Conference summaries: Healing and Exorcism in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity

15 March 2018 by Steve Walton
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This is Rikard Roitto, me and Tommy Wasserman (left to right as you look) listening hard to a fascinating presentation by Anthony John Lappin of Maynooth on the moving of relics in the early Christian centuries during this conference last week in Örebro, Sweden. The organisers have now made a very helpful summary in English of this excellent conference available here, as well as a nice short video (with English translation of the bits of Swedish). Larry Hurtado has also blogged about his (excellent) paper on the role Continue reading →

Review of Deep Work by Cal Newport

6 October 2017 by Steve Walton
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Here’s a helpful review of Cal Newport’s outstandingly good book Deep Work, a book which I read with great profit when it first came out. It’s by Imogen Mathew, and found on the Thesis Whisperer, a very useful and readable blog for those involved in PhD work (and their supervisors—I find it very helpful). Thanks Imogen and Inger Mewburn!

The Urban World and the First Christians

3 October 2017 by Steve Walton
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I’m delighted to be able to share with you the opening pages of our new book which has very recently appeared from Eerdmans. I had the honour of editing this book with my excellent colleagues Paul Trebilco (University of Otago, New Zealand) and David Gill (University of Suffolk). These pages include the contents, authors, and the introductory chapter, which summarises the contents of each chapter. That should give you a good flavour of the book and (hopefully) encourage you to ask your librarian to order Continue reading →

Larry Hurtado and Lea Keck on whether the NT is a ‘field of study’

21 July 2017 by Steve Walton
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     In case you missed it, here’s a fascinating post by Larry Hurtado, based on a very interesting article by Leander Keck about whether we should consider the New Testament as a ‘field of study’ separate from other early Christian literature. Hurtado’s conclusion is particularly interesting to me: In short, for theological purposes the NT is (and should be) a “privileged” body of texts.  But for historical purposes we should both take account of the breadth and diversity of early Christian literature and also Continue reading →