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In Chapter Seven Anderson does his best to balance the scales of how early Jews including rabbinic ones view their God, by stressing that there is plenty of evidence of God being viewed as gracious and merciful,  finding ways to not act as simply an accountant of sin debt.  Anderson is of course right about…

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE: BETTER ONE DAY IN HIS COURTS Eliezer and the two sisters, and several other sympathizers gathered with Jesus very early the next morning to walk with him into the Temple courts. Word got out that he was on the way, and several of the authorities scrambled to come up with a way…

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO: BACK TO BETHANY The journey to Jerusalem this time had been relatively uneventful. Jesus was able to travel faster because he was alone. He had longed to spend some more time with Eliezer, Martha and Mary, and also to do some more teaching in the Temple. When he arrived in Jerusalem this…

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE: TWO BY TWO The ministry of Jesus had gone on now for well over a year and a half, and there had been many ups and downs, surprises and delights, good times and bad times. None of the disciples could ever have imagined in advance all that had now transpired, but to…

In the world of the ANE, weights and measures were crucial, not least because ancient economies were mostly barter economies, not money economies. The way the value of some goods was estimated in antiquity was by putting them on a scale, and putting weights in the other pan of a two pan scale until a…

CHAPTER TWENTY: BEYONDS ALL BOUNDS, BEYOND ALL EXPECTATIONS Dawn came early, and Jesus was already up, eating a crust of bread and drinking some water from the well in the middle of the courtyard at Simon’s own house. The disciples had spread themselves out amongst the houses of James and John and Simon and Andrew…

CHAPTER NINETEEN: FOOD AND FOOD FOR THOUGHT An uneasiness had settled in among Jesus’ disciples as they were unsure of who exactly Jesus was or where this ministry was going. Jesus seemed to have alienated not only his family and hometown folks, but also various of the Jewish authorities as well, so they asked themselves–…

In the fifth chapter of his study of sin,  Gary Anderson probes some material in Leviticus 25-26, and here some of his critical assumptions about Leviticus become crucial.  Like many, but certainly not all scholars, Anderson believes that Leviticus is a book that has some materials in it that go back to the First Temple…

(The following is a brief excerpt from my forthcoming Philippians commentary. ‘Enjoy!’) JOY– THE ELIXIR OF FAITH, THEEFFERVESCENCE OF HOPE               Scholarshave often pondered the semantic range of the words chara and chairein andthere have been a variety of opinions about the meaning of these words.[1]   Clearlythey are important in this discourse where they…

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: THE WOMAN AT THE WELL Jesus and the disciples had travelled a full day, after spending a night on the road, before they came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was…
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