The Bible and Interpretation

The Bible Is Not a Friend of Immigrants

By Hector Avalos

One agent knocked at the back door. Another agent knocked at the front door. They were from what was then called the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The agents arrived to take my cousin away (a daughter of my grandmother’s brother) because someone had called the INS to report her. She lived with us along with my great aunt (sister of my grandmother). See complete essay

Philip Davies

By Thomas L. Thompson

The death of my most dear friend Philip Davies on Friday, May 31, by cancer is a great loss to our entire field. He was not only a scholar of great talent and integrity, who interested himself in all that touched biblical studies. He was also ever a scholar of astonishing originality and discipline, whose impact on the field was immeasurable, not least because of the clarity of his arguments and his ability to focus on the rhetorical center of an issue. Who would have dreamt that such a simple distinction as that between the “biblical Israel”, the “ancient Israel” constructed by historians and the “Israel of the past”, which no longer exists, ... See complete essay

The Social Context of the 19^th Century Historical Jesus

By Halvor Moxnes

The 19^th century studies of the historical Jesus seem to be of little interest today. They belong to the early phases of the studies of the historical Jesus and are read only by the historians of that research. Thus, these studies belong to the internal history of theological scholarship, which of course does not attract much interest beyond the specialists. Historical Jesus studies were for a long time the domain of Western theology. Most of its practitioners were from Northern Europe and North America. See complete essay

The Attorney General’s Saint Paul

By Bruce Chilton

His failure, many academics and theologians have pointed out, lies in a disregard for the context of what Paul said in Romans. Sessions claimed that Paul said that people needed “to obey the laws of the government,” and there is no question but that Paul had officers of the Roman Empire in mind, for example those who collected taxes (13:7). But Paul also – and characteristically – asserts that “love is the fulfillment of the law” (13:10). The law he has in mind is the most perfect law there is, the law of Moses. Even the Torah does not actually make justice happen; it only shows that people fall short of justice, and so are in need of grace. See complete essay