Unlikely Origin (2)

The other volume arrived this week. Nothing too special to report about it. Unfortunately not from Briercrest Bible College like its counterpart... This one comes from the Lewis & Clark Library in Helena, Montana.

Unlikely Origin

Yesterday my copy of The Death of the Messiah (vol. 2) by Raymond E. Brown arrived in the mail. It came quickly, and for a very good price. The strange thing is where this book originated... The bookseller, kbooks, shipped the book from Toronto, Ontario, but when I opened the book, a most curious stamping greeted me. The inside cover was stamped "Archibald Library." That sounds awfully familiar! I turned the page to find:

Archibald Library

Briercrest Bible College

Caronport, Saskatchewan, Canada

So, after going through Abebooks and a week of shipping, I end up with a book from a library that I can see from my house. I'm very interested to see where volume 2 comes from in a week or so!

Illinusian Excursion

Last week Jenn and I jumped in the car and drove the 20 hours down to Wheaton, IL to visit Tyler and Tamara and to take in Wheaton College's 19th Annual Theology Conference: Jesus, Paul and the People of God: A Theological Dialogue with N. T. Wright. Click here to listen to/watch/download audio and video from the presenters. There was quite a good cast this year, including N.T. Wright (of course), Dr. Kevin Vanhoozer (whose paper I strongly recommend), Jeremy Begbie, and Richard Hays. Most notable for me was to hear, in his own words, why N. T. Wright does what he does (you can hear if for yourself in his first lecture).

Since we got to Wheaton a day early, I was able to tag along with Tyler to a couple of classes: Hebrews with Doug Moo and Systematical Theology: Atonement with Kevin Vanhoozer. Very excellent. Hebrews felt familiar as I've taken a lot of exegesis classes, and Atonement was a lot of fun because of the jovial nature of Kevin Vanhoozer.

As at most of these 'academic resorts,' as Jenn put it, there was a fairly good book sale. Not a huge amount of publishers were there, but a few: Baker, Wm. Eerdmans, IVP, and one more that I can't recall. I'm the happy owner of a few new friends: Holmes' Apostolic Fathers, N.T. Wright's NTPG, the Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, Snodgrass' Stories of Intent, Bailey's Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, and Perrin and Goodacre's Questioning Q (one of the free books for being one of the first 400 to check in!).

We also had a load of fun traipsing around Wheaton and area, exploring and eating funny American food, like a Buffalo salad, which was a Buffalo burger patti slapped onto some lettuce with a little US flag sticking out of it!

All in all, a super time in Illinois!

"Expletive"

"An expletive is a word which serves no grammatical function, but which fills up a sentence or gives emphasis."

- Moreland and Fleischer. Latin: An Intensive Course. University of California Press, 1977 (p. 15).

Lectio Sodalitas

Two books just arrived today that will pave the way to the Wheaton Theology Conference I'm attending in April: NT Wright's Jesus and the Victory of God and Richard Hays' Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul. Since NT Wright (keynote) and Richard Hays are speaking at the conference, I thought I'd pick up two notable books to acquaint myself with both scholars before I show up to hear them speak. These will have to wait, though, until I'm through Westerholm's Perspectives Old and New on Paul: the Lutheran Paul and His Critics, which has been really helpful in catching me up to speed on Pauline perspectives (and is also hopefully preparing me to think about what I will hear at the conference).

New Friends

It has been another successful library book sale this year. I got there good and early this morning, and it paid off. Here are the new friends for my bookshelf (in preferential order):

1. Studying the Synoptic Gospels (E. P. Sanders and Margaret Davies)
   I'm excited for this one because I'm planning on taking Wes Olmstead's Seminary Gospel Seminar in May. I recently picked up a copy of Aland's Synopsis of the Four Gospels (Greek-English edition). Sanders should be a good guide.
2. NICNT: The Book of the Acts (F. F. Bruce)
   I really like F. F. Bruce. I've been collecting his commentaries.
3. Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah (George W. E. Nickelsburg)
   I don't know much about this stuff, but Nickelsburg sure does. So I figure this book is a good starting point.
4. What the Best College Teachers Do (Ken Bain)
   This one was assigned during my college internship, but because of the heavy courseload I took on that year, I didn't get to read it very carefully. More of a panicked skim. It's a great resource, and now I can read it properly.
5. The Gospel According to St. John (B. F. Westcott)
   All I know about Westcott is that he's a textual critic from a couple of scholastic generations ago. I haven't picked up any commentaries on John thus far, so, for a dollar, I figured I'd give him a try.
6. Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament (James Barr)
   This looks to be an interesting Hebrew resource. I've been reading Alan Black's Linguistics for Students of New Testament Greek, and thought Barr's book might help round out some Hebrew reading.
7. Biblical Hebrew Step by Step: readings from the Book of Genesis (M. Mansoor)
   Hebrew still feels like a lot of work. I'm hoping this book will help to motivate me to get reading.

Good harvest. All for $15! Needless to say, I have my work cut out for me.