Category Archives: Interpretation

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Differences in the Gospels, part 2

There are differences among the Gospels. A Christian who wishes it to be otherwise might say, “I wish there was only one Gospel.” But God gave us four, and it is more respectful for us to hear them the way that God gave them to us, listening to the message of each on its own terms. That does not make their messages incompatible—just different (like, for example, my wife and me). By definition, they have to be at least somewhat different if we have four of them instead of four copies of the same Gospel.

There the matter might lay except that some people today have made a big issue out of the differences. Some popular speakers cognizant of some of the differences have used them to rhetorically terrorize (or at least scare the wits out of) many Christians who never read their Bibles enough to notice the differences to begin with. While some of us who have long seen these differences might be tempted to thank such speakers for pointing Christians to their Bibles, we wish that these Christians would have noticed these differences first in a friendlier setting. But scholars with high respect for Scripture now need to explain (and thus have the opportunity to explain) more about how Scripture is written, as well as its message.

Yes, there are differences

What is singularly unhelpful is when some Christians respond, “There are no differences there!” Again, had God wished us to have just one Gospel witness in the New Testament instead of four, he undoubtedly would have arranged for that. If the Gospels were precisely the same, they would not be different Gospels. While that observation is so simplistic that it should go without saying, responses vary in the degree of variation that the responders observe.

So what kinds of differences do we find? I shall offer in this series of posts only a very small number of samples. I am picking examples that are not very controversial, in hopes of pointing out to Christians who don’t read the Bible very much that there are in fact differences, and inviting them to respect the Bible that God gave us rather than one they wished he would have inspired differently.

I shall not spend much space addressing here those who think that such differences undermine Scripture (and sometimes use them to ridicule Christians) because I spend countless pages addressing those issues in my academic work. This blogsite is mostly for more popular level materials (since my publishers own my academic materials). (Still, I am borrowing these examples from a forthcoming book, because I really need most of my time to write the academic books, and it saves me time if I can borrow my own words from elsewhere.)

First example, the cursing of the fig tree:

Mark 11:12-25 Matt 21:12-13, 18-22
1. Jesus curses the fruitless fig tree (11:14) 2. Jesus challenges the temple (21:12-13)
2. Jesus challenges the temple (11:15-17) 1. Jesus curses the fruitless fig tree (21:19)
3. The next day, the disciples find the fig tree withered (11:20) 3. The fig tree withers at once (21:19)
4. The disciples are surprised (11:21) 4. The disciples are surprised (21:20)
5. Jesus gives a lesson on faith (11:23-25) 5. Jesus gives a lesson on faith (21:21-22)

Did Jesus curse two fig trees over the course of two days, though each Evangelist mentions only one, with one withering at once and the other withering later but the disciples needing precisely the same lesson on faith, in very similar words, each time?

But guess what? Ancient readers didn’t expect ancient biographies to be in chronological order, and moving material around was considered a matter of arrangement, not of accuracy.

And ancient expectations are what we need to consider: it is simply anachronistic to judge documents by standards that didn’t exist in their day, or genres that didn’t exist in their day, even when modern genres evolved from ancient ones with the same names. To ignore genre and the expectations that a writer could take for granted that his readers shared is like ignoring the language or culture in which a work is written. We can’t speak of the “historical reliability” of parables or psalms. Readers in the early Roman empire expected history-writing and biography to be reliable in substance, but not to have anything like verbatim recall of wording.

So critics who condemn biblical texts for differences are reading them anachronistically. So are defenders who pretend the differences aren’t there, unwilling to actually look honestly at the texts they claim to respect!

A couple more brief examples and a conclusion should wrap up this discussion—next time.

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Differences in the Gospels, part 1

I was converted from a non-Christian background, so I didn’t grow up hearing the Gospels. The first time I read through the Gospels as a new believer, I was shocked. Matthew was great, but then Jesus got crucified again at the end of Mark. “How often is this going to happen?” I wondered.

I was shocked because, having been told that the Bible is God’s Word, I assumed that this meant that God had dictated it in the first-person. You could insist on it being like that if you want, but if you do insist on that, everyone who has read it will know that you haven’t.

