The Bible and Culture

Just to give you an FYI, my new Matthew commentary is now out. In it I have tried to present a consistent reading of this Gospel in light of Jewish wisdom literature, with some interesting results for Matthean Christology and ethics. If Jesus indeed presented himself as God’s Wisdom come in the flesh then we…

On April 25th 2006 there was a dialogue on the Da Vinci Code and the issues, historical and theological it raises. The debate was held at the new chapel at Duke Divinity School (attendance about 500) and it goes an hour and 46 minutes counting the Q+A afterwords, which is not always audible. I found…

Sometimes movies get it just right. This is one of those cases. It would be hard to imagine a better told family tale of overcoming obstacles to excel than this movie. It is PG rated (apparently because the movie has exactly one 4 letter word in it), and runs one hour and 47 minutes. This…

The following was an expository sermon delivered today 4/25/06 in Estes Chapel at Asbury Seminary by my esteemed colleague Dr. David Bauer, also a professor of Biblical studies. This message is rich in thought-provoking material which I find myself agreeing with to a very great extent. Special thanks to David for allowing me to share…

May 19th lurks just around the corner and I have just returned from yet another Da Vinci Code seminar, this one in Burlington, N.C. a town of about 50,000. 2,000 of them turned out for the event! The anticipation, angst, excitement about this movie is palpable. My prediction is that it will eclipse all other…

Even before the expected time, my new book of sermons with Eerdmans, Incandescence has now come into print. This volume is a collaborative effort between Ellsworth Kalas, one of our homileticians who wrote the introductory essay on preaching, J.D. Walt the Dean of Chapel at Asbury, Julie Robertson, who has provided the spiritual formation exercises,…

The word Easter comes to us from the word eastern and easterly—as in the direction the western worshipper should be facing when he thinks of the source of his redemption in Jerusalem. It has been said that Christians are by nature an Easter people, and certainly in all generations of the church belief in the…

This is the final installment of a four part critique of James Tabor’s new book. For whatever reasons, scholars often seem to enjoy setting up contrasts between Jesus and his followers, particularly Paul. Tabor is one who fits this mold. Tabor states boldly: “There are two completely separate and distinct ‘Christianities’ embedded in the New…

This is the third of four posts on James Tabor’s new book— The Jesus Dynasty Here is where I say that Tabor needs to realize that the historical Jesus could very well have viewed himself in a divine as well as human light. As such he was no different from various other notable figures of…

This is the second of four posts on James Tabor’s interesting new study—“The Jesus Dynasty”– blessed Good Friday to one and all. ——————Here it is in order to point out a fundamental problem with Tabor’s approach to the sayings material found in Q. Tabor seems to simply accept the conclusions of Q scholars about the…

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