Acts and More

Here’s a very nice tribute and set of memories of Rod Decker, who died recently. Rod was a lovely man and a fine teacher and writer on Greek. I’m looking forward to seeing his introductory Greek grammar and his 2-volume handbook on Mark when they appear later in the year.

The sad news has come today that Rod Decker has died after quite a long illness with cancer. Here’s the note from his wife. Rod is a lovely man and fine scholar (verb tense carefully chosen, as Rod would always have insisted): his introductory Greek grammar and his Baylor Greek Handbook on Mark (in 2 volumes) were his final major projects and they will be out later this year. We thank God for him and send much love to his family.

I’m really looking forward to Friday and Saturday this week when we have our first St Mary’s University Centre for Social-Scientific Study of the Bible conference on ‘Evil in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity’—details here; you can still book to come! I’m working on a paper on ‘Evil in Ephesus (Acts 19:8-40)’ which is looking at issues of the nature of evil, and how Luke sees evil being overcome, in Paul’s visit to the city. There are lots of interesting things going on—the full Continue reading →

Here’s a fine piece from Larry Hurtado’s blog questioning the assumption that Christian belief about Jesus must reflect what Jesus himself believed about himself during his lifetime. Hurtado exposes this as a theological assumption and questions it cogently. Good stuff!

Here are links to two interesting posts in New Testament studies. Ian Paul writes about the number of visits Jesus made to Jerusalem. It’s frequently suggested that the synoptic Gospels portray only one visit by Jesus as an adult, whereas John has Jesus visit for three passovers. In this post, Ian Paul argues cogently that the synoptics betray knowledge of other visits by Jesus to Jerusalem, so that the picture of only one visit in the synoptics is over-simple. Thoughtful and worth reading. Craig Evans Continue reading →