I've complained before about the poor quality of Ron Wyatt's "research" (loosely defined) before. While he may have been well-intentioned (his aim was to defend the Bible's content), there is no excuse for the kind of paleobabble he has become notorious for. What...
journal articles
On Using Rabbinic Material to Interpret the New Testament
I'm still in the process of getting things together for the posting of my ETS papers (both of which were well received). I'll have that ready by the end of the weekend. However, I decided to post something else that I have recently run into. I'm not sure why it hasn't...
Divine Plurality in the Dead Sea Scrolls
UPDATE: I have revised this paper and it has been published in the scholarly journal, Tyndale Bulletin.] [Note: For other posts on Mike's work on the divine council, click here for the archive.] I'm currently at Gonzaga University in Spokane, WA for the Pacific...
An Eschatological Spasm: McFall's Chronology of the Prophetic Weeks of Daniel
Well, it took the women in ministry issue to drive me back to eschatology :-). Just kidding. I was reading through the blog comments tonight and was prompted to see if I could find an alternate source for Leslie McFall's fascinating article on the chronology of the...
Matthew, The Didache, and Q
I decided to post something on this topic because someone recently sent me a post promoting (?) a particular view of "Q" and Matthean authorship that appeared at divinecouncil.org. That is not my website. Briefly, the website was promoting the work of New Testament...
Mike’s ETS Paper Now on Kindle
I posted my ETS paper ("The Divine Council in the Pentateuch") in PDF form a few days ago. It's now available in Kindle format.
Naked Bible 60: Acts 27 & 28
Acts 27 & 28 This episode wraps up our study of the book of Acts. These two chapters focus on Luke’s account of Paul’s hazardous journey by ship to Rome. Through the course of his narrative, Luke drops some cryptic references to the theological concept of a...
An Assyrian Origin for the Trinity?
Some readers may be aware of claims in this regard popularized on the internet. The idea is actually fairly old, but in recent years has gained steam via the work of a credentialed Assyriologist, Simo Parpola. A few years ago I had the role of soliciting papers for an...
Naked Bible 58: Acts 23-26
Acts 23-26 These chapters cover the trials and imprisonments of Paul before setting sail for Rome to appeal to Caesar. Rather than focusing on the trial scenes, this episode of the podcast for the most part focuses on several statements of theological importance...
Math and Genesis 5’s Genealogies
In view of the recent post on the antediluvian genealogies, I thought some readers might be interested in mathematical attempts to decipher them. Here is a summary of the numbers in the genealogies in Genesis 5, excerpted from the Word Biblical Commentary (vol 1) by...
Israelite Kingship: Good or Bad in the Eyes of God?
When God tells Samuel, Israel's judge, to anoint a king for Israel according to their demands with the words "they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them" (1 Sam 8:7), many Bible readers and students assume that the institution of...
Antikythera Mechanism Report
Thanks go to Charles Jones at Ancient World Online for posting this "pre-print" article, "The Cosmos in the Antikythera Mechanism" (due to the size, it is best to right-click and "Save File As"; you will also have to re-size the file in Adobe Reader, since the images...
The Law of Moses – Whatever That Means
Our first topic of the year is one that I have been asked about, directly or obliquely, a number of times in comments and correspondence: Did Moses write every word (or most of) the Pentateuch (Torah) or are the critics correct that the Pentateuch is essentially a...
After 90 Years the CAD is "Finished" (Chicago Assyrian Dictionary)
Here's the link to the recent announcement. I say "finished" because, having been begun in 1921, many volumes are now outdated. But it's still a great achievement. The CAD is available for free in PDF (or you can buy all the volumes for $1400). I mention the CAD on...
Dan McClellan on “What is Deity in Septuagint Deuteronomy?”
Well, finally got around to re-reading Dan's paper from SBL of last year. I had attended the paper and taken notes, but I wanted to run through the paper once again. My thanks to Dan for sending me a copy (and for the heads up from Matt - and congrats to him and his...