Blogger of the Month: Alan Bandy

As a number of other bloggers have noted, Alan Bandy (of Cafe Apocalypsis fame) is the current Biblioblogger of the Month. Check out his chat with Jim West here.

Caiaphas' Twin... Jabba the Hutt?

On the Bible Films Blog, Matt Page has posted a fascinating comparison between the characters of Caiaphas the high priest (as he is depicted in Mel Gibson's controversial film The Passion of the Christ) and... you guessed it... nefarious warlord Jabba the Hutt (of the Star Wars hexateuch fame)! Don't laugh just let... Page makes some provocative observations, such as the ways in which both Gibson and George Lucas subtly manipulate light and shadow in order to emphasize the natures and purposes of certain characters. However, my absolute favorite was this visual comparison of the guards stationed in the villains' respective palaces:



Check out the entire post... it's well worth a look!

SBL Bound!

I registered for the AAR/SBL Annual Meeting this morning. As much as I enjoyed presenting a paper last year, it will be nice to simply sit back and absorb the plethora of exhibits, panels, and presentations this time around. (I did make it to a few interesting panels last year, but I was a little preoccupied with my own impending doom!) I'm particularly excited about seeing some of my own professors in action; e.g., Adela Collins (see the brief post below). Of course, I'll also be busy seeking out scholars with whom I may be studying in the near future, as well as religious publishers and other professional folks in case I decide that I'm tired of school. So many possibilities, so little time... I may be coming down with a case of graduate senioritis!

Special Delivery! Bauckham's Jesus and the Eyewitnesses

When I got to the bookstore today, I discovered a package from Eerdmans containing, among other things, my special order copy of Richard Bauckham's incendiary Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. As many of you are surely aware, this book has generated a tremendous amount of online and offline chatter in just a few short months. That fact alone would normally be enough to pique my interest, but I've also discovered that Prof. Adela Collins (one of my favorite professors at Yale) is presenting her own review of the book as part of a panel at the upcoming SBL meeting. I'm planning to start reading tonight... it's a good thing that I don't have class tomorrow. ;-)

Additions to the Online Critical Pseudepigrapha

A welcome announcement from the SBL. However, I should note that despite the announcement's assertion that the OCP interface is now fully compatible with Safari, the included hyperlinks didn't work on my Mac. Fortunately, Firefox worked like a charm!
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The Online Critical Pseudepigrapha is pleased to announce two new publications plus an important site enhancement.

2 Baruch (Edition 2.0)
edited by Daniel M. Gurtner with David M. Miller and Ian W. Scott

All of the primary evidence for the Apocalypse of Baruch (2 Baruch) is now included in this new edition prepared by Daniel M. Gurtner. The only complete text of 2 Baruch is preserved in one Syriac manuscript (7a1). Chapters 1–77 of this manuscript, comprising the full text of the Apocalypse, are transcribed here in their entirety as they appear in the edition of Dedering. Dedering’s edition also records a large number of conjectural emendations as well as manuscript variants found in three Jacobite lectionaries. These have been included in the OCP’s interactive critical apparatus. Also included in this edition is the surviving Greek evidence for 2 Baruch found in manuscript P.Oxy. 403 and the single Latin excerpt found in Cyprian, Test. 3.29.

Visions of Amram (Edition 1.0)
edited by Robert Duke

The Visions of Amram is a previously unknown work included among the Dead Sea Scrolls and preserved in five Aramaic copies (4Q543–547). The version presented here, compiled by Robert Duke, is the first eclectic text of the Visions of Amram. This edition was produced directly from photographic images of the fragments, and in a few cases this results in different readings from those of Émile Puech’s DJD edition. The “chapter” and “verse” numbers are new to this edition. Each “chapter” represents a distinct narrative episode in the document, and Duke suggests that these episodes appeared in the original document in the order they are presented here. Note that these numbers do not correspond to the fragment, column, and line numbers by which Armam has previously been referenced. A critical apparatus of all the variants evident in the five manuscripts is being prepared, and this will allow readers to view each fragment separately.

Mac-Friendly Reader Interface
Mac users will be glad to hear that documents in the Online Critical Pseudepigrapha are now presented in an upgraded reader interface that is fully compatible with the Safari web browser as well as with Internet Explorer and Firefox.

BAR Highlights: 9/12/07

More recent archaeological news from Biblical Archaeology Review:

In or Out?
Excavations in Syria are turning theories about the origins of cities upside down—or inside out. Rather than beginning with a central core and growing outward, cities may have started as scattered villages that linked and grew inward.

Ancient Vandalism
Restoration work on reliefs belonging to Bowdoin College in Maine shows that a depiction of the Assyrian ruler Ashurnasirpal II was defaced in ancient times by his enemy, the Medes.

Escape Route
Archaeologists Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron have discovered an underground drainage channel that was used by many of Jerusalem’s residents to flee the Roman destruction of the city in 70 A.D. Artifacts found in the channel can be seen at http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070909/ ids_photos_wl/r2682897765.jpg.

Iron Age Chef
The team excavating Tell es-Safi (Biblical Gath) is finding that the Philistine way of cooking was copied by neighboring Israelites and Canaanites. The Philistines were especially fond of crock pots.

What to Do? Consult a Liver
Archaeologists at Hazor have discovered a tablet that contains instructions on how to foretell the future by studying animal livers (note: the article states the tablet was written in hieroglyphics, but it meant to say cuneiform).

