Biblical Studies

Michael Kruger on the basis of distinguishing heresy from orthodoxy in the early church

/ Luke Wisley / 3 Comments

Over at Canon Fodder (which is the best name I’ve heard for a blog), Michael Kruger has been discussing misconceptions of the NT Canon. In his latest post he discusses the basis for distinguising heresy from orthodoxy in the early church. I really enjoyed what he writes concerning the role of the Old Testament in the early church.

 Routinely overlooked by those in the Bauer camp—ironically in a Marcionite fashion—is the decisive role played by the Old Testament amongst the earliest Christians. M.F. Wiles once declared, “There was never a time when the Church was without written Scriptures.  From the beginning she had the Old Testament and it was for her the oracles of God.”[1]   Aside from the numerous examples of Old Testament usage within the New Testament itself, quotations from the Old Testament are abundant within the writings of the apostolic fathers and other early Christian texts. Thus, right from the outset, certain “versions” of Christianity would have been ruled as out of bounds.  For example, any quasi-Gnostic version of the faith which suggested the God of the Old Testament was not the true God but a “demiurge”—as in the case of the heretic Marcion—would have been deemed unorthodox on the basis of these Old Testament canonical books alone.  As Ben Witherington has observed, “Gnosticism was a non-starter from the outset because it rejected the very book the earliest Christians recognized as authoritative—the Old Testament.”[2] So, the claim that early Christians had no Scripture on which to base their declarations that some group was heretical and another orthodox is simply mistaken.   The Old Testament books would have provided that initial doctrinal foundation.

[1] M.F. Wiles, “Origen as Biblical Scholar,” in The Cambridge History of the Bible: From the Beginnings to Jerome (ed. P.R. Ackroyd and C.F. Evans; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 454.

[2] Ben Witherington, The Gospel Code: Novel Claims About Jesus, Mary Magadelene, and Da Vinci (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2004), 115.

You can read the entire post here.

Emmanuel Tov

/ Luke Wisley / 1 Comment

Many thanks to David Stark for his post making me aware of Emmanuel Tov’s Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts Found in the Judean Desert are available as PDF’s in Tov’s publication section of his website.

Book Notice: Hearing the Old Testament: Listening for God’s Address

/ Luke Wisley / 1 Comment

A book to keep your eye on if you are interested in theological interpretation is Hearing the Old Testament: Listening for God’s Address (Eerdmans) edited by Craig G. Bartholomew and David J.H. Beldman. In the Preface Bartholomew and Beldman lament that the Old Testament is for the most part unknown by the majority Christians and that there are far too few books to assist Christians to feast upon it as Christian Scripture. Their response to the famine is this edited volume with the goal of listening for God’s address through the Old Testament:

At the heart of the hermeneutic advocated in this book is the belief that our love for the Old Testament and our desire for God will come together only when we make the goal of our interpretation to listen for God’s address. If Scripture is God’s Word, then any other goal is inadequate.

Hearing the Old Testament boasts an impressive collection of contributors beginning with Bartholomew’s opening chapter, “Listening for God’s Address: A Mere Trinitarian Hermeneutic for the Old Testament.” Part II of the volume concerns methods in interpretation and is appropriately named, “Learning to Listen.” Essays from Part III are involve listening to the different sections of the Old Testament.  Part IV concludes the volume with, “Hearing and Preaching the Old Testament.”

What stands out about this volume is the careful editorial process. Contributors to Part II, “Learning to Listen” first read Bartholomew’s chapter on Hermeneutics and then were invited to interact either positively or negatively with his essay. Contributors to Part III were asked to write their chapters after reading Bartholomew’s chapter and the chapter’s on “Learning to Listen.” Part IV was then written in light of the Parts I-III. This type of editorial planning should bring a certain type of cohesion that normally lacks in an edited volume. I only hope that future volumes may follow suit.

The List of chapters and authors:

  1. Listening for God’s Address: A Mere Trinitarian Hermeneutic for the Old Testament by Craig G. Bartholomew
  2. History of Old Testament Interpretation by Al Wolters
  3. Philosophy and Old Testament Interpretation by Bartholomew
  4. Literary Approaches and Old Testament Interpretation by David J.H. Beldman
  5. History and Old Testament Interpretation by Tremper Longman III
  6. Biblical Theology and Old Testament Interpretation by Mark J. Boda
  7. Canon and Old Testament Interpretation by Stephen G. Dempster
  8. Mission and Old Testament Interpretation by Christopher J.H. Wright
  9. Ethics and Old Testament Interpretation by M. Daniel Carroll R.
  10. Hearing the Pentateuch by Gordon J. Wenham
  11. Hearing the Historical Books by Iain Provan
  12. Hearing the Psalter by J. Clinton McCann Jr.
  13. Hearing the Old Testament Wisdom Literature by Bartholomew
  14. Hearing the Major Prophets by Richard Schultz
  15. Hearing the Minor Prophets by Heath Thomas
  16. Hearing and Preaching the Old Testament by Aubrey Spears

Journal of Hebrew Scriptures

/ Luke Wisley / 2 Comments

I know that I have said how much I love online journals. The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures is not new to the online world but I had not yet added it to the blog. You can access the journal here or through the resources page.

