Sturtz Stuff

Prof. Francis Watson (Durham) has just produced an intriguing line-by-line analysis of the Coptic of the newly-publicized “Jesus’ Wife” fragment, in which he argues that it is a collage of phrases, mainly from the Gospel of Thomas, by some modern forger/prankster. You can read the essay here .

In Acts 8 a little known disciple named Philip is told to take a southern dessert road down to the city of Gaza.    Gaza, at this time, was a city that had been destroyed 100 years earlier and would not be rebuilt for another 30 years after this moment. This means that Philip was sent to a city that did not exist. Gaza was a ghost town. It was also about 50 miles southwest of Jerusalem which equals about a solid two day walk. It is fascinating to look at this story and see that this is sometimes how God works. Sometimes he will plant in us some vision, direction or hunch. A hunch that we are to go someplace and do something that does not always come across as the best strategy. Philip is being sent to a ghost town which does not sound like the best strategy. As Philip journeys to Gaza he discovers that the real goal was not Gaza but who he meets on the road. Along the route to Gaza Philip meets an Ethiopian, shares the good news, performs a baptism and then seems to vanis...

 Here is a recent blog post by Larry Hurtado on the so called "Jesus' wife" text that has been announced. Larry is a New Testament and Christian origins scholar. Here is his take on the Jesus wife buisness from his blog .  It would be helpful to other scholars to have Prof. King’s full paper, but in the meantime, the Harvard Divinity School page on the item gives a proposed transcription, translation, and a “Q&A” section as well here . For her own personal, initial “take” on the item by a respected scholar in ancient “gnostic” texts, see April DeConick’s blog posting here . Aside from the need to have further analysis of the likely date and authenticitity of the fragment, there are also a few other matters that make some of the news claims . . . exaggerated, or at least premature. The Coptic of line 4 of the text appears to have Jesus referring to “my wife/woman”, but it is actually not explicit that this refers to the “Mary” mentioned in the preceding line as “...

In Acts 6 some false witnesses have been produced against Stephen. Stephen has been selected, along with seven other men, to oversee the daily distribution of food (also see Acts 2). Acts 6 tells us that Stephen has been doing some amazing things beyond distributing food. Stephen has been preaching about Jesus, debating fellow Jews and performing acts of healing. Those feeling threatened by Stephen’s message and actions have brought him before the Sanhedrin to answer the charges leveled against him. The Sanhedrin is the most powerful Jewish court at the time. They are like the Supreme Court and have the power to issue the death penalty. When Stephen is brought before the Sanhedrin he is asked “Are these charges true?” (Acts 7:1). What is interesting is that the charges are not true. Stephen could answer the question with a simple “no”.   Instead Stephen produces the second longest sermon in the whole Bible and the longest sermon in the book of Acts. Stephen answers their quest...

Here is a great read from Roger Olson on the issue of the priesthood of all believers. He is mostly addressing his writing towards those of the Baptist tradition. While churches connected to the Restoration Movement like the Indep. Christian Churches and Churches of Christ would shutter to know . . . but the Baptist tradition and the Restoration Movement were and are both heavily influenced by the Anabaptists. Thus while the article is addressed to Baptists it also hits home with those of us within the Restoration Movement. Below is the article. Click here to go to the original post by Roger Olson. The priesthood of the believer, of every believer equally, is one of the cornerstones of Baptist doctrine and practice. As we can see from 1 Peter 2:9 it is also a biblical doctrine. The New Testament calls Christians “a royal priesthood” without exceptions. But today there is a great deal of confusion about this bedrock Baptist belief. What does it mean? How doe...

My first job was at a local grocery store. My job, along with about 4 others, was to unload the daily supply truck. There were boxes filled with beans, shampoo, paper towels and such that needed to be taken off the truck and placed onto stocking carts. The carts would be taken out into the store to restock the shelves. This first job was my entry into the “working world”. I was given lots of advice from various managers at the store, family and friends on how best to handle the job. Most of the advice boiled down to one main motto “work smarter not harder”. I suppose at the heart of this motto is the understanding that if one works smarter than work will not become difficult. Yet, for most of my co-workers at the grocery store work was something that did not involve brains or smarts. They would rather be like “the Dude” from the 1998 movie the Big Lebowski then do anything resembling the definition of work. Thus work was something that became associated with words like hard, tedious,...