Hezekiah Inscription to Return to Israel
The famed inscription, which was carved into the wall of Hezekiah’s Tunnel in Jerusalem and which celebrates the city’s survival of an Assyrian siege, will be on view in Israel for at least several months and possibly longer. It has been in Turkey since the late 19th century, when Palestine was a part of the Ottoman Empire.

Land of Milk and ...
Excavators at Tel Rehov, in the Beth-Shean Valley, have uncovered 30 intact beehives and an inscribed jar that may refer to the father or grandfather of the Biblical king Jehu.

Eisenbrauns Catalogs

James Spinti announces that two new catalogs are now available online from Eisenbrauns (print versions should be out within the next few weeks). Here are the respective links:

Scholars' Source Catalog

Ancient Near Eastern Resources Catalog

Exploring the Social Tumult Behind the Reformation Movement

A recent announcement from Augsburg Fortress Publishers:



Perhaps no period in Christian history experienced such vast religious tumult and rapid social change as the European Reformation, when it quickly became apparent that social and political issues—finding deep resonance with the common people—were deeply entwined with religious ones raised by the Reformers.

For historians, clergy, college, university, seminary students, and general readers who want to learn more about this period in time Fortress Press is happy to announce the release of Reformation Christianity, Volume 5 in the A People's History of Christianity Series.

"These stories may come up from the basement of church history, but news about their existence deserves to be shouted from the housetops....This new series turns history upside down..."
—Martin E. Marty, University of Chicago Divinity School

Led by eminent Reformation historian Peter Matheson, ten distinguished social historians trace the myriad and profound ways in which Europe's several Reformations played out in the lives of common folk: in their personal spirituality and corporate worship, catechesis and discipline, sexuality and gender roles, mores surrounding marriage, birth, and baptism, aging and death, relations with Jews and Muslims, lay theologies, as well as the utopian and even revolutionary ventures they spawned.

Visit the companion Web site, www.peopleshistoryofchristianity.com, to learn more about the series including testimonials, tables of contents, research paper guides, and more.

RBL Highlights: 9/10/07

A few highlights from this week's Review of Biblical Literature:

Peter H. Davids
The Letters of 2 Peter and Jude
Reviewed by James P. Sweeney
Reviewed by Daniel B. Wallace

Craig A. Evans
Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels
Reviewed by Stephen J. Patterson

Jonathan D. Lawrence
Washing in Water: Trajectories of Ritual Bathing in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Literature
Reviewed by James W. Watts

More Used NT Titles From Dove

A few of the most recent New Testament offerings from Dove Booksellers' Used Book Department. There's a lot of good stuff this week...

Allison Jr, Dale C
THE END OF THE AGES HAS COME: AN EARLY INTERPRETATION OF THE PASSION AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS
(Augsburg Fortress, 1985)
Condition: VG Hardcover $16.00
Comments: DJ

Bailey, James L; L D Vander Broek
LITERARY FORMS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT: A HANDBOOK
(Westminster John Knox, 1992)
Condition: VG Paperback $12.00

Barr, James
SEMANTICS OF BIBLICAL LANGUAGE
(Oxford University Press, 1961)
Condition: GC Hardcover $30.00
Comments: Pencilled UL through p 20

Black, David Alan
RETHINKING NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM
(Baker Book House, 2002)
Condition: NF Paperback $12.00

Charles, R H
APOCRYPHA AND PSEUDEPIGRAPHA OF THE OLD TESTAMENT (2 VOLS)
(Oxford University Press, 1963)
Condition: VG Hardcover $160.00
Comments: Bookplate; handstamp, annotation on rear pastedown of Vol 2

Charlesworth, James H
OLD TESTAMENT PSEUDEPIGRAPHA (2 VOLS)
(Doubleday, 1983)
Condition: VG Hardcover $58.00
Comments: DJs

Cross Jr, Frank Moore
QUMRAN AND THE HISTORY OF THE BIBLICAL TEXT
(Harvard University Press, 1975)
Condition: GC Paperback $12.00

Davies, W D
PAUL AND RABBINIC JUDAISM: SOME RABBINIC ELEMENTS IN PAULINE THEOLOGY
(SPCK, 1962)
Condition: VG Hardcover $22.00

Dodd, C H
INTERPRETATION OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL
(Cambridge University Press, 1960)
Condition: VG Hardcover $25.00
Comments: DJ

Hartin, Patrick J
JAMES AND THE Q SAYINGS OF JESUS
(Sheffield Academic Press, 1991)
Condition: VG Hardcover $55.00
Comments: R

Kenyon, Sir Frederic G
OUR BIBLE AND THE ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS
(Eyre-Spottiswoode, 1939)
Condition: VG Hardcover $24.00

Martin, Dale
SLAVERY AS SALVATION: THE METAPHOR OF SLAVERY IN PAULINE CHRISTIANITY
(Yale University Press, 1990)
Condition: VG Hardcover $20.00
Comments: DJ

Moore, George Foote
JUDAISM IN THE FIRST CENTURIES OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA (3 VOLS)
(Harvard University Press, 1962)
Condition: VG Hardcover $60.00
Comments: DJs

Robinson, James M; Helmut Koester
TRAJECTORIES THROUGH EARLY CHRISTIANITY
(Fortress, 1971)
Condition: GC Hardcover $20.00
Comments: Minor pencilled UL; DJ (worn)

Sanders, E P
JESUS, THE GOSPELS AND THE CHURCH: ESSAYS IN HONOR OF WILLIAM R FARMER
(Mercer University Press, 1987)
Condition: VG Hardcover $32.00