If you listened to my ETS interview with Randall last November, there were inklings of this in between the lines. News was recently announced about the new Cave 12. Read it here.
Second Temple Judaism
Naked Bible 90: Lake of Fire
This episode discusses why hellfire in the New Testament is associated with “the devil and his angels" (Matt 25:41). Where does that idea come from? There are in fact earlier books that are the basis for this language—inside and outside the Old Testament. Transcript...
Reza Aslan’s Book About Jesus: More Out-Dated, Long-Refuted Scholarship
New Testament scholar Craig Evans recently wrote this pointed, detailed review of Reza Aslan's book, Zealot. The review spans several pages, so make sure to click through at the bottom of the first page.Evans has a long scholarly publishing resume and is known and...
Mike’s New Course on the Godhead in the OT Now Available
For those of you familiar with my divine council work, this new Logos Mobile Ed course ("The Jewish Trinity") covers the content related to the Godhead in the Old Testament - the biblical backdrop of Judaism's "Two Powers in Heaven" belief. It's deliberately not as...
New Perspective on Paul: A Recent Reading Group Post
Well, the Naked Bible Reading Group on the NPP has started up. I gave everyone a week to read Kent Yinger's short book on it (The New Perspective on Paul: An Introduction), and posting has begun. What follows is my most recent post. I thought it might be useful to...
Class 4 – Jesus & the Old Testament
This is the third in a series of lectures Dr. Heiser did at Grace Church Bellingham. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWM8L01cAkY
April DeConick on Gabriel’s Revelation
This pertains to the ignorant media hysteria over the Gabriel inscription (blogged about earlier). April DeConcick of Rice University has questions. She is correct in that the 2nd temple texts cited by Israel Knohl may have been revised by Christians, and therefore...
What is the Meaning of BAPTIZEIN?
Follow the link below to what, in my experience, is the most lengthy scholarly treatment of the relevant primary sources for the meaning of baptizein ("baptize") available. The article just appeared online for free, though it was published in 2011: Eckhard Schnabel,...
The Function of the Divine Council in Heavenly Worship: Piety, not Mysticism: Part 1
Editor's Note: This is the first post in a series by my friend Stephen Huebscher. Stephen is a doctoral student in Hebrew Bible and is very acquainted with my work and the divine council in general. I hope you enjoy his contributions to the blog! -- MSH “Heavenly...
The New Testament Writers Had the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in their Heads
I often get the question of whether I think books like 1 Enoch are canonical. I tell people I don't -- and that the question doesn't matter. A book doesn't need to be canonical to be useful, or to inform theological thinking. It's quite evident the NT writers had the...
Naked Bible Podcast Episode 021
In the last podcast, I recommended the best books and reference sources for understanding the religion and culture of the ANE for OT study. This episode wraps up my overview of taking the Bible's own context seriously by immersing oneself into the intellectual...
Naked Bible Podcast Episode 019: Second Temple Texts in Translation
The series on Bible study continues with the emphasis on interpreting the Bible in its own context. The context we're discussing is the world of the ancient Near East (with respect to the OT) and the Second Temple period with respect to the NT. Interpreting the Bible...
Naked Bible Podcast Episode 017: Taking the Bible’s Own Context Seriously
In this second episode of the series on Bible study, I discuss what interpreting the Bible "in context" really means -- taking the Bible's own primitive context seriously. Rather than filter the Bible through creeds dating from the 17th and 18th centuries, or even the...
The Two Powers in Heaven
Perspective on the “New Perspective” on Paul
If anyone has read the comments recently, you know that I wasn't planning on taking this topic. I had been thinking about the Pentateuch authorship issue, as noted a few days ago. But, over the past couple of weeks I've had several people email me out of the blue...