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Archive for the ‘Scripture’ Category


Richard Hays, “Retrospective Reading: The Challenges of Gospel-Shaped Hermeneutics”

In Edinburgh, Gospel of Mark, Gospels, Gunning Lectures, HB/OT, Hermeneutics, Intertextuality, John, Kerry Lee, Luke-Acts, Matthew, New Testament, NT Theology, Richard HAYS, Scripture on February 8, 2012 at 10:41 am

A report on a paper given by Richard Hays (Dean and George Washington Ivey Professor of New Testament at Duke University in Durham, NC), 26 January 2012. Professor Hays is delivering this year’s Gunning Lectures at New College, University of Edinburgh, on the topic “Israel’s Scripture Through the Eyes of the Gospel Writers.” I should note that Professor Hays has let me know that he is preparing a book for publication based upon these Gunning lectures.

RBECS is also on facebook, here.

The last of Richard Hays’ lectures in the 2012 Gunning series was part overview of the previous four lectures and part return to and exploration of the somewhat troubling assertion he made in his first lecture that modern hermeneutics (speaking, for the most part, in terms of the Christian church’s life and teaching) could and perhaps should imitate that of the Gospel writers. This assertion he expounded through nine proposals.

Rather than reporting on all of the first half of Hays’ lecture, let me refer the reader to the reports already posted on Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. However, there were a few comments in this half of the lecture which were new and noteworthy. Read the rest of this entry »


Richard Hays, “The Temple of His Body: Reading Scripture with John”

In Edinburgh, Gospels, Gunning Lectures, HB/OT, Hermeneutics, Intertextuality, John, Kerry Lee, New Testament, Richard HAYS, Scripture, SEMINAR REPORTS on February 6, 2012 at 6:17 pm

A report on a paper given by Richard Hays (Dean and George Washington Ivey Professor of New Testament at Duke University in Durham, NC), 24 January 2012. Professor Hays is delivering this year’s Gunning Lectures at New College, University of Edinburgh, on the topic “Israel’s Scripture Through the Eyes of the Gospel Writers.” I should note that Professor Hays has let me know that he is preparing a book for publication based upon these Gunning lectures.

RBECS is also on facebook, here.

In the penultimate Gunning lecture, Richard Hays turned his attention to the fourth Gospel where, once again, Jesus is described as “him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote” (John 2:45, RSV). The character of Jesus makes this claim, as well, saying “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me” (John 5:46, RSV). However, like the Synoptics, John does not say specifically where and how Moses and the prophets wrote about Jesus. Rather, it remains for the reader to reconstruct this.

Unlike the Synoptics, though, John’s use of the Old Testament depends on a very few allusions and citations (according to the count of Westcott and Hort, 27 direct citations in John versus 124, 70, and 109 citations in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, respectively), but these references are explored deeply over a longer stretch of the narrative, in what Hays calls sustained meditation. Read the rest of this entry »


The Letters of Jerome: Asceticism, Biblical Exegesis, and the Construction of Christian Authority in Late Antiquity

In Andrew CAIN, Early Christianity, Epistolography, Jerome, Justin A. Mihoc, Oxford University Press, Patristics, Reception history, Scripture on January 28, 2012 at 1:31 pm

2012.01.02 | Andrew Cain, The Letters of Jerome: Asceticism, Biblical Exegesis, and the Construction of Christian Authority in Late Antiquity. Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Pp. xiv + 286. isbn: 978-0-19-956355-5 (Hardback). £67.00.

Reviewed by Justin A. Mihoc, Durham University.

This is a pre-print version of the review published in Sobornost: incorporating Eastern Churches Review 33.1 (2011), pp. 90-93.

