jkdoyle.com

One cool thing I learned from the Biblical Studies Carnival 41 was that Mark Goodacre, associate professor of NT at Duke, was doing a podcast blog:  podacre.  The subtitle for podacre is:  "Weekly podcast about the world of Biblical scholarship with special reference to the New Testament and Christian origins"

I'm planning on subscribing to his episodes.

James McGrath has hosted the content-packed and entertaining Biblical Studies Carnival 41 over at ExploringOurMatrix.  Be sure to check it out.

And to brag just a bit, four of my posts made the list!

Next up in this parade, the amazing size-changing text performs for your entertainment! Watch it grow, watch it shrink!
Jimmy Doyle looked at the evidence for the longer and shorter text in Luke 22:14-20, as well as posting on the parable in Luke 16:1-14.

and

Good Friday/Crucifixion posts
Near Emmaus offered a round-up of Good Friday posts, kindly saving me the trouble. Nevertheless, deserving separate mention are Mark Goodacre's podcasts (on his podcast blog, Podacre) providing 4-minute treatments of the Passion Narratives,

Jesus’ Trial and Arrest, and his Crucifixion and Burial. See too Jimmy Doyle's post on early depictions of the crucifixion. Darrell Bock was involved in discussions about the Via Dolorosa.

and

Easter/Resurrection posts
Ken Schenck blogged through Tom Wright's Surprised by Hope.
Jimmy Doyle blogged about the resurrection of Jesus in the New Testament.
Jesus Creed connected resurrection and the New Perspective. Michael Gorman blogged about Paul and the resurrection.

The Biblical Studies Carnival is hosted monthly by different bibliobloggers and is "a monthly carnival showcasing the best of weblog posts in the area of academic biblical studies."  I'm honored to even be listed with the others.  I mean, seriously, look at the links of those listed around mine:  Goodacre, Bock, Schenck, McKnight, Gorman . . . and Doyle?

Enoch fragment from DSS

One of the assumptions of many modern Christians goes something like this:

1. God spoke in OT times
2. He said nothing for four hundred years
3. He started speaking again in the time period of the NT.

A four hundred year gap where nothing happened. Malachi and then… silence.

Now this conclusion is largely based on canonization and seems like a good deduction until one begins to investigate the extant literature from this supposedly quiet period. Furthermore, when one begins to become familiar with this intertestamental literature it becomes clear just how important and influential it was on the worldview and articulation of the NT authors. We may say from a distance of 2300 years that “nothing” was happening, but this would have come as a shock to the people that were writing down all these details of many things that were happening. Read Josephus, the Apocrypha, and the Dead Sea Scrolls and it will become obvious very quickly how narrow this incorrect Christian concept is.

One of the very important stories that was formative in the Second Temple period comes to us by way of a collection now known as 1 Enoch. The book is actually a compilation of books ascribed to the ante-diluvian figure of Enoch–and I plan on writing more on them in the future–but for today’s purposes I would like to bring your attention to one of the most important stories for some groups in Second Temple Judaism: the fall of the Watchers. (read more)

 The collection of works that became 1 Enoch were likely widely read and influential within segments of Judaism and early Christianity.  The text and related literature was among the Dead Sea Scrolls and made up part of the Ethiopic canon.  The NT book of Jude makes direct reference to Enoch literature (Jude 1:14-15) and makes reference to the judgement of angels and "strange flesh" that is clearly drawn from 1 Enoch.  A couple of good sources for the study of 1 Enoch is the OT Pseudepigrapha, the DSS, and the Hermeneia comentary on the text (which I have had checked out from the PTS library for a good while).

"We are afraid of emptiness. Spinoza speaks about our "horror vacui," our horrendous fear of vacancy. We like to occupy-fill up-every empty time and space. We want to be occupied. And if we are not occupied we easily become preoccupied; that is, we fill the empty spaces before we have even reached them. We fill them with our worries, saying, 'But what if ...'

It is very hard to allow emptiness to exist in our lives. Emptiness requires a willingness not to be in control, a willingness to let something new and unexpected happen. It requires trust, surrender, and openness to guidance. God wants to dwell in our emptiness."