I didn’t understand the Christian perspective that God inspired Scripture through different human authors, who sometimes treated the same events. I had a wrong understanding of what inspiration meant, an understanding that needed to be adjusted by reading the actual biblical text.

Playing catch-up

Although most Christians do not misunderstand the nature of the Bible this severely, especially if they grew up taking the Bible’s character for granted, many do have misunderstandings. Yet the little kids in Sunday School knew the Bible better than I did, so I had to work to catch up. I had always craved knowledge, but now, believing that the Bible was God’s Word, I began craving understanding of Scripture that could only be satisfied by immersing myself in it.

Reading forty chapters of the Bible a day, and so through the New Testament once a week (or the Bible once a month), was very helpful to me. After a number of weeks I had a good overview of the New Testament. I understood much better how it fit together as a series of different works and letters, and began to hear what passages meant in their context.

Sometimes preachers quote verses faster than one can look them up in context. I wanted to know the Bible, or at least the New Testament, well enough that if someone quoted a verse, I would immediately know the full context. Of course, some verses sound a lot alike, such as many passages in the Gospels that treat the same events. I wanted to know those passages so well that I could, after hearing a single verse, know which of the Gospels it came from, and therefore know its context. (Admittedly, sometimes the best I can do is just mention the several passages that sound alike.)

Examining differences

After I had been a Christian for about seven years I finished my first degree in biblical studies. At that time I decided to work my way through a synopsis of the Gospels, passage by passage, to see if there were any patterns in the differences in wording. I found that the wording was often less close to verbatim than I had expected, although the Gospel writers were often recounting the same events. I also noticed that they often told accounts in a different sequence.

Because I was eager to submit to the Bible itself, whatever I found there, more than any presupposed theology about the way God should have inspired it, I simply adjusted my understanding of inspiration to fit what I found there. I want to submit to whatever God’s Word says, not impose a philosophic or theological straitjacket on it. That was because I believed that the Bible, rather than any inherited theology about the Bible, should direct our beliefs.

I was excited about what I was discovering and contemplated making it a major emphasis in my teaching. As I weighed the needs of the church, though, I decided that these observations were not that important compared to crucial biblical themes that the church needed. One can mention such observations in passing, but churches need to hear the message of the text. Literary-theological approaches, served by ancient background, help us get at that message better than simply observing the mechanics of how writers wrote.

Why the differences?

Of course, I took such observations for granted in my academic work; those who know the biblical text well and revel in discussing it dialogue about such observations. In detailed commentaries, where we have good reason to believe that one source adapted another in some respects we naturally ask, “Why? What was the purpose of this adaptation?”

Sometimes it was to condense narratives: thus Matthew omits the paralytic being let down through the roof, though he tells the more theologically crucial part of the story. (Unless we suppose that Matthew omitted it to protest the destruction of private property!) Sometimes it was to contextualize; many scholars think that Luke envisions an Aegean-style roof different from the more common Galilean-style roof maybe presupposed by Mark (Mark 2:4; Luke 5:19). More certainly and obviously, compare Matthew’s usual “kingdom of heaven” with Mark’s “kingdom of God,” especially in parallel passages.

Sometimes it was for greater precision of wording; Matthew and Luke recognize Herod Antipas as more precisely labeled a tetrarch (Matt 14:1; Luke 3:19; 9:7; Acts 13:1) than a king (Mark 6:14, 22).

Quite often it was for style: trying to raise the level of Greek, Luke removes most of Mark’s historical presents.

Still, in what is probably a majority of cases, except where we find a pattern, one scholar’s guess is as good as another’s. Maybe it was for style. Maybe it was to abbreviate. Maybe it was to provide a few more vivid details the author heard elsewhere. Maybe one author adapted some wording to bring out a different emphasis. Sometimes these observations help us preach a particular Gospel’s message more faithfully, but often we just scratch our heads. (Maybe that is why I am going bald.)