This highly erudite and fascinating monograph by Andrew Cain, an already prominent Jerome scholar, focuses on Jerome of Stridon’s epistles and their (intended) reception. Read the rest of this entry »


Richard Hays, “The One Who Redeems Israel: Reading Scripture with Luke”

In Edinburgh, Gospels, Gunning Lectures, HB/OT, Intertextuality, Kerry Lee, Luke-Acts, New Testament, NT Theology, Richard HAYS, Scripture, Septuagint on January 26, 2012 at 5:40 pm

A report on a paper given by Richard Hays (Dean and George Washington Ivey Professor of New Testament at Duke University in Durham, NC), 23 January 2012. Professor Hays is delivering this year’s Gunning Lectures at New College, University of Edinburgh, on the topic “Israel’s Scripture Through the Eyes of the Gospel Writers.” I should note that Professor Hays has let me know that he is preparing a book for publication based upon these Gunning lectures.

RBECS is also on facebook, here.

Continuing in his investigation of the ways the Gospels use the Old Testament, Professor Hays turned, in his fourth Gunning lecture, to the Gospel of Luke. The launching point for Hays’ discussion was Jesus’ post-resurrection interaction with the disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24:13-35. Focusing on the disciples’ ironic statement “We had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel” as a hermeneutical key to the narrator’s understanding of Jesus’ significance, and on Jesus response which took them through “Moses and all the Prophets” explicating himself, Hays identifies redemption as a recurrent theme in Luke and asks what is it in “Moses and all the Prophets” that points to Jesus as that redeemer. Read the rest of this entry »


Richard Hays, “Torah Reconfigured: Reading Scripture with Matthew”

In Edinburgh, Gospels, Gunning Lectures, HB/OT, Hermeneutics, Intertextuality, Kerry Lee, Matthew, New Testament, NT Theology, Richard HAYS, Scripture, SEMINAR REPORTS, Septuagint on January 25, 2012 at 8:29 am

A report on a paper given by Richard Hays (Dean and George Washington Ivey Professor of New Testament at Duke University in Durham, NC), 19 January 2012. Professor Hays is delivering this year’s Gunning Lectures at New College, University of Edinburgh, on the topic “Israel’s Scripture Through the Eyes of the Gospel Writers.”

RBECS is also on facebook, here

Professor Hays’ third lecture in the 2012 Gunning series focused on the Gospel of Matthew, whose use of the Old Testament has become a central feature of the scholarly characterisation of the New Testament’s overall appropriation of the Old Testament. Very often, the Gospel writers’ use of the Old Testament is understood as a series of proof-texts which show no concern for the meaning or context of the cited or alluded Old Testament reference. Professor Hays’ aim in these lectures, and especially in this one, is to challenge this view by closely reading the Gospels with special sensitivity to the unique narrative strategies of the individual writers.

The intertextual strategy of Matthew in many ways makes a striking contrast with that of Mark. Read the rest of this entry »


Richard Hays, “Unexpected Echoes: Reading Scripture with Mark”

In Edinburgh, Gospel of Mark, Gunning Lectures, HB/OT, Hermeneutics, Kerry Lee, Messianic secret, New Testament, Richard HAYS, Scripture, SEMINAR REPORTS on January 19, 2012 at 7:16 pm

A report on a paper given by Richard Hays (Dean and George Washington Ivey Professor of New Testament at Duke University in Durham, NC), 17 January 2012. Professor Hays is delivering this year’s Gunning Lectures at New College, University of Edinburgh, on the topic “Israel’s Scripture Through the Eyes of the Gospel Writers.”

RBECS is also on facebook, here.

Professor Hays’ lecture series continued with a closer examination of the way allusions to Old Testament passages in the Gospel of Mark portray Jesus as mysteriously but directly embodying the presence of God, contrary to a certain tendency in New Testament scholarship to posit an early low Christology (evident in the Gospel of Mark, among other places) which evolved into a higher Christology (evident in, for example, the Gospel of John). He began with a reflection on the insufficiency of certain terms to encompass all that Mark’s Gospel asserts about Jesus. Read the rest of this entry »


Richard Hays, “Can the Gospels Teach Us How to Read the OT?”

