Tag Archives: Mark

Reflecting on SBL Denver 2022

I greatly enjoyed being in Denver a couple of weeks ago for the annual SBL meeting. It was a lovely opportunity to reconnect with people, many of whom I’d not seen in person for three years because of covid—I cannot recall a day when I have hugged so many people as the Friday! In particular, it was great to see current and former doctoral students in person again. I went to a bunch of papers, although I found myself generally selecting individual papers in a Continue reading →

A live performance of Richard Burridge’s new translation of the Gospel of Mark

My friend the New Testament scholar Richard Burridge has worked on a new English translation of Mark’s Gospel, seeking to be as true as possible to the word order, verb tenses, word-plays and puns in Greek, and the like. I’ve read sections of this and it’s fascinating—at times it sounds rather Yoda-like in its word order, and that helps recognise the strangeness of Mark’s writing in our English-orientated world. Richard is giving a live performance of his translation with Justin Butcher reading the narrator, Andy Continue reading →

An update to our Gospels and Acts textbook

The introductory textbooks Exploring the New Testament are a one-stop guide to engaging with the Gospels and Acts (volume 1) and the Letters and Revelation (volume 2). Published by SPCK in the UK and IVP in the USA, volume 1 has just appeared in a third, substantially revised, edition. The third edition of volume 2, revised by Stephen Travis and Ian Paul, will appear in May. Here’s an interview which Ian Paul (IP) did with David Wenham and me (SW & DW) about the new edition of volume 1. Ian Continue reading →

A two-part sermon on Mark 1:9-15

I’ve recorded a two-part sermon on Mark 1:9-15, the set reading in the Church of England lectionary for this Sunday, the first Sunday of Lent (21 February 2021), and the two sections are below. Part 1 is just over 10 minutes, and part 2 is a little over 13 minutes. Comments are most welcome! At the end of the video, I mention a reading plan I’ve devised to read the whole of Mark’s Gospel over the coming six weeks of Lent. You can do it Continue reading →

Read Mark in Lent 2021

I am preaching on Mark 1:9–15 this Sunday for All Saints’, Ealing, and got to thinking about how the focus of this passage is on Jesus and what happens to him—as opposed to the easy danger of assuming that the Gospels are all about us, our experience is just like that of Jesus, and the story is really about us hearing God say, ‘You are my son/daughter’ to us. Like all the stories in Mark, an ancient biography, the focus is on Jesus, and that Continue reading →