Online BDB

/ Luke Wisley / Leave a comment

In an earlier post, I added the 2Letter lexicon from Tyndale House Cambridge. Here is an online version of BDB that is hyperlinked by letter.

(HT Charles Halton)

Compiling a Vocabulary List in Accordance

/ Luke Wisley / Leave a comment

A friend of mine was preparing to preach on Deuteronomy 10:12-22 and asked if I could help him compile a vocabulary list from that section and where he could find where these words are used else where in the Hebrew Bible. Here is a step by step tutorial of how I compiled the vocabulary list and concordance.

First, make sure that you have selected Words in order to enable your search commands.

Next, you want to enter the Range of the text you are wanting for a vocabulary list and concordance. 

For my friend, he was wanting to examine Deuteronomy 10:12-22

Next, you want to connect your Range with the And and Wildcard commands. After you hit search the entire Range will be selected red.

Next, click on Analysis 

When you click on Analysis, your vocabulary list can then be ordered how you prefer–alphabetical or by frequency.

From there I went back to the Analysis tab and selected Concordance in order for him to find where each word was used else where.


Dan Wallace on the Discovery of 7 Early Manuscripts

/ Matt Emerson / Leave a comment

Jim West recently posted a video of Dan Wallace being interviewed on the discovery of 7 early NT manuscripts. This is, to say the least, a very important find for NT studies. Watch the video here:

Dan Wallace on 7 Early MSS

via Dan Wallace on the Discovery of 7 Early Manuscripts.

The Kingdom New Testament

/ Matt Emerson / 2 Comments

N. T. Wright has a new translation of the New Testament out called The Kingdom New Testament. Robert Gundry has reviewed it and praises Wright for the what he perceives as strengths of the translation, including Wright’s ability to use the English language vibrantly. He also asks some interesting questions about the KNT, the foremost of which if it is actually a translation. Gundry concludes that the work might have more affinity with Jewish Targums in its approach than with actual translations of the Bible. The whole review is worth reading. You can find it here.

The New Testament’s Use of the Old Testament on a Scale of 1 to 10

/ Matt Emerson / 5 Comments

My friend Matthew Barrett edits a fantastic webzine, Credo Magazine. In the latest issue, four scholars – Craig Blomberg, Darrell Bock, Robert Plummer, and Andrew Hill – were polled with the following question: How much should the OT influence our interpretation of the NT? I was a bit surprised at the responses, or at least the first two. Robert Plummer and Andrew Hill both gave it a 10, with Plummer giving a canonical explanation and Hill relying more on inspiration and the Grand Narrative. I agree with both their responses.

Blomberg’s and Bock’s, though, were to me quite confusing. First, Blomberg only gives it a 6, and says that

Because all the NT writers were likely familiar with all of the OT, the OT becomes an important subset of the more general category of historical background that should always be taken into account in interpreting texts.  Sometimes there may be an explicit quotation, or an allusion, or a mere echo.  Other times, the OT is simply part of the pervasive worldview of the NT writer.  Thus I choose a number above the half-way mark between 1 and 10.  But I don’t go very far above a 5, because the New Testament writers regularly use the OT creatively and flexibly, under the inspiration of the Spirit.  The immediate context of any NT passage and its meaning interpreted on its own can always trump historical background if the evidence pushes us in that direction.

This response, to me, is convoluted at best in thinking through how the NT writers use the OT. For one thing, the NT authors not only “sometimes” quote or allude to the OT, but they consistently and pervasively use the OT narratives as the grid by which they interpret the life of Jesus, the nature and mission of the church, and the second coming. For another, the idea that the NT authors use the OT creatively and flexibly has come increasingly under pressure in evangelical biblical scholarship (and indeed, in broader non-evangelical biblical scholarship) in the last decade and, in my mind, is only tenuously tied to a close reading of both the OT and NT contexts of the quotation.

Bock’s response is more palatable and closer to the mark for me. He says:

We have to pay attention to the Old Testament and the background it gives us, but we also must recall that Jesus and the apostles have the right to build on that material. I believe they do so in ways that complement what God has already committed himself to do.

Bock is right to acknowledge the NT authors’ reliance on the OT, but I am curious about the latter half of his statement. I do not understand why the fact that the NT authors “build on [OT] material,” or as I might say, “interpret the life of Jesus in light of the OT,” means that they have somehow relied on it less (i.e. on an “8” instead of a “10” rating). The character of Christian Scripture (to borrow from Seitz’ new book title) is that it continually interprets fresh works of God in light of previous Scripture. This is no different with the life of Jesus, although it is the fresh event of God in history.

Check out the post to see what Plummer and Hill say, and definitely check out Credo Magazine.

Audio Tanak

/ Luke Wisley / 1 Comment

David Reimer (New College, University of Edinburgh) sent me a link to a website with the entire Tanak read in audio to help prepare for my MTh in Biblical Studies.

I have found this website helpful for my pronunciation and to quickly work through large chunks of text. I added the link to the Resource page on the blog for quick access.

You can access the audio Tanak by clicking here.