Such differences are common whenever we compare different accounts of events, whether directly from eyewitnesses or from those who knew them. You can probably notice this pattern even in conversations in our daily lives, once you start taking note of it.

So what’s the big deal? Tune in next time for part 2.

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The Jesus of history versus the Christ of faith?

New Testament scholars sometimes contrast the Jesus of history versus the Christ of faith. Not everyone means the same thing by this contrast. Christian scholars, for example, usually recognize that what we can know about Jesus by conventional historical methods is limited; it is therefore less important than how we worship him by faith. We know enough historically to believe him worthy of our trust, and so we embrace the rest of his message because we trust him and his faithfulness in commissioning the right agents (especially the first apostles) to give us their testimony about him.

But sometimes scholars value the historical Jesus that they reconstruct in opposition to, and as more real than, the Christ of faith. Jesus’s early followers would likely have seen this as a problem.

Consider 1 John 4:2-3:

By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. And this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming; and now it is already in the world. (NRSV)

Or 2 John 7:

Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh; any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist! (NRSV)

According to this apostolic witness, the Jesus who came in history is the Jesus who rose from the dead and now sits exalted at God’s right hand. The Jesus who came in the flesh is not different from our faith; he is the very one who matters for our faith.

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Spiritual Hypochondriacs

I must confess that I have often been a hypochondriac. I always want to err on the side of caution, so when I lived in walking distance of my doctor’s office in Philadelphia I got checked on all sorts of things that turned out to be nothing. (My doctor was very patient with his patient.) Of course, lack of caution can be even more problematic. A couple years ago I deferred going to the doctor to avoid being a hypochondriac and ended up in the emergency room with internal bleeding. The ER physician asked why I had waited so long to come in.

 

Tender Consciences vs. Spiritual Hypochondriacs

Spiritually, however, Western Christians sometimes act like hypochondriacs. We get so introspective that we root around looking for hidden sins (and not just on Ash Wednesday or Good Friday) instead of focusing on Jesus Christ, who saves us from sin and empowers us to live as the new creatures God has made us in him. Again, I don’t want to err too far on the other side: when we are in his presence, the Lord does bring to our attention matters that need correction. Some who want to overlook sin look to Scripture for verses of vague comfort when they need to seek God’s power for consistent victory over temptations of jealousy, hatred, pornography, or sometimes even directly outward sins such as gossip or intercourse outside marriage.

But sometimes we indulge our consciences in tenderness so much that we don’t want to read any verse that speaks about judgment or suffering or the like. We get softer and softer and more and more sensitive until we live in perpetual fear of fear. We are afraid of anything that can make us afraid, whereas facing into the fears is sometimes the best way to overcome them. (This has been true of me at times as well, and I have had to lay hold on “grace” Scriptures with determined faith.)

When I preach, I do want to help those with the most tender consciences to recognize that my strongest words are not for them. (I have a tender conscience myself so I understand that people can heap up guilt that is not about something real; sometimes it is an attempt to dutifully accept the condemnation that we think Scripture or the preacher is sending our way.) Jesus preached harshly, but to the resistant religious people who did not think they needed a savior and oppressed the “real” sinners. By contrast, our Lord welcomed those who understood that they were sinners, who understood that they needed grace. Scripture tells us repeatedly that God is near the broken but far from the proud.

Our backgrounds help shape how we hear harsh words. If we’ve been internalizing criticism all our lives and doing our best to meet up to others’ demands but falling short, we often approach God the same way. It’s too easy for us to forget the central act of salvation history: that God desired our fellowship with him so much that he gave his own Son’s life to bring us to himself. God was more eager for us to be right with him than we were! Nevertheless, the conviction needed to come to him to begin with does not mean we need to keep feeling desperate for God’s salvation after conversion! Instead we should celebrate salvation, even while welcoming him to continue to transform us into Christ’s image. The completion of that transformation at Jesus’s return will be our ultimate deliverance from all sin.

