John has shared a review of the new Jewish Annotated New Testament, which was available for quite a bargain at SBL in San Francisco. There was also a reception for it, although I dropped by just before it began and got the impression it was a private function (the rope with the sign that said “private function” lead me to this conclusion). John reflects on the significance of a project like this for Jews and for Christians, and shares some impressions and a couple critiques. It’s a thoughtful piece.
Tag Archives: John Hobbins
John Hobbins on The Jewish Annotated New Testament
Hobbins on Jewish and Christian Canons
John Hobbins has revised and expanded a collection of posts from 2007 into, bar none, the best blog post I’ve ever seen on the biblical canon. It limits itself, chronologically, to the Greco-Roman period, but that’s really all that’s necessary when it comes to the origins of the notion of a canon. If you’re interested in the development of the Jewish or Christian canons this is absolutely a must-read.
Quotable: John Hobbins
I appreciated John Hobbins’ recent post on secularism and Jürgen Habermas. You’ll have to read it for yourself, but a particularly well-written comment starts it off:
The great risk of Western culture – its enormous faults notwithstanding – is that it will no longer transmit its peculiar gifts to the world as a whole. The risk is to itself in the first place, that it has become a cut-flower civilization, the beautiful bloom of a plant rooted in the soil of millennia past, a past, however, from which it has cut itself off. Once that happens, it is destined to perish against the orange and pink of a beautiful sunset, no matter how stately it appears, a single green stem without roots, in the splendid isolation a crystal vase affords. The darkness of twilight cannot but settle upon it.
I think a large portion of secularists assume that the world and her cultures arrived at their present state in spite of faith and religion rather than as a result of it. I disagree with that assumption. Great post, John.
John Hobbins and His “S” Source
John Hobbins over at Ancient Hebrew Poetry posits a hypothetical S source for Matthew, Mark, and Luke (specifically Mark 1:16-28; Matt 4:18–22; 7:28–29; Luke 4:31–37). It’s well worth a read.
UPDATE: John’s got a follow up comparing his S source to Matthew and Mark, concluding (among other things) it was unlikely Matthew used Mark as a source.
