I blogged a short time ago to alert readers about this book. Maurice Casey was a New Testament scholar and Aramaic specialist. He was also nowhere close to being a "Bible believer" - the sort of people that Jesus mythicists love to mock. It's Casey doing the mocking...
textual criticism
The Mysterious Book of Jasher
That's the title of this scholarly article by rabbi Arthur Chiel I recently found in an old issue of the journal Judaism: Chiel-The-Mysterious-Book-of-Jasher The article is a very good survey of the history of what some folks (even today) tout as a lost biblical book....
Were the Gospels Originally Written in Aramaic or Hebrew?
I'm often asked this question, so it was nice to come across this paper by Jan Joosten online. Joosten Aramaic or Hebrew behind_the_Gospels Joosten is an excellent scholar in Aramaic, Syriac, Greek, and Hebrew. This is a worthwhile (and sane) introduction to the...
Review of Recent Symposium Volume on the Debate over “Secret Mark”
Secret Mark (not to be confused with "Archaic Mark") is an alleged ancient text that a number of modern scholars consider a forged hoax. (See the description of the document below). Recently a group of scholars with expertise in the pertinent matters met to discuss...
Rumored Fragment of the Gospel of Mark in the News
A few days ago it was reported that a fragment of the Gospel of Mark, reportedly dated to the first century, is being studied and prepared for publication. This would be significant, as (to my recollection), the oldest fragment of the NT is P52 ("Papyrus 52"), a...
Wallace and Kruger Destroy NEWSWEEK Christmas Hit Piece on the Bible
[NOTE: this post was updated on 12/30/2014 to include Dr. Kruger's second installment.] I have to admit it's like shooting fish in a barrel, but we can't expect anything intellectually accurate or honest from those who write for these sorts of militant...
Currently Running Projects on the Text of the Hebrew Bible
Someone sent me this link a couple days ago. It's about the Oxford Hebrew Bible project, of which Ron Hendel of UC-Berkeley is the chief editor. The article makes some silly statements that make it sound like this project is going to see things in the biblical Hebrew...
Why Should You Care About the Septuagint?
Here's one answer. The link leads to the Oxford University Press website and points to a new book on the LXX. But it also contains a good overview answer to the question that I'd recommend to readers. Here's a related answer that I wrote for Bible and Spade in 2010....
New Logos Resource Series for Understanding Biblical Criticism
The Logos Bible Software blog announced a pre-pub today for a four-volume book series (with ample visuals and info-graphics) that I'm excited about. Its aim is to educate (in plain language) non-specialists in the methods of biblical criticism scholars use with...
Patristic Citations of the New Testament Text
The Evangelical Textual Criticism blog recently drew attention to some useful resources and strategies for detecting and researching citations of the Greek NT in the Greek church fathers. Have a look!
Brief Nephilim Note
I've added an archive page devoted to the nephilim discussion to try and arrange those items. It includes comment material. Editor's note: content copied here for ease of access. In March 2013 I posted a response to some criticisms of my understanding of the word...
My Thoughts on Nephilim: Answering a Criticism
Some readers have drawn my attention to this recent criticism of my understanding of the morphology of the word nephilim. I left some comments on that blog site, but thought it would be worth a post here. I'll try to be brief (stop laughing). First, it is true that...
New Testament Textual Criticism: Search for Manuscripts Goes On
For those interested in NT textual criticism, here's a nice piece on Dan Wallace and the work of the CSNTM (Center for the Study of NT Manuscripts). Hard to believe Dan is sixty!
Understanding the Göttingen Septuagint
The Göttingen Septuagint is the premier critical-scholarly edition of the Septuagint. If you've ever seen or used it, you know it can be intimidating. Fortunately, Abram K-J (Words on the Word blog) has created a primer in two parts on how to read and understand the...
High Resolution Images of Dead Sea Scrolls Now Online
Pretty cool. Over 5,000 high resolution images of the scrolls are now available online. This is an awesome site for scrolls research in general, too. Enjoy!