Quote of the Day

Some wise words from Bonhoeffer:

"...One should know as a true theologian that, even where our knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ in its truth and purity keeps us away from false doctrines, we stand beside our brethren who have wandered and been misled, sharing their guilt, interceding and praying for them, knowing that our own life depends, not on our better knowledge or being on the right side, but on forgiveness." -- Bonhoeffer Works vol. 12, 435.

German Dictionary?

Does anyone know what's a good German-English dictionary to buy for one working in the field of biblical studies? I know there's a bunch of different dictionaries out there, but if anyone has any suggestions or personal experiences with some, I'd really appreciate it!

Emory

I'll be starting my very first class at Emory next week: German! Excited to begin my studies.

Conference Audio

If you are interested in Pauline theology, you'll probably know that one of the professors here at Duke, Douglas Campbell, has recently written a large tome on his own particular reading of Paul and the topic of "justification" (though he likes to use the term "deliverance" more than "justification"). From what I can tell, it's made quite a splash onto Pauline scholarship, and at the end of last year, Prof. Campbell attended a conference in London (at King's College), one that was entirely devoted to engaging The Deliverance of God. I'm glad to see that the conference audio files are now available online! Check out the lineup:

I'll be done with school in about two weeks, so looks like I'll have to dig into these audio files then. Go check it out here.

Where to?

For my faithful readers, I would like to give everyone the wonderful news regarding our next home after I finish up my time at Duke Divinity School:

Can you guess the skyline?

Atlanta, Georgia! Though, it will be more like the next picture:

If I'm not mistaken, that same skyline is in the background, and what you see in the foreground is the beautiful (well, at least #6 according to this article) campus of Emory University. I'm very excited to have been accepted into their PhD program in New Testament in the Graduate Division of Religion. All the faculty and students I have met there have been wonderful, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to study at one of the best schools in the nation. And on top of that, no more paying for school! It's been a long road and of course, none of this would have been possible had it not been the support and love of my wonderful wife (thank you!). I hope our new home (at least for the next few years) will yield greater and better things for the both of us as we make the transition from Durham, NC to North Decatur, GA. Cheers!

New friend

Apologies to my faithful readers! It seems that all I do these days is pop in every now and then to apologize. Though I guess I'm not really that sorry because I've been swamped with finishing up my degree at Duke and moving on to pursue doctoral work. I will keep you posted with regard to where we'll end up in the Fall! Anyway, back to the topic at hand: technology. I went to the Duke Divinity library today to discover a new machine in place of an old scanner:

I guess it's some new amazing scanner that looked world's apart from the usual flatbed scanner that you see at libraries or your office where you just lay your books flat with a plastic flap on top to cover it. There are two really efficient aspects to the scanner: (1) you just keep the book laid out with pages facing up, so it moves rather quickly when you can just flip the page and continue to scan, and the more amazing part (2) the scanner comes with a pedal like a piano where you just step on it to scan! Today I probably scanned about 50 pages of material and what normally would have taken at least 15-20 minutes to do, I think I finished in less than 10. I don't know where we'll end up yet, but I do hope the next library will also have my new bestfriend, Bookeye 4.

Thomas

It appears that the next few months has a number of books out on the Gospel of Thomas:

If Amazon's date is correct (Mar. 31, 2012), this book in the SNTS monograph series by Prof. Simon Gathercole is the first one to hit the shelves. It'll probably be a very good book that helps set the tone for how NT scholars understand the direction of influence between the Gospel of Thomas and the canonical Gospels. Unfortunately, unless you have a lot of cash or access to a library that carries this book, the price ($95) is quite prohibitive.

I'm not familiar with Prof. Christopher Skinner's work, but a quick scan in my library database shows that he's already done work in GThom, which is probably why he is a good person to write a book that provides an overview of recent discussions on this fascinating book. It's due out in May and the best part about this book so far is that it is quite affordable ($6.40 on Amazon!). I'll probably try to get my hands on this book esp. given its light footprint on my wallet.

Last, but definitely not least, is this book from one of my teachers at Duke, Prof. Mark Goodacre. As the title suggests, he will probably go at this by way of looking at the Synoptic Gospels and GThom closely. I always enjoy reading his work as they are very accessible but at the same time interesting and provocative, so I expect this should be a good read for those interested in this text. It's out in June and a tad over $25 on Amazon.








All three of these books sound interesting right now as I'm taking a class with Dr. Goodacre on the Non-Canonical Gospels. Keep a lookout for these books and borrow/purchase them when they become available.