In a previous post, the so called “inter-testamental” period was briefly explored as critical to understanding the radical, sometimes jarring, changes that emerge when we transition from the Hebrew Bible to the New Testament. The New Testament does not even bother giving a quick heads up and takes things for granted because they are addressing an audience familiar with the times. As modern readers we have to put in a bit of work before we can understand their era.
Any attentive reader of the New Testament will notice how it quotes the Old Testament is often pretty weird. Sometimes it seems pretty arbitrary and other times it looks like its misquoted. If you ever wondered about about how this and how the New uses the Old in general, the following interview of New Testament scholar Seth Ehorn certainly helps address these questions. The interview, which is for Deeper Waters Podcast, is centred on his two-volume series he co-edited with Sean Adams Composite Citations in Antiquity (Vol. 1 2015, Vol. 2 2018, T&T Clark.)
Continue reading “Composite Quotations”
The following transcript is an excerpt of an interview where archaeologist and Bible scholar Marc Turnage responds to the issue of the Pharisees and their negative image among Christians.
Continue reading “In Fairness to the Pharisees”
Biblical scholar and archaeologist Marc Turnage discusses how the settings of the biblical lands affects how we understand the Bible.
Continue reading “Into the World of the Bible”
I remember as a child coming across the term the “intertestamental period” in a study Bible my parents owned. I remember I was intrigued by the brief history of developments after the events of the Old Testament leading into the New Testament. Unfortunately, the study Bible did not make much of it when it actually got to the New Testament and this is the attitude most Christians take. In the following interview on OnScript podcast, Bible scholar Matthias Henze discusses why this period is absolutely crucial for understanding the New Testament based on his book Mind the Gap: How the Jewish Writings between the Old Testament and the New Testaments Help us Understand Jesus (Fortress Press, 2018.)
Continue reading “Between Malachi and Matthew”
Dr. A Chadwick Thornhill, a New Testament scholar, in the video below surveys how Jews of the second Temple period, which includes the New Testament church, thought about who the people of God are.
Continue reading “Election in Ancient Judaism”
In the New Testament the Church gave itself all sorts of names like believers, saints, disciples, brothers and sisters while it identified outsiders as unbelievers, sinners and ungodly. Where do these designations come from, what do they say about the Church and those outside it, and how should it shape the way the Church thinks about itself and outsiders today?