Books Carousel

It's been a while since I've really updated anything substantial on my blog. I don't want to keep apologizing to my readers but the school semester is certainly very busy! My books carousel has been updated and some of the books should give you an idea of what's been taking up my time these days.

Lighter stuff:

(1) Parenting Without Borders: I don't have children right now but I do have a lot of friends who either have children already or will in the near future. This is a subject that has always fascinated me, particularly given my own background that was a mixture of both Asian and American style of parenting (though mostly the former?). Gross-Loh is a Harvard trained Asian historian and this book is a very accessible account of her experience overseas in various cultures (Asian, European, etc.) and how parenting is done elsewhere. I'm not a big fan of her writing style but some of the lessons she learned overseas is fascinating and it should be something that all American parents should be aware of.

(2) Bonhoeffer, Christ and Culture: If I remember right, this was a collection of papers presented at the annual Wheaton Theology Conference a few years ago. As I have mentioned before, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's life and thought is something of a side hobby for me so when I saw that these conference papers were available, I had to check it out.

(3) Forgery and Counterforgery: I just happened to see this recently published Oxford volume by Ehrman on the library shelves, so I picked it up. As always Ehrman has a flair for rhetoric and his writing style is cogent. This is a thoroughly researched monograph (comes in at 600 some pages!), but it doesn't bog down like some technical work. This isn't an area that I'm terribly interested in, but I think it's fascinating (whether you agree with Ehrman or not) and so far I'm enjoying the read. 

 (4) Thinking, Fast and Slow: Kahneman is a Nobel Prize winner in economics, so he definitely knows what he's talking about. This is a fascinating study into how the human mind works and though I haven't been able to get into this book lately due to my schedule, so far so good.

Heavier stuff:

(5) Theology of the New Testament (Bultmann + Strecker): Need I say more? Just read through the Paul section of Bultmann (I should get to his John stuff soon) and the Johannine material in Strecker is next.

(6) Translation and Survival: I just finished T. Michael Law's When God Spoke Greek and I figure I should just continue along in this study of the LXX. Coincidentally, one of my seminar session this week will be on that topic, so I'm looking forward to continuing the research.

(7) Architecture and Meaning on the Athenian Acropolis + Greek Architecture: I'm taking an art history seminar right now on the connections between gods and people in ancient Greece. These two books are a must read for anyone interested in this topic, and though I'm just getting my feet wet, the class has been thoroughly enjoyable and informative.

There's probably a few more books here and there that's always jumping in and out of my to-read list, but these were the main ones that I could think of right now. I just wish I had more time and ability to read/digest all these books faster than my current pace. Read anything very interesting lately? Let me know!

New Issue of Novum Testamentum

I'd like to point out that a new issue of NovT came out recently (Vol. 55.4). Great to see that my colleague here at Emory, Chris Holmes, has an article in this issue. Here's the line-up:

James R. Harrison, "Paul's 'Indebtedness' to the Barbarian (Rom 1:14) in Latin West Perspective," 311-348

Christopher T. Holmes, "Utterly Incapacitated: The Neglected Meaning of ΠΑΡΕΣΙΣ in Romans 3:25," 349-366

Jam Lambrecht, "1 Corinthians 2:14: A Response to Laura B. Dingeldein," 367-370

Jacqueline Assaël, "L'allègement du chagrin partagé: 2 Co 2:5," 371-372

John A.L. Lee, "Etymological Follies," 383-403

Check it out here.

Who Do People Say I Am?

This is the title of a forthcoming book from one of my teachers here at Emory, Vernon K. Robbins. It's his look into the Christology (or Christologies if you'd like) of early Christians at the time when things were being written about Jesus' origins and life outside of what we find in the NT canon. Over at EerdWord blog, you can check out his brief thoughts about the work (see part 1 and 2).

JSNT - September issue out

It's not even August yet, but I just saw that JSNT has released their September issue. I'm also happy to see that I've had the chance to cross paths with a few of the authors in this issue.