In Edinburgh, Gunning Lectures, HB/OT, Kerry Lee, New Testament, Richard HAYS, Scripture, SEMINAR REPORTS on January 17, 2012 at 4:56 pm

A report on a paper given by Richard Hays (Dean and George Washington Ivey Professor of New Testament at Duke University in Durham, NC), 16 January 2012. Professor Hays is delivering this year’s Gunning Lectures at New College, University of Edinburgh, on the topic “Israel’s Scripture Through the Eyes of the Gospel Writers.”

RBECS is also on facebook, here.

Professor Hays’ first presentation in his series was, in part, an introduction to the problem underlying the remainder of the lectures: it is frequently accused of the New Testament that its proclamation of Jesus rests on twisted and tendentious readings of the Hebrew Bible. The Old Testament, it is asserted, is silent about Jesus, meaning, first, that the conceptual background for the New Testament resides elsewhere than Israel’s scriptures and, second, that one cannot objectively view Christianity as being in continuity with the faith of the Old Testament. Read the rest of this entry »


Scribal Habits of Codex Sinaiticus

In Codex Sinaiticus, Dan Batovici, Dirk JONGKIND, Gorgias, New Testament, Scribal habits, Scripture, Septuagint, Textual Criticism on June 2, 2011 at 12:33 pm

2011.06.05 | Dirk Jongkind. Scribal Habits of Codex Sinaiticus. Texts and Studies 5; Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2007. Pp. xvii + 323. ISBN: 9781593334222. Hardback

Reviewed by Dan Batovici, University of St Andrews.

Visit us on facebook too. Many thanks to Gorgias Press for the review copy. A shorter version of this review is now published in Sacra Scripta 9.2 (2011).

This is the published version of Dirk Jongkind’s doctoral dissertation, written under Peter Head at Cambridge and defended in 2005. Read the rest of this entry »


Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer, “The Geographical and Theological Location of Isaiah 40-55”

In David J. Larsen, HB/OT, Lena-Sofia TIEMEYER, Scripture, SEMINAR REPORTS, St Andrews on March 24, 2011 at 12:55 pm

This is a report on a seminar paper presented by Dr Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer, Lecturer in Old Testament/Hebrew Bible School of Divinity, History and Philosophy, King’s College, University of Aberdeen, in the Biblical Studies Seminar at the School of Divinity, St Mary’s College, University of St Andrews, on 14 Oct 2010. This paper represents themes/material taken from Dr Tiemeyer’s recent major publication on Deutero-Isaiah entitled For the Comfort of Zion: The Geographical and Theological Location of Isaiah 40-55 (Vetus Testamentum Supplement 139, Leiden, Brill, 2011).

Dr Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer, in this seminar paper, challenged the academic status quo regarding the understanding of the location for the writing of the section of the Book of Isaiah known as 2nd or Deutero-Isaiah (Isa 40-55).  Read the rest of this entry »


Judith Lieu, “Heresy and Scripture”

In Durham, Heresy, Judith LIEU, Justin A. Mihoc, Scripture, Second century, SEMINAR REPORTS on December 27, 2010 at 5:30 am

This is a report on a paper presented by Professor Judith Lieu, Lady Margaret’s Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, at the New Testament Research Seminar at the Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University, 13th of December 2010.

The list of forthcoming papers in the NT Research Seminars at Durham University will be found here.

In her paper, Prof Lieu examined the ideas of ‘heresy’ and ‘Scripture’ as reflected in the writings of the 2nd century Christian theologians Justin Martyr, Irenaeus and Tertullian. The discussion on heresy is centered on the figure of Marcion and his ‘Gospel’ as a ‘falsification’ of Scripture.

The idea of (Christian) ‘Scripture’, and therefore canon, was coined surprisingly late, beginning with Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 293-373) who mentions a list of books in his 39th Festal Letter. Read the rest of this entry »