1 Peter and "selective accomodation"

"First Peter had to help its readers justify their existence as Christians living as a 'holy community' within society. It was a single strategy with two interlocking components: creating an identity that separated them from Roman culture, and yet showing how they, as a 'community of the elect,' upheld the best of Greek and Roman values by 'living honorably among Gentiles.' First Peter does not urge its readers to reject the larger society wholesale. Instead, it urges a policy of selective accommodation. Those values that contribute to moral ruin it rejects wholeheartedly; those that foster political stability and social order it upholds steadfastly and encourages vigorously."

Carl Holladay, A Critical Introduction to the New Testament, p. 705.

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The Abgar Legend: From Locative Foundation to Identity in Locative Voice

Among the faithful of the Assyrian Church of the East (ACOE) it is well-known fact that their traditional liturgical language—Syriac—is “the language Jesus spoke.” (Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic, after all, unlike Greek and Latin.) Among the faithful of the ACOE it is also a well-known fact that Jesus founded the church in Osrohene (Edessa) in Syria around the year 30 CE in his correspondence with King Abgar V Ukama. Well, actually the church was more formally established when the apostle Addai was sent to Edessa (either by the apostle Thomas or by Jesus himself) to cure Abgar of his disease after Jesus had been crucified and resurrected. At any rate, the ACOE was established by Jesus, through the apostles’ authority, immediately after Jesus’ earthly life. Among the points of pride the faithful of the ACOE tally to their church’s credit, this is among the most important. Jesus did not correspond with Tiberius Caesar, nor deliberately send an ap...

Now in print

What does Karl Barth have in common with John Wesley, Jacob Taubes, Stanley Hauerwas, and the Coen Brothers? To find out take a look at what just rolled off the presses at Pickwick. The Karl Barth Blog Conference of 2010 is now in print, including a modest contribution from myself. If Barth interests you, you should pick up a copy. There are some very stimulating essays in the volume. Travis McMaken has posted the announcement over at DET . And the book is up on Wipf & Stock's page .

Farrer on form and content of early Christianity

After mentioning 'the common hypothesis' that the transformation of images of the Old Testament that flowered in Christianity originated not with Jesus, but with his disciples, Farrer brilliantly observes, This elaborate and uneconomical supposition was the product of a prejudice which ought to outworn now. It was supposed that the Christian Faith could be divided into two parts, a vital content of ethical spirituality, and a mythological or theological frame constructed to set it off and give it emphasis. The spirituality, as being the primary fact and real motive cause, was then assigned to Christ; the theology could naturally be left to accumulate round it in the course of the Church's life. We shall not now accept such a distinction as corresponding with historical realities. It is, no doubt, always the pressing concern of religion to seek after and seize its own vital essence and spiritual centre, but that is a poor reason for supposing that spirituality came naked...

Andrew Guffey

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