 

Using Verses to Confirm What We Want or Fear

But in addition to our personal backgrounds, we often become hypersensitive because of how we read Scripture. Some with condemning backgrounds or depressed circumstances have mental red-letter editions that highlight only verses that make them feel guilty or depressed. They often miss the passages most relevant for them. Noting common symptoms, beginning medical students sometimes fear that they have many of the diseases they read about. Beginning counseling students sometimes fear the same when reading about psychological problems. (I did that in my first counseling classes. Okay, maybe you think that I do have some of those problems, but surely not all the ones I read about!) Bible readers who have not yet developed more careful ways of reading Scripture can do the same.

Others, by contrast, become hypersensitive precisely by looking to Scripture only for comfort and not so much for exhortation. In the West, we too often read the Bible in a personalized, proof-texting way, grabbing verses here and there as a fast-food diet rather than reading them more thoroughly in context. If one wants just a verse “on the go,” one probably wants something encouraging, but usually not too challenging and definitely not something that makes one uncomfortable, or makes one have to think too much or research too long. This habit, however, limits one’s repertoire of verses and also takes a number of them out of context.

Not everything in the Bible is directly for each of us personally. Yes, good things about God’s followers can apply to us individually. But so can texts about God’s followers suffering; these can encourage us when we are suffering. And what about God disciplining sins? If it’s not your sin, you don’t need to appropriate any guilt to yourself: if the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t wear it.

But even if a passage about suffering or sin (or comfort) doesn’t apply to you individually, it’s still important to know, because we live in a fallen world and those passages give us perspectives. The world is full of refugees (Congo-DRC, Syria, Iraq, and so forth). Innocent blood is still being shed, whether by some dictators against protestors, by gangs or drug dealers or sometimes agents of governments on the streets, or even in the sanctity of womb. (If any of these sins involve your past, former perpetrators are forgiven in Christ and former victims find compassion in Christ.) Pretending that sufferings and sins aren’t real may reflect some other religious movements, but they are not the way of Jesus, who healed the sick and confronted injustice rather than ignoring them.

 

When Spiritual Immune Systems get Bored

Our Western culture can also make us hypersensitive. One theory about the proliferation of allergies in the industrialized world is that our immune systems lack many serious new enemies because we have been immunized against so many diseases. (Whether the theory is true or not, immunization is overall a very good thing.) Thus our immune systems become hypersensitive. I have no idea whether the theory is correct. Certainly I would be glad for our “bored” immune systems to overcome more quickly new strains of colds and flu!

But spiritually, we can often become hypersensitive because we are too inwardly focused. So much of Western Christianity is focused on how we feel, a focus for which our spiritual immune system was probably not primarily designed. If our focus is outreach to others, or we are facing persecution, or even we are working very hard to earn our living, our spiritual immune systems may become less inward-focused than if we spend our days hiding from ourselves in videogames, entertainment, or even work.

An outward focus can also run from intimacy with God and inward healing, but some of us need to balance our inward focus with more of an outward one. If we are regularly sharing the gospel with unbelievers, we grasp the true power of the gospel in a way that we do not when we are trying to get it to always speak to us as if we need to be continually reconverted. Worship celebrates the gospel and inculcates intimacy with God; outreach balances this by making us conduits for God rather than us being flooded vessels because of broken pipes.

 

Hypergrace Reacting against Hyperguilt

Such hypersensitivity, reinforced all the more by preaching that emphasizes condemnation even for God’s children, can make us vulnerable to a form of hyper-grace message that makes us allergic to anything in Scripture that seems uncomfortable. And it is true that someone who has overdosed on such condemnation needs some safe space to recover from it. But just as the goal is for physical wounds to heal, God can give us the grace to heal enough to mature and move on from those emotional wounds. He can give us faith to stand firm that the message of the cross is our salvation, not our condemnation.

Paul was sensitive to the “weak” and warned the “strong” not to cause them to stumble (Rom 14:1; 15:1; 1 Cor 8:9-12). But he also encouraged maturation in faith that ideally enables us to draw boundaries in the right places, rather than too tightly (or loosely). If people cannot be justified by keeping biblical law (Rom 3:20; Gal 2:21; 3:11; 5:4), we certainly don’t get justified by keeping laws of our own modern or historic making. And what matters objectively is not feeling justified all the time, but our status of justification before God accomplished by Christ (Rom 5:1, 9; 8:30; 1 Cor 6:11).

