Scholarship • Serving • Ministry – Ian Paul
I am going to dip into a subject which is of extreme delicacy in the world of academic publishing. I am therefore going to avoid naming any particular parties in this issue, for two reasons. First, as a publisher myself, I don’t like people talking about what I do by name. Secondly, as a reviewer …
The Feast of the Epiphany in the church’s liturgical calendar is based on the events of Matt 2.1–12, the visit of the ‘wise men’ from the East to the infant Jesus. There are plenty of things about the story which might make us instinctively treat it as just another part of the constellation of Christmas traditions, …
Many in the world of NT scholarship were saddened to hear of the death of I Howard Marshall (1934–2015) last Saturday after a short illness. Howard was professor emeritus of New Testament exegesis and honorary research professor at the University of Aberdeen, and he was widely recognized as one of the leaders of the second generation …
Before Christmas 2013 I watched the film Gravity. The effects were spectacular, the photography breathtaking, the characterisations engaging, and the story held one’s attention throughout. It even raised some profound (religious?) questions about life, death and purpose. And yet, when I left the cinema, I could not decide whether I had enjoyed the film or not. For …
You don’t have to be involved in a debate about some contentious issue, and what the Bible might say about it, for too long before someone chimes up: Sounds to me like your worship the Bible! Shouldn’t Christians worship Jesus? The accusation is that, if you focus on what the Bible says, you are making …
This Sunday, the last of the liturgical year, is Christ the king, and comes immediately before Advent. It is a slightly odd festival, since one of the key themes of Advent is not the anticipation of Christmas, but the anticipation of Jesus’ return as king; the Latin adventus is a translation of the Greek parousia …
As we approach Advent, we are coming into the new Liturgical Year, and in the lectionary we will be in Year C. This is the year when we focus on continuous reading of Luke’s gospel, though as in other years there are significant contributions from John. I have just been teaching about Luke in Hereford Diocese …
The latest Grove Biblical booklet is by Dr Richard Briggs, Lecturer in Old Testament at the University of Durham and Director of Biblical Studies at Cranmer Hall. The title is Fairer Sex and the blurb runs as follows: The church is often accused of being obsessed with sex—and contemporary discussion is often contentious and has a very …
I am sorry to spoil your preparations for Christmas before the Christmas lights have even gone up—though perhaps it is better to do this now than the week before Christmas, when everything has been carefully prepared. But Jesus wasn’t born in a stable, and, curiously, the New Testament hardly even hints that this might have …
What is the heart of the gospel? Should we consider justification, or forgiveness, or freedom, or power as the central idea? Or is there a case for understanding peace—with God and with one another—as the heart of the matter? The latest Grove Biblical booklet, Peace in Luke and Paul, makes this case. It is written by Michael …
Last month, Mark Woods wrote an article in Christian Today exploring the apparent contradictions between the two accounts of Judas’ death, in Matt 27.3–8 and in Act 1.18. In the first, Judas hangs himself, the priests buy the field, and it is named ‘Field of Blood’ because of the betrayal by Judas. In the second, briefer …
