The most recent issue of Themelios, the academic journal of the Gospel Coalition, contains a review of Matthew's Theological Grammar: The Father and the Son. This is an important work that argues that "προσκυνέω [proskuneō] in Matthew means worship and its use...
Worship
Heavenly Worship in Second Temple Judaism, Early Christianity, and Gnostic Sects: Part 5
This is the 5th and final post in a series by guest blogger, Stephen Huebscher ------- This is the final post in this series, and I draw a number of conclusions here. At the end, I list all the works that I referenced in this series, in case I missed one earlier. This...
Heavenly Worship in Second Temple Judaism, Early Christianity, and Gnostic Sects: Part 4
Part 4 of a series by guest blogger, Stephen Huebscher ------- C. CONCEPTIONS OF HEAVENLY WORSHIP IN GNOSTIC GROUPS This post deals with groups that are known as “Gnostics” from the Greek word gnosis = “knowledge.” They developed the century after Christianity. They...
Heavenly Worship in Second Temple Judaism, Early Christianity, and Gnostic Sects: Part 3
Guest blogger, Stephen Huebscher This is the third of five posts in this series. B. CONCEPTIONS OF HEAVENLY WORSHIP IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY Early Christian conceptions of heavenly worship drew heavily on the OT and, not surprisingly, show a similarity, though with some...
Heavenly Worship in Second Temple Judaism, Early Christianity, and Gnostic Sects: Part 2
By guest blogger Stephen L. Huebscher STEP THREE: LOOKING AT THE THREE GROUPS INDIVIDUALLY CONCEPTIONS OF HEAVENLY WORSHIP IN SECOND TEMPLE JUDAISM The variety of groups and beliefs at this time was reflected in the variety of sacred texts used. It was common to...
Heavenly Worship in Second Temple Judaism, Early Christianity, and Gnostic Sects: Part 1
By guest blogger, Stephen L. Huebscher This series was originally written as an academic paper for presentation at a conference. At the time, we were doing research on the divine council for what ended up in Mike’s book The Unseen Realm. I had told Mike I was...
Naked Bible Podcast Episode 134: ETS-SBL Interviews with Scholars: Part 6
During the recent annual meetings for biblical studies scholars held in San Antonio, Dr. Heiser interviewed a number of scholars about their recent work. In Part 6 of those interviews, we chat with Stephen Huebscher (PhD candidate at Clarks Summit University), David...
The Function of the Divine Council in Heavenly Worship: Piety, not Mysticism: Part 5
For the previous post and links to earlier parts of this series by Stephen Huebscher, click here. -MSH SUMMARY OF TEXTS. After surveying the most common biblical and Second Temple texts (together with a few older ones from the ancient Near East), we can see that the...
The Function of the Divine Council in Heavenly Worship: Piety, not Mysticism: Part 4
[Note: This post continues where Part 3 left off. It includes the rest of the main biblical as well as non-biblical ancient Jewish texts.-- MSH] Psalm 97:7–9. “All worshipers of images are put to shame, who make their boast in worthless idols; worship him, all you...
The Function of the Divine Council in Heavenly Worship: Piety, not Mysticism Part 3
[This is Part 3 of Stephen Huebscher's series on the divine council and heavenly worship. See Part 1 and Part 2. -- MSH] We now move on to the second group of texts relating to our topic, the OT biblical texts. Over the next several posts, we are will look at nine...
The Function of the Divine Council in Heavenly Worship: Piety, not Mysticism: Part 2
Part 1 of this series can be found here. To introduce the topic and get things moving, there are two points to remember. First, the responsibilities of the divine council include (1) administrating Yahweh’s will to the nations, (2) administering justice, and...
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...
Ancient City Gate Associated with the Time of Hezekiah Under Excavation
Here's the story. Here's how the piece begins: An ancient city gate and shrine that King Hezekiah ordered to be destroyed during the eighth century B.C., according to the Hebrew Bible, are seeing the light of day following an excavation in Israel, archaeologists...
Naked Bible Podcast Episode 98: Conversation about Alternatives to Modern Church (“House Churches”)
In this episode Mike and Trey talk with Tim Andrews and Rich Baker about alternative ways to think about church – specifically, if church wasn’t a time or a place, what would that be like? Tim Andrews currently lives in Atlanta, GA, and has been in leadership in...
Naked Bible 73: Leviticus 10
Leviticus 10 describes the deaths of the priests Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, for offering “strange fire”. The nature of their transgression and other admonitions from God to the priesthood are discussed in this episode. Transcript 73 Leviticus 10 ...