Seneca: Can anyone be found who would willingly die on a cross?

‘Can anyone be found who would prefer wasting away in pain dying limb by limb, or letting out his life drop by drop, rather than expiring once for all? Can any man be found willing to be fastened to the accursed tree, long sickly, already deformed, swelling with ugly weals on shoulders and chest, and [...]

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Jesus’ Death and the Temple in the Gospel of Mark

The Death of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark
The purpose of my last few months of research has been to explore, within the narrative of the gospel of Mark, the link between Jesus’ death and the Temple.  This link is clearly to be seen at the surface level of the passion narratives where the  Temple [...]

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An Evening of Eschatology

Here is the blurb,
The following is background by John Piper on this event and the issues being discussed. Listen to the audio or watch the video for the conversation itself. On September 27, 2009, Desiring God and Bethlehem College & Seminary hosted “An Evening on Eschatology” at the Downtown Campus of Bethlehem Baptist Church in [...]

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Springboard, Research and Atonement

A few years ago, as I was applying to do ordination training and a research degree at Trinity College,  I read Tom Wright’s response to ‘Pierced for our Transgressions’. In this critique, in which he described the book as sub-biblical, he lamented the fact that discussion of the atonement often bypasses the Gospels and heads [...]

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Richard Bauckham and James Crossley: Jesus and the Eyewitnesses

Richard Bauckham, who recently recieved the prestigious Ramsey Prize, discusses his book Jesus and Eyewitnesses with James Crossley.  Click Here for the audio
Thanks to Chris Tilling for the link.

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Jesus and the Rhetorical Reversal

In Mark 11:17 we see Jesus citing two Old testament passages.
17 Then he began to teach them and said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have turned it into a den of robbers!” (NET bible)
καὶ ἐδίδασκεν καὶ ἔλεγεν αὐτοῖς· οὐ γέγραπται ὅτι
ὁ οἶκός [...]

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Mark 13: The Temple, tribulation and the arrival of the Eschaton Part 4

Vindication of the Son of Man
R.T France rejects a parousia understanding of this passage as the text does not speak of the ’son of man’ coming to earth but on the basis of its Daniellic background is to be understood, with Mark 8:38, as ‘enthronement, of the the ‘one like the son of man’ coming [...]

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Mark 13: The Temple, Tribulation and the Arrival of the Eschaton Part 3

‘The Coming of the Son of Man: Mark 13:24-27

Although popular and naive positivist readings from the text can lead us, at times, to similar interpretative conclusions as the most ardent hermeneutically sensitive scholar.1—I do not want to place authentic reading of scripture simply into the realm of the academy—the hermeneutical chasm, in passages, [...]

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Mark 13: Temple, Tribulation and the Arrival of the Eschaton Part 1

Jesus, if the Jesus tradition contained in the synoptic gospels is at all a reliable witness to the Historical Jesus, proclaimed the arrival of the kingdom of God and also issued a warning of the judgement which would soon fall, on the nation, the city and the temple. We follow George Caird and Ben [...]

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Dr Timothy Gray Mp3

A couple of weeks ago I read the excellent monograph (based on his doctoral work) of Dr Timothy Gray entitled ‘Jesus and the temple: The narrative role of the temple in the Gospel of Mark’.

The Temple in the Gospel of Mark
A Study in its Narrative Role
Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, 2 Reihe – WUNT [...]

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