One of the articles is written by a friend of mine, John A. Dunne, who's writing his dissertation at St. Andrews under N.T. Wright: "Suffering in Vain: A Study of the Interpretation of ΠΑΣΚΩ in Galatians 3.4." I continue to maintain a deep interest in Galatians, so I'll definitely read this article sometime in the next week or so.

Another article is written by one of my teachers here at Emory, Dr. Walter Wilson, titled: "The Uninvited Healer: Houses, Healing and Prophets in Matthew 8.1-22." We've had a chance to talk about this piece earlier last year, and it's one that brings into the text various insights from architecture and social norms to think deeper about what exactly is happening in Matthew 8.

A third article is one by a German professor, Thomas Schmeller, who was a visiting scholar here at Emory last semester. I had a chance to talk to him briefly, and though I missed the seminar in which he discussed some portions of this piece, I was quite fascinated to find that he was arguing for the unity of 2 Corinthians. I'll be sure to add this to the to-read list.

It's been quite a busy summer with a few unexpected events, but I've been reading as much as I can and doing a lot of research assistant work for one of my teachers here, so that has been keeping me busy. Another semester looms in a month or so, hopefully it will continue to open up new questions for me as I enter into my second year of coursework in my doctoral program.

JSNT - June 2013 and Promotion

It looks like the new issue of the Journal for the Study of the New Testament is out and it seems like a pretty good issue. Here's the line-up:

Mark Goodacre, "How Reliable is the Story of the Nag Hammadi Discovery?"

Anna C. Miller, "Not with Eloquent Wisdom: Democratic Ekklēsia Discourse in 1 Corinthians 1-4"

Jonathan Knight, "The Political Issue of the Ascension of Isaiah: A Response to Enrico Norelli"

Robert A. Derrenbacker, Jr., "Texts, Tables and Tablets: A Response to John C. Poirier"

F. Gerald Downing, "Waxing Careless: Poirier, Derrenbacker and Downing"

Simon Gathercole, "Jerusalem and Caesarea Inscriptions and New Testament Study: A Review Article"

I'm glad to see Mark Goodacre frontlining this issue, as this article was something we discussed with Mark in his class. I took a history of interpretation course this semester and when we were discussing the Nag Hammadi documents, I was thinking about some of the things Mark told us about concerning the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library. It looks to be a very interesting study into how the story came to be told and retold, so go ahead and check it out.

Oh, and Mark Goodacre has just been promoted to full professor at my alma mater, Duke University, so that is great news indeed (it's about time!). You can check out his blog here.

Prosperity Gospel?

This is somewhat out of my own arena of expertise, but I wanted to introduce all of you to a forthcoming book:

Beautiful cover, no? Oxford University Press seems to always do a good job creating some nice looking volumes and this one is no exception. It's a book titled, Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel, due out next month (May 2013) from Oxford University Press (check it out here). It's written by Kate Bowler from Duke Divinity School. During my time at Duke, I wanted to work as a research assistant and Kate was nice enough to take me on despite my zero-knowledge of American Christianity. 

This is the publication of her dissertation written at Duke under Grant Wacker and from my conversations with her as well as preliminary reviews of her book (e.g. from Mark Noll and Jonathan Walton), I think it's going to be a fantastic addition to the library of any Americanists. If you're mildly interested in the prosperity gospel, then I highly suggest you go ahead and pick up a copy of this book as soon as it's out.

NA28 + LXX

Check this out:

I just saw that this nice volume from the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft is putting together both the Septuagint and the NT together into one massive text.

According to Eisenbrauns, this book runs at over 3,100 pages!

It will include an apparatus criticus among other things, so seems like a great resource for those of you who want access to both the LXX and NT in one book. Though at 3,100+ pages, I wonder what kind of dimensions it will have. I tried to search to find what its thickness would be but could only find its length and width dimensions and no depth.

I already own their standard Septuaginta and the recently published NA28, so I probably won't buy this, but I thought some of you might be interested. Forthcoming Fall of this year.