As the November election looms, over 200 leaders in a number of Christian groups and denominations have issued a powerful statement linking our current “crisis of democracy” with values held by American Christians. The lengthy statement is comprehensive and argues, “Democracy stands embattled, facing new threats within our nation and new challenges around the globe… […]
Bible
Friday the 13th and the Heritage of the Goddess
This is being posted on Friday, September 13; there will be another Friday the 13th in December. Friday the 13th (F13) gets a bad rap. Believed by some to be the unluckiest day of the year, many people fear it – probably because both Friday, the day of the week, and the number 13 are […]
Ancient Papyri, Household Codes, Slavery, and non-Western Paul: A Sampling of Current Christian Testament Research
Last year, we reported on the First (2023) Global Virtual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. And we have also discussed Biblical scholarship that has emerged from other SBL meetings (2017, 2020, and 2021). SBL, founded in 1880, is “the oldest and largest learned society devoted to the critical investigation of the Bible from […]
Uncovering Nympha: Scholarship and Female Leadership in the Early Jesus Movement
When one reads standard reference works about the New (Christian) Testament and the early Jesus movement one would almost never know that there is a woman mentioned in the letter to the Colossians. It has taken recent research by female scholars to uncover yet another woman who served the movement in the same ways that […]
Resources for Women’s History Month
In honor of Women’s History Month, here is a sampling of resources about women, especially focused on the early Jesus followers, the New (Christian) Testament, nascent Christianity, and the ancient (Western) world. We are grateful for the scholars (both male and female) who have brought women out of the shadows over the past several decades! […]
Biblical Scholarship: A Report on the First Global Virtual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature
The Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) tried something new in March 2023: holding a virtual global meeting. SBL was founded in 1880 and is “the oldest and largest learned society devoted to the critical investigation of the Bible from a variety of academic disciplines.” SBL holds an Annual Meeting in North America (which now draws […]
Barber, Sanders and Raising the Minimum Wage: Making the Moral and Practical Arguments
The Rev. Dr. William Barber II, known to Americans as the co-leader of the Poor People’s Campaign, a modern resurgence of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr’s final campaign, has founded a new center at Yale Divinity School, the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy. The Center’s mission is “to prepare a new generation […]
Praying the Psalms: Age-Old Jewish Poetry in a Christian Context
Most Sundays, and in many contexts around the world on weekdays as well, Christian worshipers read, sing or chant portions of a Psalm, an entire Psalm or even several Psalms during a service. The standard collection of Psalms, the Psalter, found in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) portion of the Bible, is “an anthology of […]
New Research on Mary Called the Magdalene
As we saw earlier, feminist scholarship has brought to light the leadership role that the woman known as Mary Magdalene from the New (Christian) Testament had in the early days of the Jesus movement. As we noted, she appears numerous times in the Christian Testament and in all four gospels: Matthew 27.55-56, 61; 28.1; Mark […]
The 2021 Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature: Reflections on the Professional Study of Religion
The Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), founded in 1880, no longer focuses primarily on literature – the texts of the Bible in their original languages (Hebrew for what is generally referred to as the Old Testament and Greek for the so-called New Testament). The Society’s international membership of over 8,000 is open to professionals and […]