Happy Christmas to all! So far, it has been a good Christmas for my family as we have traveled from Seattle to Ohio and Indiana.
We watched a nice documentary on TV called “After Jesus” on CNN, narrated by Laim Neeson and scholars interviewed include Bart Ehrman and Judith Lieu.
I got a few books for Xmas (some are for Journal review, but they are virtually “presents”!)
God in New Testament Theology (Hurtado, Abingdon, 2010)
Since I read Dunn’s Christology book recently, I am now interested in hearing more from Hurtado. Truth be told, I have not read any of Hurtado’s Theology/Christology books (just his excellent, though brief, commentary on Mark). Jimmy Dunn actually invited Hurtado to write this book!
Matthew: Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the NT (Grant Osborne, 2010)
I was quite skeptical of a new commentary series, but I read that Zondervan asked pastors what they want from a good commentary and used this data to design the series. Thus, there appears to be a good blending of exegetical discussion of historical and grammatical issues, but also a focus on structure, flow, basic meaning, and application. Of course I am excited to see (eventually) Howard Marshall’s volume on John and Thielman’s treatment of Romans.
Joshua in 3-D (Daniel Hawk; Wipf & Stock)
I am working on a project on Joshua. Dan wrote a commentary sometime ago on Joshua, but this is a more political and ideological reading with a view towards American conceptions of Manifest Destiny. Should be an interesting read! Dan is also a friend of mine – I learned some key pointers about writing papers from Dan when I happened to sit in on a class he was teaching several years ago.
Well, more books (hopefully!) to come. Again, merry Christmas to all.
Marshall’s no longer doing John. Edward (Mickey) Klink is currently writing it now