Bible Study for Amateurs: Recent Episodes
Ben, the Amateur Exegete
There are a lot of Simons in the New Testament. In this episode we look at one you may not have given much thought to.
Works Cited:
Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary, Hermeneia Commentary Series (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2007), 222-223.
"Καναναῖος," A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, third edition, revised and edited by Fredrick William Danker (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000).
Richard A. Horsley and John S. Hanson, Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs: Popular Movements in the Time of Jesus (Minneapolis, MN: Winston Press, 1985), 216-217.
In his notes on Isaiah 14:12 for the Scofield Reference Bible, C.I. Scofield taught that the diatribe against the king of Babylon was really a veiled reference to the demise of Satan. Let's investigate.
Works Cited:
R.E. Clements, Isaiah 1-39, The New Century Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1980), 142.
C.I. Scofield, The Scofield Reference Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996 [originally published in 1909]), 726.
In chapter 16 of the book of Acts, the narrator switches from using the third person to the first person plural. Why does he do that?
Works Cited
- C.K. Barrett, Acts: A Shorter Commentary (London: T&T Clark, 2002), xxiv.
- William Sanger Campbell, The "We" Passages of the Acts of the Apostles: The Narrator as Narrative Character (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2007), 87-91.
- Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3.14.1. Translation taken from The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1957).
- Mikeal Parsons, Acts, Paideia Commentaries on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 238-240.
Does Jesus's rhetorical question in Mark 10:18 suggest his divinity?
Works Cited:
Erik Manning, "18 Passages from Mark's Gospel That Prove That Mark Had a High Christology" (12.27.18), isjesusalive.com.
Joel Marcus, Mark 8-16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, The Anchor Yale Bible (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 721, 725-726.
Does the scene in Mark 6 wherein Jesus walks to the disciples on the water signal Mark's belief in Jesus's divinity or does it point to something else?
Works Cited:
Michael J. Kok, "Jesus' Imperial Authority over the Sea in Mark 6:45-52," in The Future of Gospels and Acts Research, edited by Peter G. Bolt (SCD Press, 2021), 123-138.
Erik Manning, "18 Passages from Mark's Gospel That Prove That Mark Had a High Christology" (12.27.18), isjesusalive.com.
In the Gospels of Mark, Luke, and John, the crowds want Pilate to release Barabbas. But in Matthew, the crowd wants them to release Jesus Barabbas. What in the world is going on there?
Works Cited:
Robert E. Moses, "Jesus Barabbas, a Nominal Messiah? Text and History in Matthew 27.16-17," New Testament Studies 58 (2011), pp. 43-56.
Paul is sometimes conceived of in ways that erase or minimize his Jewishness. But what if we interpreted what Paul wrote in terms of his native Judaism?
Works cited:
Paula Fredriksen, "What Does It Mean to See Paul 'within Judaism'?" Journal of Biblical Literature 141, no. 2 (2022), 359-380.
Paul is sometimes conceived of in ways that erase or minimize his Jewishness. But what if we interpreted what Paul wrote in terms of his native Judaism?
Works cited:
Paula Fredriksen, "What Does It Mean to See Paul 'within Judaism'?" Journal of Biblical Literature 141, no. 2 (2022), 359-380.
Paul is sometimes conceived of in ways that erase or minimize his Jewishness. But what if we interpreted what Paul wrote in terms of his native Judaism?
Works cited:
Paula Fredriksen, "What Does It Mean to See Paul 'within Judaism'?" Journal of Biblical Literature 141, no. 2 (2022), 359-380.
The author of Acts uses a variety of terms to describe the earliest Jesus-following community. What is the significance of this?
Works cited:
Paul Trebilco, "The Significance of the Distribution of Self-designations in Acts," Novum Testamentum 54 (2012), 30-49.
Typically scholars refer to Matthew, Mark, and Luke as the Synoptic Gospels. But what if there's a fourth?
Works cited:
- Mark Goodacre, "Parallel Traditions or Parallel Gospels? John's Gospel as a Re-Imagining of Mark," in John's Transformation of Mark, edited by Eve-Marie Becker, Helen K. Bond, Carin H. Williams (London: T&T Clark, 2021), 77-89.
When was Chronicles written? Israel Finkelstein has a clever way of doing so.
Works cited:
Israel Finkelstein, "The Historical Reality behind the Genealogical Lists in 1 Chronicles," Journal of Biblical Literature 131, no. 1 (2012), 65-83.
Nat Ritmeyer, "Ezer, Elead, and Exodus," biblicalhistoricalcontext.com (10.13.17).
Where did the disciples first meet Jesus following the resurrection? Was it in Galilee or in Jerusalem?
When Jesus speaks of the "eye of a needle" in the Gospel of Matthew, was he referring to something tangible like a gate in Jerusalem?
Ziemnińska's piece - https://tinyurl.com/y7r4shkm
There are many different creation stories in the Hebrew Bible. Job 26 has one you may not be familiar with.
Does the book of Jeremiah offer support to the Pro-Life movement the way they think it does?
When Papias speaks of Mark as Peter's "interpreter," how would a reader in the second century CE understand that?
Jude offers hope for the community, as well as a guide for helping those deceived by false teaching.
The first of ten episodes looking at the NT epistle of Jude utilizing some of the tools from my amateur toolbox mentioned in episodes 11-20.
What belongs in every amateur exegete's toolbox? Let's take a look at my own, beginning with The HarperCollins Study Bible.
When Jesus died, the Gospel of Mark says that there was darkness over the world for three hours. What in the world happened?