Tag Archives: Scripture

Come to our conference on cities and early Christianity!

24 January 2015 by Steve Walton
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Following our very successful 2014 conference on evil in second temple Judaism and early Christianity, the St Mary’s University Centre for Social Scientific Study of the Bible announces this exciting conference: Cities of God? An Interdisciplinary Assessment of Early Christian Engagement with the Ancient Urban Environment(s) Friday 22 and Saturday 23 May 2015, at St Mary’s University, Twickenham This will be a fascinating and stimulating conversation between Classicists, New Testament scholars and Human Geographers, with a top class list of speakers, including a keynote paper by Professor Continue reading →

Review: Claire S. Smith, Pauline Communities as ‘Scholastic Communities’: A Study of the Vocabulary of ‘Teaching’ in 1 Corinthians, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus

27 October 2014 by Steve Walton
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    I commented on this stimulating and thoughtful study by Claire S. Smith some while ago on this blog, here, and sketched some of its implication. Now my review has been published by Review of Biblical Literature online, so you can read it here. There’s also a shorter, but helpful, summary-review by Andrew D. Clarke in Themelios online here.

A fun book! Peter Rodgers’ The Sign of the Dolphin

20 August 2014 by Steve Walton
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Peter Rodgers kindly gave me free access to the Kindle version of his second novel about people involved in copying New Testament manuscripts in the second century AD. This is textual criticism made wonderfully accessible in narrative form, and a great read. Peter Rodgers is Vicar (Pastor) of St Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Antelope, California, and teaches New Testament and Preaching at Fuller Theological Seminary. He’s a delightful man, and has much to answer for in having taught me Greek during my theological studies in Cambridge many Continue reading →

Reading Tom Wright’s Paul and the Faithfulness of God (4)

14 August 2014 by Steve Walton
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Here the fourth of my series of posts as I read through Tom Wright’s Paul and the Faithfulness of God. The earlier posts are here, here, and here. This post focuses on chapter 4, ‘A Cock for Asclepius: “Religion” and “Culture” in Paul’s World’. The chapter title echoes Socrates’ final words to his friend Crito after Socrates had taken hemlock to commit suicide—he instructed Crito to offer a cock to the god of healing, Asclepius, probably as a thanksgiving for the ease of his death. Wright’s point Continue reading →