Chris Moore

14th
June

Can we believe in the resurrection?

“The Christian claim from the beginning was that the question of Jesus’s resurrection was a question, not of the internal mental and spiritual states of his followers a few days after his crucifixion, but about something that had happened in the real, public world.

This “something” left not only an empty tomb, but a broken loaf at Emmaus and footprints in the sand by the lake among its physical mementoes. It also left his followers with a lot of explaining to do, but with a transformed worldview which is only explicable on the assumption that something really did happen, even though it stretched their existing worldviews to breaking point.”

N T Wright on the resurrection. Read it all.

13th
June

The Gospel of John by J Ramsey Michaels

“Yet one of the highest tributes to any commentary is this: Certainly when I am studying passages in John’s Gospel in the future, I will judge my study to be incomplete until I have pulled Michaels off the shelf and read him carefully.”

Don Carson on the new NICOT commentary on John. Given that Carson’s own commentary on John is a good one, that’s a pretty high commendation.

12th
June

A visit to the Holy Mountain

“On this Easter Sunday, we’re going to take you to a place outside our world. It’s not Mars or Venus but it might as well be. It’s a remote peninsula in northern Greece that millions believe to be the most sacred spot on Earth.

It’s called Mount Athos and prayers have been offered there every day, with no interruption, for more than a thousand years. It was set aside by ancient emperors to be the spiritual capital of Orthodox Christianity and has probably changed less over the centuries than any other inhabited place on the planet. The monks come to Mount Athos from all over and do everything they can to keep what they call “the world” far away.”

“60 Minutes” gets extremely rare access to the monasteries at Mt. Athos. Go watch.

11th
June

Over the past few years I’ve become convinced that one of the great holes in New Testament studies is the Roman Empire. Few courses, or textbooks, seem to give much attention to Rome and yet it is the great context in which the New Testament is written. It has become the elephant (eagle?) in the room.

So I am busily beavering away on listing some online resources, but in the meantime go and listen to the University of Bristol on the Aeneid.

10th
June

Questions about “Monotheism”

“Since my 1988 book, I’ve urged that if “monotheism” is used at all it has to be informed by the specifics of the beliefs and practices of those to whom we apply the term, and I’ve also contended that there are varieties of “monotheism”. So, e.g., I proposed that the chronological data require us to see the eruption of a remarkable Jesus-devotion originating as a religious innovation within Roman-era Jewish tradition, producing a novel “mutation” in ancient Jewish monotheism in which two distinguishable figures (God and Jesus) are programmatically treated as unique recipients of devotion.”

Worth a read. If nothing else, it is useful to see that our assumptions about Monotheism are conditioned by Christian tradition and may not reflect the reality of the first century.

9th
June

Faith and Theology: Audio lecture: lessons from Augustine’s De Trinitate

“Over the past several weeks, my class on the trinity has been working through Augustine’s De Trinitate – an immense challenge! Today we reached the great finale of Book 15. So I tried to sum up Augustine’s theology of the trinity in a final lecture, outlining a series of brief “lessons from Augustine”. I had to record the lecture for some of the students, so I thought I’d also post it here. If you’re interested, you can listen below – there are six short parts, each about 10 minutes:”

Go grab them here. From Ben Myers’ Faith and Theology blog.

8th
June

Worship in Ancient Religion

“In response to some comments and questions directed to my posting (4 May) on the term “monotheism,” I want to emphasize the particular importance of worship in the ancient religious setting. For a variety of historical reasons, western scholars have tended to focus on religious beliefs, doctrines, and the terminology used to express them, and often have neglected worship. I’ll try to be concise in making some observations, the cumulative force of which is this: In the ancient religious environment worship was the key expression of what we mean by “religion”, and the key religious question was what, when and how you worshipped. The following points are illustrative of this.”

Read it all at Larry Hurtado’s Blog.

4th
June

Editions of the Divine Office Online

Rather frequently I am asked the question, “I don’t have a breviary but would like to try pray it. Where can I recite the divine office for free online?” This has come up again in recent weeks.

Go have a look.

12th
November

Why Should We Study the Old Testament?

In other words, if you only study the New Testament you will, at best, only gain a partial understanding of biblical perspectives. At most, you might misunderstand certain themes entirely.

The new monasticism revisited

Today I am less convinced that “monasticism” is a helpful descriptor for intentional forms of ecclesial life today.

Halden Doerge makes the point.