Psalms 2 and 110 are often described as “coronation” psalms. J. Day offers these observations:[1]
Jehoiada the priest put the crown upon Josiah and gave him the testimony (2 Kgs 11:12). This could be the “decree” of Psa …
Philo describes the Therapeutae in On the Contemplative Life.[1] These were a Jewish studious religious sect (“the disciples of Moses”, On the Contemplative Life, 63-64) found throughout the Roman Empire but mainly in Egypt (On the Contemplative Life, …
From his birth Jacob is locked in a struggle for supremacy with his brother Esau, whose heel he grabs. R. Alter observes, “In this instance, the etymology is transparent: Ya’aqob (Jacob) and ‘aqeb (heel). The grabbing of the heel by …
The “Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice” are a selection of fragmentary Dead Sea texts that contain songs dedicated to particular Sabbaths in the first quarter of the year; the Songs are for angels to utter in the heavenly tabernacle-sanctuary. The …
Motyer observes that “many see the detailed prediction of the personal name of Cyrus in 44:28 as a problem”.[1] It is a dividing line between critical and conservative commentators with each side showing equal conviction. Critical scholars insist …
Scholarship has fashions. In recent years, “reception history” has been in vogue in NT Studies. This is the study of how a NT was received by the early church after the apostles. A fashion can be discerned by the frequency …
The question posed in Isa 66:1 is “Where is the house that ye build unto me?”. It is a text that is taken to firmly indicate the absence of the temple,[1] and it is used to prove that …
The metaphor of “incarnation” is about location – it locates God on earth in a man. The Doctrine of the Trinity asserts that this is the person of God the Son. By way of contrast, the notion of “manifestation” is …
Since W. F. Albright advocated a Canaanite background to Proverbs, scholars have considered the possibility of a goddess being the inspiration for the figure of Lady Wisdom[1]
Introduction
It was at one time posited that before Proverbs was …
The book of Daniel presents exegetes with unique interpretive challenges. In virtually every field “problems” exist, whether they are historical “anomalies”, or problems regarding philology, morphology, semantics or dating. The relatively recent discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls and …
If a prophet receives the word of the Lord and delivers it in the market place or in the king’s court or to a gathering of his disciples, the character of its oral delivery should be preserved in the …
Modern Pauline scholarship is in a state of flux between more traditional views and that of the “New Perspective” on Paul.[1] Within this debate Romans 2 and 3 play a crucial role. N.T. Wright calls Romans 2 …
B. Caird, in The Language and Imagery of the Bible, offers a discussion of the way in which the term “eschatology” has been used in Biblical scholarship up the 1980s.[1] He supplies various definitions which form a useful …
H. Twelftree reviews demonism in Jewish/Hellenistic Literature and summarizes as follows:
“In Greek thought the word daimonion was used in a variety of ways: for a deity (Philo Vit. Mos. 1.276), a lesser deity (Plutarch Rom. 51), a …
If we define a prophetic oracle “unit” to be any discrete amount of text, we can then define a prophetic oracle to be comprised of one or more such units collected together from the same circumstances of delivery. Such …
There is a large amount of advanced bible study carried out around the world. Two statistics illustrate this: firstly, the annual conference for the Society of Biblical Literature attracts more than a thousand participants. It is held in the …