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Archive for the ‘Community’ Category


Christ’s Associations

In Community, Jason Borges, John S. KLOPPENBORG, NT social setting, Yale University Press on September 11, 2020 at 3:00 pm

2020.09.16 | John S. Kloppenborg. Christ’s Associations: Connecting and Belonging in the Ancient City. New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2019. ISBN: 9780300217049.

Review by Jason Borges, Durham University.

New Testament scholarship since the 1970s has explored the social history of early Christian origins. Wayne Meeks, Abraham Malherbe, Gerd Theissen, Howard Kee, and others charted the social aspects of early Christ communities, with a focus on the leadership structure, economic status, and ritual activities of these groups. John Kloppenborg’s Christ’s Associations stands in this current of social-science history and extends the conversation.

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Conversion in Luke-Acts

In Baker Academic, Brandon Walker, Community, Conversion, Identity, Joel B. GREEN, Luke-Acts on August 8, 2016 at 2:00 pm

9780801097607

2016.08.15 | Joel B. Green. Conversion in Luke-Acts: Divine Action, Human Cognition, and the People of God. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2015.

Review by Brandon T. Walker, St. John’s College, Nottingham.

Many thanks to Baker Academic for providing a review copy.

Much of the contemporary Western conversation about defining conversion has centred around questions of cognition and morality, repentance and conversion, or around attempts to discover patterns in a conversion narrative. In Conversion in Luke-Acts Joel B. Green offers an insightful take on Luke’s understanding of conversion by using a cognitive and holistic approach. Conversion is an important contribution to Lukan studies as well as understanding ‘conversion’ in antiquity.

In the first chapter Green surveys the pertinent questions concerning conversion in the New Testament (14–15), such as: ‘Is conversion a cognitive category, a moral category or both?’ (14). Read the rest of this entry »


Richard Bauckham, “Divine and Human Community in the Gospel of John”

In Community, Durham, John, Judaism, Justin A. Mihoc, Richard BAUCKHAM, SEMINAR REPORTS on February 14, 2012 at 1:07 am

This is a report on a paper presented by Prof Richard Bauckham, formerly of University St Andrews and fellow of the British Academy, at the New Testament Research Seminar, Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University, 13th of February 2012. The list of forthcoming papers in the NT Research Seminars at Durham University can be found here.

Prof Bauckham’s paper was written as a companion to his essay on ‘individualism’ in the Gospel of John, which he presented at the British New Testament Conference (Nottingham, 2011). In the present paper, Prof Bauckham offers a fresh interpretation of John’s usage of the ‘oneness’ language (focussing on the word ἕν), and assesses its relevance for understanding the divine and human community. He examines the Scriptural uses of the community language, with a special emphasis on Jesus’ prayer in John 17, and also the developments of this language in systematic theology.

The word ‘one’

According to Prof Bauckham, in 12 instances in 8 Johannine texts, the word ‘one’ becomes a very potent theological term. Although one might be compelled to regard this word as straight-forward, this initial impression is in fact wrong, as it is used by John at least in two different ways.

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