"Levering offers to students the best introduction to Augustine devised so far..."

Question: How often do you get a book about Christendom's greatest theologian written by the greatest theologian of the generation?

Answer: Once a generation.

If you are even a little bit interested in theology, you'll want to own this book.  I cannot wait for my copy.

But don't take my word for it:

“Levering offers to students the best introduction to Augustine devised so far. He makes clear that Augustine himself was no ‘Augustinian’; even though he invented subjective angst and had an acute sense of sin, Augustine was also a humanist and a profound metaphysician. This book successfully inducts us into the bishop of Hippo’s integral blend of soul-searching, critical reading of sacred texts, ontological reflection, and social activism.”

—John Milbank, University of Nottingham

Thinking about Submitting an SBL Proposal?

Daniel Kirk

This bit of advice comes from veteran SBL member, J.R. Daniel Kirk via Facebook:

"Attention young Biblical studies scholars: When Firefox won't let you submit a paper proposal to SBL, turn to Chrome."

I'd be interested in hearing any other tips on paper submissions. If you chime in, target your advice to first-timers.

-anthony

Jesus and Geology Can Get You a New Car - Le Donne

In Houston, even the rocks cry out.... but was it Jesus or Charles Manson?

Prepare to be amazed.

-anthony

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

Last week the Jesus Blog hosted a book giveaway featuring my The Historiographical Jesus and my Historical Jesus. The winner of the fancy book double dip is:

1. 
   Corby AmosFebruary 14, 2013 at 12:57 PM

   I never win anything...here is hoping for the first time!

   ReplyDelete
2. Corby, you can never honestly say that you never win anything again. You can thank the fine folks at Baylor, Eerdmans and the True Random Generator at random.org.
3. Do please comment below with your email so we can work out the shipping. It will not be published.
4. Congrats!
5. -anthony
6. 
   

Enter to Win Two Books! - Le Donne

***THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED***

Believe it or not (are you sitting down?) two of the Jesus Blog book giveaway winners never claimed their prizes! After months of walking the Earth like Caine from Kung Fu looking for these fugitives from grace, I have given up. Luckily, these hard-hearted causalities will make room for a grafting of sorts.

Because it's Valentine's Day and I pretend to love you all, you get another chance:

The winner this time around will get two books: The Historiographical Jesus (my thanks to Baylor University Press for sponsoring) and Historical Jesus (my thanks to Eerdmans for sponsoring).

There are four opportunities to enter the contest

1) comment here,

2) sign up to follow the blog (and leave a comment saying that you did),

3) share this post on Facebook (and leave a comment saying that you did), and/or

4) sign up to follow @TheJesusBlog1 on Twitter (and leave a comment saying that you did).

-anthony

The Blessed Virgin Mary by Perry and Kendall

I finally had a chance to flip through the new Eerdmans catalog. Among the many very intriguing titles, this one jumped out at me:



Here is the Eerdmans synopsis: This volume provides a concise, nontechnical historical introduction to the church's thinking about Mary, the mother of Jesus. The first part of the book sketches the development of Marian thought from the second century to the twentieth century. The second part contains an annotated bibliography of the most important and accessible English-language works on Mary.

Tim Perry, an evangelical Anglican priest, and Daniel Kendall, a Roman Catholic Jesuit priest, have joined across the Reformation divide to provide an irenic, balanced volume for students and general readers interested in this most remarkable woman and the ways in which she has shaped Christian thought.

I will have to pick this up soon.
-anthony

Joel Watts responds to Bernard Starr on the Huff Po

A while back, I linked to an article written by psychologist Bernard Starr on the topic of "Who Killed Jesus?"  Starr argued that the best answer to this question is that God did. Joel L. Watts of Unsettled Christianity responds over at the Huffington Post.

-anthony

Modern Speakers of Aramaic—Chris Keith

The Smithsonian website has an interesting article (“How to Save a Dying Language”) on the efforts of Geoffrey Kahn at Cambridge to document the remaining Aramaic dialects in the world.  

Mark Goodacre on Thomas and Synoptics

Mark Goodacre has become the Marilyn Monroe of NT Studies. Makes sweet love to that camera every time.

-anthony

Jesus and Bill O'Reilly

Further to this news, Tom Verenna anticipates an upcoming train wreck.

...but Tom, isn't it worth it to see Colbert weave his magic?

-anthony

Craig A. Evans Among the Consultants for this Series

I'm looking forward to this. Like most specialists on any given historical subject, I've never been all that impressed with the History Channel.  I hope that this series on the Bible (the Protestant Canon, in this case) raises the bar. Hard to do better than Evans for a consultant.

-anthony

Hurtado on the Survival of Mark

Given that around 90% of Mark is represented by Matthew and that Luke incorporates around 60%, why did early Christianity keep Mark around at all? The venerable Larry Hurtado discusses this question and suggests an answer.

I might also add that we have numerous examples from the ANE where texts were cannibalized. That is, they were incorporated, authorship was "reassigned" and the primary text was destroyed. Notice, however, that we find at least two remarkable exceptions to this in Jewish scripture. We have overlapping traditions set side by side in the Pentateuch and a similar relationship demonstrated between Samuel/Chronicles. The presence of these texts in the Qumran library suggests that these concomitant shelf-lives are not merely explained by geographical preference. I might also add to this list the case of Jude/2 Peter. Could it be that there was an element of "sacred preservation" in Jewish culture that Christianity inherited?

-anthony

Quarterly Quote of the Month about Jesus for this Week

"When I think of the daily sequence of Old Testament readings, and of the Pauline Epistles, the Gospels: who could say that he understands immediately, simply because the language is his own? Only ongoing formation of hearts and minds can truly create intelligibility and participation that is something more than external activity, but rather the entry of the person, of my being, into the communion of the Church and thus into communion with Christ."

                                                            ~ Benedict XVI