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Category Archives: Readings

My book picks from Princeton Profs’ Summer Reading

My book picks from Princeton Profs’ Summer Reading

I am always interested in the books that other academics are hoping to read. Recently Princeton released the summer reading that a handful are hoping to tackle this Summer. From those recommendations, I have highlighted the following for my own list:

From AnneMarie Luijendijk’s list:

From Matthew Salganik’s list:

Questioning DRM and Encrypted Media Extensions

Questioning DRM and Encrypted Media Extensions

Danny O’Brien from the Electronic Frontier Foundation says: There is more encryption in the protected pathway that you have built in (without asking) for Hollywood movies to be presented on your screen without you being able to somehow tap them between the computer and the screen…than any of the encryption that actually protects your communications. It’s… Continue Reading

Where is a text’s meaning?

Where is a text’s meaning?

A classic hermeneutical question is, Where does meaning lie, in the author, text, or reader? One exercise I have given students when I taught hermeneutics courses a few years ago is a play on the old ‘if a tree falls and no one is around to hear it’: If a book falls open in the middle of a… Continue Reading

Before Asking, Write Down Your Question

Before Asking, Write Down Your Question

One thing I have enjoyed for the past few years in the UK, both in Durham now and while I was in Edinburgh, is attending seminars and conferences to hear world class scholars visit to lecture. I would estimate that, for one out of every five or six papers, I will venture a question (generally if… Continue Reading

The New Exodus in Recent Scholarship

The New Exodus in Recent Scholarship

Last week I read Daniel Lynwood Smith’s article, “The Uses of ‘New Exodus’ in New Testament Scholarship” CBR 14.2 (2016): 207–243. I think Smith persuasively shows that the term is a helpful, if problematic, description that likely originated in Isaiah studies, possibly with J. A. Alexander, The Later Prophecies of Isaiah (NY/London: Wiley and Putnam, 1847),… Continue Reading

J. B. Lightfoot Manuscripts

J. B. Lightfoot Manuscripts

Ben Witherington talks here about his discovery of many unpublished commentary manuscripts by J. B. Lightfoot that Witherington discovered at the Durham Cathedral library while on sabbatical at St John’s College, Durham University (where I work, as it happens). Some of this material is found in the notes of Witherinton & Still (eds.) Acts of the… Continue Reading

Old Commentaries are Concise

Old Commentaries are Concise

I was just referencing Ernst Haenchen’s The Acts of the Apostles (transl. from 1965 German edition) and reminded once again of how concise some of the older commentators can be. It is refreshing, really. It is for this reason I still prefer to consult I. Howard Marshall’s (1978) commentary on Luke often–He can say in half as many… Continue Reading

New College, Edinburgh: An American Link

New College, Edinburgh: An American Link

In the evenings I have begun reading New College Edinburgh: A Centenary History (1946), which I picked up at an Edinburgh book sale last year (a gem, I’ll say). I was interested to learn that in setting up the college in the mid 19th century, Revd. Dr. Cunningham, one of four early professors involved, was sent to America to survey… Continue Reading