Undeception

An unnamed Jesus Creed contributor writes (does that mean it’s Scot?):

No passage in the New Testament ever describes the groups it assumes everyone knows. Yet, we beg for those descriptions and so scholars over the years have sketched and re-sketched, and then discarded and reconstructed what can be known about those groups. The most recent, and thoroughly readable — and every church library needs this book and I would say pastors need it and students need to know about it to save them a million errors of caricature — book that sketches these people is by William A. Simmons. The book is called Peoples of the New Testament World: An Illustrated Guide.

Now, I don’t have any inside information on this book — it could be sheer crap — but I was gratified to see an old professor of mine from my undergraduate career publishing something as potentially useful as this. I only had him for two courses (although one was a two-semester course), but I certainly respected him as an individual and, from what I knew at the time anyway, as a scholar. And to be reviewed so favorably by a site like Scot McKnight’s that is high-profile and has a comfortable relationship with current NT scholarship, I’ve gotta say, “Good on you, Dr. Simmons!”

Related posts:

1. Satan in the Old Testament This is the second post in the guest series “Who is Satan?” by Arcamaede. An index for all posts in the series is here. ~...
2. Who is Satan? New Testament Development This is the fourth post in the guest series “Who is Satan?” by Arcamaede. An index for all posts in the series is here. ~...
3. Searchable SBL Greek New Testament with apparatus available online For those who occasionally want quick access to a critical edition of the Greek New Testament with variants from within your browser, I just came...

February 7th, 2010

Tags: Biblical studies