So What Do Profs Like Doug Moo and Grant Osborne Talk about When They Carpool?

December 20, 2012 by Andy Naselli

The opening of Doug Moo’s chapter in Grant Osborne’s Festschrift made me smile:

I consider it a great privilege to be able to contribute an essay to this volume honoring a good friend and, for many years, colleague, Grant Osborne. We served together at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School for over twenty years, years that cemented our relationship not only professionally but personally. We lived in the same neighborhood as the Osbornes for many years, and our families grew up together. Seared in my memory especially are times spent with Grant and other Trinity colleagues in an automobile, as we car-pooled together back and forth to Trinity. Students sometimes wondered at the deep theological discussions we profs must have been having during those rides; but I am afraid that our topics of conversation more often focused on the Chicago Bears or Bulls than on millennialism or supra-lapsarianism!

-Douglas J. Moo, “Translation in New Testament Commentaries,” On the Writing of New Testament Commentaries: Festschrift for Grant R. Osborne on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday (ed. Stanley E. Porter and Eckhard J. Schnabel; Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 8; Leiden: Brill, 2013), 57.

Keeping Holiday: “You don’t find the Founder; he finds you. He’s not just the Founder; he’s the Finder, too.”

December 18, 2012 by Andy Naselli

I recently read this book to my daughter Kara, and she hung on every word:

Starr Meade. Keeping Holiday. Illustrations by Justin Gerard. Wheaton: Crossway, 2008. 192 pp.

Here’s what Jenni and I wrote about it in 2008 in a Themelios review entitled “Theology for Kids: Recommending Some Recent Books for Younger Children”: [Read more…] about Keeping Holiday: “You don’t find the Founder; he finds you. He’s not just the Founder; he’s the Finder, too.”

Don Carson’s Three Secrets of Productivity and Godly Efficiency

December 13, 2012 by Andy Naselli

The January 2013 issue of Tabletalk interviews Don Carson. One of the questions is this:

Given the large quantity of high quality of work you are able to produce, what does your average workday and workweek look like?

Don answers (pp. 68–70, numbering and formatting added),

My schedule varies so much from day to day and from week to week that it is difficult to give you a realistic picture. [Read more…] about Don Carson’s Three Secrets of Productivity and Godly Efficiency

The Three Latest Volumes in the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the NT

December 11, 2012 by Andy Naselli

Here are the three latest volumes in the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (each published within the last month or so):

Eckhard J. Schnabel. Acts. 1162 pp. 12-page PDF sample available here.
David W. Pao. Colossians & Philemon. 462 pp. 12-page PDF sample available here.
Gary S. Shogren. 1 & 2 Thessalonians. 375 pp. 14-page PDF sample available here.

Jesus the Son of God: A Christological Title Often Overlooked, Sometimes Misunderstood, and Currently Disputed

December 6, 2012 by Andy Naselli

This is D. A. Carson’s latest book:

Jesus the Son of God: A Christological Title Often Overlooked, Sometimes Misunderstood, and Currently Disputed. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012. 128 pp.

This short little book is based on some lectures Carson gave earlier this year. It has three chapters:

“Son of God” as a Christological Title
“Son of God” in Select Passages [Hebrews 1 and John 5:16–30]
“Jesus the Son of God” in Christian and Muslim Contexts

Carson explains in the preface (pp. 11–12),

I chose the topic about three years ago. Some work I had done while teaching the epistle to the Hebrews, especially Hebrews 1 where Jesus is said to be superior to angels because he is the Son, prompted me to think about the topic more globally. Moreover, for some time I have been thinking through the hiatus between careful exegesis and doctrinal formulations. We need both, of course, but unless the latter are finally controlled by the former, and seen to be controlled by the former, both are weakened. The “Son of God” theme has become one of several test cases in my own mind. Since choosing the topic, however, the debates concerning what a faithful translation of “Son of God” might be, especially in contexts where one’s envisioned readers are Muslims, have boiled out of the journals read by Bible translators and into the open. [Read more…] about Jesus the Son of God: A Christological Title Often Overlooked, Sometimes Misunderstood, and Currently Disputed

On the Writing of New Testament Commentaries: Festschrift for Grant R. Osborne

December 4, 2012 by Andy Naselli

It’s a pleasure to watch a godly scholar honored with and genuinely surprised by a Festschrift. (A Festschrift is a collection of writings published in honor of a scholar.) That’s what happened to Grant Osborne on November 14, 2012, in Milwaukee at the Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society.

A few hundred people filled up a convention room to hear a 2.5-hour session on “Writing and Reading Commentaries,” but right out of the gate Eckhard Schnabel revealed the surprise that it was primarily a time to present a Festschrift to Grant Osborne. And it was moving to watch Grant receive a standing ovation from admiring peers and former students.

Here’s info on the Festschrift:

Stanley E. Porter and Eckhard J. Schnabel, eds. On the Writing of New Testament Commentaries: Festschrift for Grant R. Osborne on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday. Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 8. Leiden: Brill, 2013.