Hi Frank. Thanks for your comment. Fancy your be...

2008-09-17T01:47:00.000+01:00

Hi Frank. Thanks for your comment. Fancy your being there! I would have liked to have met you properly afterwards. Perhaps next time.
Thanks for coming along. Thanks too for your kind words. I can't imagine what I was thinking re. James. Put it down to fatigue at a lot of speaking. Thanks for the interesting comment re. Philo and the Hasmoneans -- excellent observations.

For about the first fifteen minutes of your first ...

2008-09-16T06:36:00.000+01:00

For about the first fifteen minutes of your first lecture, you sounded to me like a character in a Dr Who episode, then I mentally adjusted to the British accent and by the first break I wasn't normally even consciously aware of you speaking with an accent. I am one of the elderly who were present--being 66. Few from Great Britian immigrate here, so to hear British English is a bit unnerving at first. Next time you're in Mpls, just remember to say "Ya shur" when you agree with someone and "Uffdah" when you disagree--and mention lutefisk at least once in any lecture--and people will soon be mistaking you for a native Minnesotan.

Three things about your lectures really impressed me. First was how well you could expound without reading a text. Second was how you defined and explained certain technical terms in a way readily understood by a layperson. Third was the general accuracy of your restatement of a question asked of you and the adequacy of your response to the question.

Overall, the lecture was excellent and I have only three quibbles. First, I thought I heard you say that "Christ/Messiah" is not found
in the Epistle of James, but perhaps I didn't hear right. It is found in James 1:1, 2:1. Second, and again I perhaps didn't hear right, but I got the impression that, you argued, it was High Priests who governed Judea from Cyrus to Herod the Great. But weren't the Hasmoneans not just High Priests, but Kings as well, combining the two offices in one person? Third, I was dissapointed to hear no mention of Flight and Finding 108-11, where Philo, commenting on Lev 21:10ff (where the High Priest is called the Christos in the LXX), identifies this figure with the Logos as God's Viceroy (although he does not explicitly call the Logos the Christ, he does state that he has been annointed (kerchristai) with oil--which is, in effect, to say he is the Christ.

In any event, I was the one who, near the end of your last lecture period, asked you the question about Mt 3:7-10//Lk 3:7-9. I was glad I went, not just because I learned some things from your lectures, but because I was finally able to connect your name with a face and a voice.

Comments on NT Blog: Travel Diary: Minneapolis, Saturday

Hi Frank. Thanks for your comment. Fancy your be...

For about the first fifteen minutes of your first ...