course, very reasonable in comparison to the Discoveries in the Judean Desert series.

Here are some screenshots:

Expulsion of the Sadducees

2008-01-06T08:37:00.000-08:00

The Rabbinic Megilat Ta’anit (10) claims that on this day (the 28th of Tevet) in the year 81 BCE Shimon ben Shetach expelled the Sadducees from the Sanhedrin and replaced them with fellow Pharisees.

Best wishes to all those celebrating!

Helpful tool for typing Greek and Hebrew

2007-12-29T13:38:00.000-08:00

Logos has released a free and very helpful tool for typing Unicode text in ancient scripts, aptly named Shibboleth. It supports Hebrew, Greek, Coptic, Syriac, Ugaritic, Armenian and South Arabian and also has a transliteration function. From what I have seen so far it appears to work very well. A real contribution!

HT: Jim West

Born in a Cave?

2007-12-25T05:35:00.000-08:00

In Dialogus cum Tryphone 78, Justin states that Jesus was born in a cave:

“But when the Child was born in Bethlehem, since Joseph could not find a lodging in that village, he took up his quarters in a certain cave near the village.”

Although Justin is probably not (historically) correct, it remains something of a puzzle where exactly Jesus was born. Luke is the only one of the Synoptics who elaborates on it, but he isn't crystal clear either.

Ben Witherington (Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, 69) writes:

“We should probably envision Mary and Joseph staying in the home of relatives or friends, a home which was crowded due to the census being taken, a home where Luke tells us there was no longer any room in “the guest room” (noting the definite article before the noun). Consequently, Mary gave birth to her child perhaps in the family room and placed the baby in the stone manger. This means that a good deal of the popular conception of this scene has no basis in the text. In particular, the idea of Mary and Joseph being cast out from civilized accommodations and taking up temporary residence in a barn is probably based on a misunderstanding of the text.”

I hope you’ll have a very Merry Christmas nonetheless!