Text, Community & Mission

Here is the PDF for 1 Peter 4.

Here is the PDF for 1 Peter 3.13-22.

Here is the PDF for 1 Peter 3.1-12.

Check out Cal.vini.st for a great Bibleworks 8 giveaway.  Pretty sweet.

Here is the PDF for 1 Peter 2.

My work through 1 Peter this week has been highly rewarding and am excited to complete it with chapters 4 and 5 on Monday and Tuesday.  I have not been able to complete each section of the syntactical diagrams since we are moving at such a fast pace, but I will try to catch up this weekend and post the remaining diagrams.  

I have been using a few commentaries but the most helpful has been Achtemeier’s Hermeneia volume.  It has a great mixture of grammatical, cultural and theological comments, the best Hermeneia volume I have used yet.  One aspect of Achtemeier’s treatment I have found most intriguing is his discussion of Peter’s use of participles.  Most translations see a number of independent imperatival participles throughout 1 Peter, however Achtemeier does not see the participle as acting independently at all.  While he some of participles normally translated independent have an imperatival force, such a force comes from context and is not a semantic category and the participles are necessarily still dependent on finite verbs.  In my syntax courses we were taught the independent imperatival participle as a valid semantic category, but Achtemeier has caused me to rethink this a bit.  I am not yet fully convinced, but I am intrigued.

Here’s the next section of 1 Peter.  Any and all disagreements and/or suggestions for improvements are welcomed. Click on each to enlarge or view PDF.

I am working through 1 Peter for an exegesis class at TEDS over the next 2 weeks.  One of the most helpful things I have done in my Greek education has been syntactical diagraming.  For me there is no better way to understand how the clauses fit together to form thoughts and ideas.  It also helps me consider how every word acts in a clause, phrase and sentence instead of simply producing a translation.  Diagramming a passage is the first think I do in my exegesis now.  Sometimes the syntax and grammar of the Greek defies the normal rules of diagramming, the NT authors probably did not write with 21st century students in mind, but even then struggling to see that a section does fit easily into a diagram helps be deal with it better.  

If you have Accordance this is very easy with the built in diagraming tool, if you don’t have Accordance, you should so shame on you, but you can still diagram by hand with pencil and paper.  I use the form found in Interpreting the New Testament Text: Introduction to the Art and Science of Exegesis by Darrell Bock and Buist Fanning and there is a very similar description in Interpreting the Pauline Epistles by Tom Schreiner.  

Click each to enlarge or all three pages in PDF.

In the discussion on the chronology of the Pauline letters when discussing a new order of the NT, Brian and I began to discuss the placement of Galatians.  The letter was either written to south Galatian as Paul’s first letter, or to Northern Galatian after the Thessalonian correspondence and maybe the Corinthian correspondence.  Brian and I both agreed on the former but we were unsure what the consesus amongst scholars was; so I decided to investigate.  So far as I can find the results are pretty heavy in favor of South Galatia 47-49 AD.

South/Early Date

Carson/Moo – Introduction

Drane – Introduction

Elwell/Yarbrough – Encountering

Gundry – Survey

Guthrie – Introduction

deSilva – Introduction

Barnett – Paul

Gorman – Apostle

Blomberg – Pentecost to Patmos

Bruce – Galatians

Fung – Galatians

Longenecker – Galatians

Ridderbos – Galatians

Witherington – Galatians

South/Late Date (Updated)

Silva – Interpreting

Daniel Kirk

North/Late Date

Dunn – Galatians

Lightfoot – Galatians

Polhill – Paul

Brown – Introduction (Updated)

Achtemeier, Green and Thompson - Introduction

Betz – Galatians

Most of those who chose a Southern and early date did note that there is evidence for both possibilities and that there is less consensus among the critical scholars.  It seems that the North Galatian region was almost accepted universally until the 2oth century.  I tried to look up  Brown’s Introduction on Google books but the page was blocked so with Achtemeier, Green and Thompson – Introduction.  I do not have Martyn, Luhrmann, Morris, Matera, Betz, Barclay or Nanos. If you have access to any of those or any other significant works would you mind looking them up and letting us know?

I do not like to link to too many other blog posts because I think most people have most other good blogs in their readers and I get tired of going through my reader and seeing the same thing 20 times. But when there is a post of top-notch quality as this one I figure its worth it.

Daniel Kirk at Sibboleth has been doing a series in “The Structure of the Universe” detailing his thoughts on the problem of the Westminster Confession and understanding law (or as the WC does not realize, Law) as the basic structure of God’s relationship with the humanity. You should check out the rest of the series too because all the posts have been excellent (and you should add Daniel to your reader because he turns out more high level stuff than most), but the most recent post “Why Israel” is outstanding.