An Albanian Manuscript Treasure Trove

Dan Wallace announces

CSNTM went to Albania to photograph 13 NT manuscripts this past summer. When the team got there, they were surprised that the National Archive in Tirana had more than just the 13—far more. Altogether, 47 MSS were photographed (18,000 pictures), and at least 17 of the MSS were previously unknown to western scholars. More coming out in the CT article.

According to Dan

Christianity Today’s website is going to post more details; the story is scheduled to be posted on Monday, March 10.

So look for it tomorrow.

Nine Reasons You Should Read My Blog

This list of nine is a protest against the list of nine given by David Ker (even though he says there’s ten).  So, to understand what I mean below you’ll have to read Dave’s first.  And now- the 9 reasons you read my blog:

1-  You have an innate ability to concentrate for short periods of time (since no post here is long).

2- You can add up to ten!

3- You’re able to both spell correctly and see when others can’t.

4- No smarmy gizmos or silly panderings to your technological fancy here- just the facts.

5- This is an ad free zone.  Always has been, always will be.

6- Bible Studies.  You want them, you love them, and I tell you about the best of them.

7- You loathe cats- and if you don’t one day you will (when you spring from the darkness into the light).

8- You are a person of theological integrity, incapable of either fundamentalism or its narcissistic sister, infallibility.  And accordingly you love Zwingli more than life itself.

9- Just as you’ll find no ads here, you’ll never see a discussion of any sport but College Basketball (which is the only sport that matters).

That’s why you read here.  That, or to keep up with the latest news of concern to biblical/archaeological studies.  Or perhaps just because you are discerning and intelligent.  Yeah, it’s the last two.

James Barr’s Collected Works

Sometimes the best thing about SBL meetings and the like is what one learns about things to come.  For instance, this year at the Regional meeting we were informed that John Barton is editing a three volume edition of Barr’s writings which will be published (I have since discovered) by Oxford University Press.

This project isn’t near completion or anything like that, but it is worth noting so that it’s ‘on the radar screen’ of those who in the future may be interested in it.  Which, I imagine, will be everyone.  So- here’s the summary: John Barton will edit 3 volumes of James Barr’s works and publish them with Oxford University Press.

Zwingli and the Birth of the Swiss Reformation

March 9, 1522, at the home of the Zurich printer Froschauer. It was Lent and eating meat was forbidden. But for Zwingli and those assembled, the issues at hand were larger than tradition; he and his compatriots were concerned about the direction of the Church and it’s erroneous theology. And they were more than willing to stir things up to change course.

And stir things up they did! To us, the eating of meat during Lent might not seem like an earth shaking event, but in the 16th Century it was a revolution. Zwingli himself didn’t eat the greasy sausage- but his presence allowed one and all to know that he not only approved, but supported the action. So he was forced to explain himself, which he did in print on April 16 with the publication of his previously preached sermon (from March 23) “Von Erkiesen und Freiheit der Speisen.” This sermon was the rallying cry for the Swiss Reformation and became rightly and justly famous.

But this was just the beginning.  There was a small riot in Basle when someone there ate pork on no less day than Palm Sunday!  And an official complaint was lodged against Zwingli with the Bishop of Constance after the aforementioned sermon.  But the birth of a movement is often as painful and wrenching as any physical birth- as Zwingli and his friends would soon discover!  Zwingli had stirred a pot and there would be no calming for decades.