Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

Carson and Moo’s Dates for the NT Books

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The below list does not reproduce a particular chart from D. A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo’s Introduction to the New Testament (2d ed.; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), but it is based on the text. They roughly date the twenty-seven New Testament books as follows (though the exact order of the twenty-seven books is fuzzy, e.g., re the prison epistles):

  1. James: around 46–48 (just before the Jerusalem Council)
  2. Galatians: 48 (just prior to the Jerusalem Council)
  3. 1 Thessalonians: 50
  4. 2 Thessalonians: either in late 50 or early 51
  5. 1 Corinthians: probably early in 55
  6. 2 Corinthians: 56 (i.e., within the next year or so of 1 Corinthians)
  7. Romans: 57
  8. Philippians: mid–50s to early 60s if written from Ephesus (61–62 if written from Rome)
  9. Mark: sometime in the late 50s or the 60s
  10. Philemon: probably Rome in the early 60s
  11. Colossians: early 60s, probably 61
  12. Ephesians: the early 60s
  13. 1 Peter: almost surely in 62–63
  14. Titus: probably not later than the mid-60s
  15. 1 Timothy: early to mid-60s
  16. 2 Timothy: early or mid-60s (about 64 or 65)
  17. 2 Peter: likely shortly before 65
  18. Acts: mid-60s
  19. Jude: middle-to-late 60s
  20. Luke: mid or late 60s
  21. Hebrews: before 70
  22. Matthew: not long before 70
  23. John: tentatively 80–85
  24. 1 John: early 90s
  25. 2 John: early 90s
  26. 3 John: early 90s
  27. Revelation: 95–96 (at the end of the Emperor Domitian’s reign)

Book Recommendations from Mike Bullmore

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Last Sunday morning my pastor, Mike Bullmore, included a bulletin insert with twenty-six book recommendations and brief comments. I’ve published it here with Mike’s kind permission, and I’ve updated it in several ways:

  1. combined it into one list: The bulletin insert has two sides. One recommends old standards: “If you are relatively new to CrossWay, these resources are selected with you in mind as they represent values that are foundational and particularly dear to us.” I’ve placed an asterisk (*) by these books. The other side highlights new additions to the CrossWay bookstore.
  2. added ten more books from a similar, previous bulletin insert: Again, I’ve placed an asterisk (*) by books under the category “Old Standards.”
  3. added bibliographic information (e.g., author, subtitles, publisher, year)
  4. added book covers
  5. arranged the books in alphabetical order
  6. added some comments in brackets [Read more…] about Book Recommendations from Mike Bullmore

The Value of the Apocrypha

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This morning a friend emailed me a thoughtful question in response to reading my post last night about the contest between King Darius’ three bodyguards.

I just read your post on 1 Esdras. Very enjoyable to read! I don’t think I have ever read much of the Apocrypha before, but this has piqued my curiosity. Are there any redeeming reasons for reading it? If there are, I would like to know them so I can be aware of them as I read.

Yes, I think that there are redeeming reasons for reading the Apocrypha. Even though Protestants reject its canonical status, the Apocrypha continued to be included between the covers of most English Bibles as late as the nineteenth century, and even the King James Version of 1611 included it. Although many English translations printed a small disclaimer that the Apocrypha was not on par with the Old and New Testaments, it was nonetheless between the same covers with sacred Scripture. The 1599 edition of the Geneva Bible was the first English Bible printed without the Apocrypha. So what was the Apocrypha doing in all those English Bible? Christians believed that it possesses spiritual value. How so? I’d suggest at least three ways that the Apocrypha is valuable: [Read more…] about The Value of the Apocrypha

“Forgiving oneself is, quite frankly, incoherent.”

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And what biblical warrant is there for this easy way many have of talking about “forgiving myself”? In the domain of pop psych, we all know, more or less, what we mean. But in the matrix of Wright’s discussion of what forgiveness is and entails, you have to have two parties to talk about forgiveness: the offender and the offended. Forgiving oneself is, quite frankly, incoherent. One can accept God’s forgiveness, and the forgiveness of others, and press on in various ways. But talk of forgiving oneself merely has the effect of muddying the crispness of the earlier discussion.

-D. A. Carson, review of N. T. Wright, Evil and the Justice of God, RBL (April 23, 2007): 7-8 (emphasis added).

What Is the Strongest? The Contest Between King Darius’ Three Bodyguards

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Earlier this semester I read through the OT Apocrypha. I had read many parts of it before, but a good bit of it was fresh. One of my favorite stories that I had not heard before is the contest between King Darius’ three bodyguards. It’s witty and enjoyable. (And it would serve nicely as an illustration of “truth” in a sermon or lecture.)

Here’s the story from 1 Esdras 3:1–4:42 (NRSV). [Read more…] about What Is the Strongest? The Contest Between King Darius’ Three Bodyguards

Doug Moo on Justification in Romans

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In Douglas J. Moo’s concise article on Romans in the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, he highlights “six aspects of justification in Romans”:

  1. “God justifies people through faith and not through ‘works of the law,’” which “refer to obedience to the OT law, the Torah” and “exclude all works.”
  2. “Justification is available for all human beings, Jew and Gentile, on the same basis of faith.”
  3. “God justifies people by a completely free act of his will: in a word, by ‘grace.’”
  4. “Justification by faith is rooted in the OT.”
  5. “Justification is the product, or extension, of ‘the righteousness of God,’” which “refers to an activity of God: his acting to put people in right relationship to himself.”
  6. “Justification by faith is based in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. . . . In a bold metaphor, Paul claims, in effect, that Christ is now the final, eschatological ‘mercy seat,’ the place where God draws near to human beings for their redemption.”

Moo concludes,

While not the centre of Romans, justification by faith is nevertheless a critical component of Paul’s presentation of the gospel in Romans. The doctrine expresses, in the sphere of anthropology, a crucial element in Paul’s understanding of God’s work in Christ: its entirely gracious character. Not only, then, does justification by faith guard against the Jewish attempt to make works of the law basic for salvation in Paul’s day; it expresses the resolute resistance of Paul, and the NT authors, to the constant human tendency to make what people do decisive for salvation.

I can’t wait to sing about this tomorrow morning with my church!

Ossified Orthodoxy

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Although I think it extremely dangerous to pursue a second blessing attested by tongues, I think it no less dangerous not to pant after God at all, and to be satisfied with a merely creedal Christianity that is kosher but complacent, orthodox but ossified, sound but soundly asleep.

-D. A. Carson, Showing the Spirit: A Theological Exposition of 1 Corinthians 12–14 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987), 160.