 

Faith Affirms Truth that is Higher than Feelings

In other words, instead of waiting for feelings that assure us of God’s faithfulness, we need to exert faith—which is not a feeling, but often simply a raw commitment to truth or a raw determination to affirm it. Rather than waiting for a feeling, we can acknowledge that in Christ we are justified. (Feelings are great too, but the Bible never says anything about being saved by feelings.)

Once we have welcomed Christ as Lord and Savior, we must embrace the gospel not as a continual summons to get saved, but as a continual celebration of the good news that we are saved in Christ. (I am not denying the possibility of apostasy here, a denial that I believe is refuted both by Scripture and human experience. But apostasy is walking away from Christ, not merely a personal struggle to overcome temptation and certainly not a bad feeling.) Feeling quite often flows from faith, but waiting for feeling to verify faith is counterproductive; it puts the cart before the horse. Horses are meant to pull carts, not to push them.

 

Implications for Preaching

When preaching the gospel to polytheists, Paul summoned them to turn from idols (Acts 14:15-17; 1 Thess 1:9). When preaching to believers, he offers himself as an example of sacrificial service and provides warnings to watch out for even Christian leaders being turned away by worldly temptations (Acts 20:17-35). But his message was a message of the new covenant, depending on the Spirit (2 Cor 3:1-18). That is, preachers shouldn’t deliberately guilt-manipulate their hearers (sticking in the knife and them sometimes turning it for good measure). Our job is to speak the truth, lovingly but without compromising God’s message, yet depend on the Spirit to change people through the truth. We don’t assume the Spirit’s job; God can do that well enough on his own, but we must be faithful agents of his message.

Those with hardened hearts may need preaching like Jesus’s preaching to the religious elites of his day. Those with vulnerable hearts need more the message of kingdom embrace that Jesus gave to sinners, inviting them through repentance to a new life. Those in Christ still need periodic warnings, but the nature of this differs from congregation to congregation. Corinth needed serious pastoral reproofs; Philippi needed a bit of exhortation to unity, but mostly warranted encouragement; Thessalonian Christians needed reminders about a disciplined life, but especially reaffirmation of God’s faithfulness in the face of their hardships. One sees the same variation in the letters of Revelation 2—3 (which should put to rest any belief that all prophecies to churches must be positive, or that all must be negative).

 

Reading the Whole Bible but in the Right Way

Those of us who are too sensitive sometimes have to just exert raw determination, insisting that the gospel is so true that it applies even to us; God’s grace that saves sinners has saved us.

We also need to learn not to apply every text directly to ourselves. The solution is not to ignore the other texts. The solution is to realize that it’s not all about us individually, but about our God’s purposes in history. Then we can apply all the Bible in the right ways. Even texts about God judging sin can encourage us that he does not look the other way in this world of pain and injustice. Texts about grace apply to all who acknowledge Jesus’s sacrifice for us and his triumph.

Let’s not be spiritual hypochondriacs, anxious about diseases we don’t really have. Let’s be strong in the Lord and the power of his might.

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Believe whatever you want, but—what if it’s wrong?

I might sound like a grumpy sourpuss in this post, but please feel free to balance it with my more upbeat ones.

Too often we believe things because they are things we simply want to believe. That does not make them wrong, but it does mean that we don’t know whether they’re right. Most people know better than to drink something labeled poison just because they want it to believe that it might be Diet Sprite. Here are some doctrines some people like to believe that merit further investigation. I note just a couple verses for consideration after each, though these could be multiplied.

