Jim Hamilton, associate professor of biblical theology at Southern Seminary, teaches both Hebrew and Greek. This week he shared some wise and motivating advice for beginning Hebrew and Greek students (though it applies in some ways to more advanced students, too):
Publications
I just updated my publications page:
- I reorganized it. Before it was organized chronologically as a single list, but now it is organized chronologically under three categories: books, articles, and reviews.
- I uploaded most of the articles and reviews.
Church Works Media
My friend Chris Anderson introduces a new website: Church Works Media (RSS feed). The site includes some contributions from Joe Tyrpak, a gifted, godly young pastor and one of my close friends (e.g., he’s one of my accountability parters).
Bob Kauflin testifies,
Even though I’m usually associated with a more contemporary style of music than what is found on this site, I deeply resonate with the values of ChurchWorksMedia.com. In my interactions with Chris Anderson over the years, his desire to faithfully communicate in song the truth and wonder of God’s Word has been unmistakable. I’m glad to see the hymns he and others have been writing gain a wider audience through this website.
“Fundamentalist baggage”
Here are a couple of interesting paragraphs from Greg Beale‘s latest book, The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism: Responding to New Challenges to Biblical Authority (Wheaton: Crossway, 2008).
In fact, there is an increasingly popular attitude that the Chicago Statement and the term inerrancy carry significant “fundamentalist baggage,” with all the negative associations that go with the word fundamentalism (e.g., narrow, obscurantist, anti-scholarly, unsophisticated). I have found that this perspective is also shared by some more conservative biblical and theological scholars. This is not the place to discuss the origins of the word fundamentalism and the development of the use of the word. Suffice it to say that what appears to be “fundamentalist” is in the eye of the beholder.
J. I. Packer in his “Fundamentalism” and the Word of God has given a nice, brief discussion of the origins of fundamentalism and how the word has come to be used. Though that was written in the late 1950s, his basic points still hold. There he distinguishes a fundamentalist view of Scripture from an evangelical view, the latter of which he subsequently identified with the Chicago Statement on inerrancy since he himself was one of the more well known among its signatories in 1978 (p. 21).
What We Should Do with Our Money
This morning my pastor, Mike Bullmore, finished his sermon series on 1 Corinthians with a sermon on 1 Corinthians 16 entitled “What We Should Do with Our Money” (37:48 long). Mike hit a home run with this one. It’s an excellent example of how to preach on giving. He approaches it with just the right tone and spirit, and he avoids the errors of both legalism (e.g., “Christians must give exactly 10% of their gross income or else they are robbing God!”) and libertinism (e.g., “Christians are not required to tithe” with the implication that giving is optional).
Here’s a brief overview/paraphrase of the sermon: [Read more…] about What We Should Do with Our Money
Carson: “Mystery and Fulfillment”
I just read s-l-o-w-l-y through a 44-page article for the third time. (The last time I read it was fall 2006.) In my view this is the most brilliant academic article that D. A. Carson has written:
D. A. Carson. “Mystery and Fulfillment: Toward a More Comprehensive Paradigm of Paul’s Understanding of the Old and New.” Pages 393–436 in The Paradoxes of Paul. Vol. 2 of Justification and Variegated Nomism. Edited by D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark A. Seifrid. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 181. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004.
It richly repays repeated, thorough readings. But be warned: it’s dense. What follows is an uneven summary that doesn’t do it justice. (Read the whole thing. It’s worth the price of the book, which amount to a little less than $1 per page.) Understanding this article will help one make connections between the OT and the NT more richly.
Note: Italics in quotations are in the original. [Read more…] about Carson: “Mystery and Fulfillment”
Carson and Moo’s Dates for the NT Books
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):
- James: around 46–48 (just before the Jerusalem Council)
- Galatians: 48 (just prior to the Jerusalem Council)
- 1 Thessalonians: 50
- 2 Thessalonians: either in late 50 or early 51
- 1 Corinthians: probably early in 55
- 2 Corinthians: 56 (i.e., within the next year or so of 1 Corinthians)
- Romans: 57
- Philippians: mid–50s to early 60s if written from Ephesus (61–62 if written from Rome)
- Mark: sometime in the late 50s or the 60s
- Philemon: probably Rome in the early 60s
- Colossians: early 60s, probably 61
- Ephesians: the early 60s
- 1 Peter: almost surely in 62–63
- Titus: probably not later than the mid-60s
- 1 Timothy: early to mid-60s
- 2 Timothy: early or mid-60s (about 64 or 65)
- 2 Peter: likely shortly before 65
- Acts: mid-60s
- Jude: middle-to-late 60s
- Luke: mid or late 60s
- Hebrews: before 70
- Matthew: not long before 70
- John: tentatively 80–85
- 1 John: early 90s
- 2 John: early 90s
- 3 John: early 90s
- Revelation: 95–96 (at the end of the Emperor Domitian’s reign)
Book Recommendations from Mike Bullmore
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:
- 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.
- added ten more books from a similar, previous bulletin insert: Again, I’ve placed an asterisk (*) by books under the category “Old Standards.”
- added bibliographic information (e.g., author, subtitles, publisher, year)
- added book covers
- arranged the books in alphabetical order
- added some comments in brackets [Read more…] about Book Recommendations from Mike Bullmore