Tag Archives: Judaism

Romans 1:18–2:29: a two-part sermon

I was given the privilege of opening up this key passage in Romans for All Saints, Ealing this Sunday. This is the online version of the sermon—I actually delivered a shorter version in person for the first time in about nine months, which was quite exciting! The first part is slightly over 10 minutes, and focuses on 1:18–27, and the second part is a little over 14 minutes, and focuses on 1:28–2:29.

A review of Sean Adams’ Greek Genres and Jewish Authors

Sean A. Adams. Greek Genres and Jewish Authors: Negotiating Literary Culture in the Greco-Roman Era. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2020. xvii + 430 pp. $79.95. ISBN 978 1 4813 1291 2. This excellent study does exactly what it says it will do: explore the way Jewish authors used and adapted Greek genres of writing between 300 BC and AD 135. Dr Sean Adams shows an astonishing and impressive breadth of engagement with the primary sources for this period, and has put us in his debt Continue reading →

A new book on healing and exorcism in second temple Judaism and the New Testament

Mikael Tellbe & Tommy Wasserman, eds.Healing and Exorcism in Second Temple Judaism and Early ChristianityWUNT 2/511; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019; ISBN 978-3-16-158936-2 Another month, another new book! Just out from Mohr Siebeck is this collection of essays from an excellent conference hosted by Tommy Wasserman and Mikael Tellbe at the theological college in Örebro, Sweden. I hugely enjoyed participating in the conference (see my report here), and am now delighted to see the revised papers published—with one or two additions, including a very helpful essay Continue reading →

A fascinating discussion of Matthew Novenson’s The Grammar of Messianism

There’s a really interesting conversation about Matthew Novenson’s fascinating The Grammar of Messianism going on at Syndicate, the home of many such book discussions, at present. A key claim of the book is that it helps to think about ‘Messiah’ passages in Jewish and Christian texts as engaging in a ‘language game’ in which they use the term in a variety of ways—and this is better than the ‘idealist’ tradition of constructing one view of ‘Messiah’ and then reading the texts in the light of Continue reading →

Sean Adams on the ‘Being Jewish, Writing Greek’ conference

This is a guest post by my good friend Dr Sean Adams, Lecturer in New Testament and Ancient Culture at the University of Glasgow (picture above), on the conference ‘Being Jewish, Writing Greek’ hosted recently by the University of Cambridge. I’m very grateful to Sean for his willingness to share this summary of what was clearly an excellent and highly stimulating conference. Sean Adams writes… It was my privilege to attend and present at the ‘Being Jewish, Writing Greek’ conference that was held at Cambridge University Continue reading →