  • Sufficient faith can keep us from experiencing persecution (contrast 2 Tim 3:12, though of course God does deliver)
  • Everyone will always get healed if we have enough faith (contrast 2 Kgs 13:14; 2 Tim 4:20; though of course God does heal)
  • Everyone will always become materially prosperous if we have enough faith (contrast Luke 6:20; James 2:5; though of course God does provide)
  • God sends only pleasant prophecies about society, never judgment (contrast Jer 6:14; 8:11; James 5:1-6; Rev 17—18; though of course prophecies can also comfort)
  • God sends only pleasant prophecies to the church, never reproofs (contrast Rev 2:4-5, 14-16, 20-23; 3:1-3, 15-19; though of course prophecies can also comfort, including in Rev 2—3; plus a culture of honor, gentleness and sensitivity should be privileged, especially by those just starting in prophecy and correction; even for severe circumstances, cf. 2 Tim 2:23-26)
  • God would never reprove our behavior through teaching in the church (contrast 2 Tim 3:16; 4:3; though his reproof, when needed, is gentle for the humble)
  • A person who has professed Christ can never turn away from the faith and be lost (contrast Gal 5:4; Heb 6:4-8; though of course God helps believers persevere)
  • Everything in the Bible about grace is for the church, whereas everything about obedience or judgment is only for Israel (contrast 1 Cor 10:1-11; Gal 5:13—6:10; though of course grace preempts judgment and also enables obedience through faith)
  • Christians will be raptured before suffering great tribulation (contrast 2 Thess 1:5—2:4; 2 Pet 3:9-13; though of course God often protects his children, as in Goshen)
  • The world will get nicer and nicer until Jesus comes back (contrast 2 Thess 2:8-12; Rev 16:12-16; 20:4; though of course God can use us to make many things better)
  • God expects us to write our own destinies (contrast Prov 16:1, 9; 19:21; though of course we should embrace God’s vision for us in faith)
  • Everybody will be saved (contrast Matt 25:46; Jude 10-13; Rev 3:5; 14:9-11; 20:15; though the gospel saves hundreds of millions of people—may we make it available to everyone, no matter what it costs us)

That’s probably enough for now—I don’t want to get anyone in a bad mood. And I confess that some of the above, such as everyone getting healed in this life and everyone getting saved, I wish with all my heart to be true. But it’s better to know what’s really true so we can make some things better than to go into trouble blindly (Prov 22:3; 27:12). If a tornado’s coming, I’d rather believe it and take shelter than simply confess, “That tornado is not coming.” The odds usually favor it missing you, but the stakes are quite high if you’re wrong.

Of course, there are some things that seem too good to believe and yet are true—especially the good news that our creator died for us and guarantees us eternal life with him if we trust him. Before I met God, when I was an atheist but starting to question my certainty about that, I thought that the most wonderful thing in the world would be if there was an infinite being who was not only infinite but even cared about us (and especially me, messed up as I was). That seemed too much to hope for … until I met him and discovered that he does care about us. (Otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered to make us.) How true is the phrase, “amazing grace”!

We need to search Scripture with an open mind and heart. We need to read with the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom, so that we find the message that God really has to communicate to us. That means hearing the message that God inspired, rather than just what we want to find.

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An interview with Craig on biblical scholarship–easier access

For those who wanted to view the interview with Craig on biblical scholarship but did not want to provide your email address, here is a link to it on YouTube:

 

  • [0:00]    Devotional reading habits
  • [0:34]    How he reads in preparation for his next book
  • [0:57]    How he keeps up with the latest scholarship
  • [1:20]    Writing the Acts commentary
  • [1:43]    Approaching the research process
  • [2:40]    Organizing 100,000 index cards before switching to a computer
  • [4:14]    Organizing research digitally
  • [4:55]    The importance of primary sources
  • [5:54]    Examples of using primary sources for understanding the biblical text: letter writing, viticulture, wolves and sheep
  • [7:01]    The importance of good secondary sources
  • [7:30]    How to choose secondary sources
  • [8:01]    E.P. Sanders on writing
  • [8:22]    The early writing process and organizing notes into a first draft
  • [8:56]    Making the first edit of a manuscript
  • [9:09]    Letting a manuscript sit
  • [9:27]    The editing process and refining a manuscript
  • [10:07]  Writing in stages and the importance of organization
  • [10:33]  What a typical day of writing looks like
  • [10:52]  How the Acts commentary changed his writing schedule
  • [11:38]  The importance of getting enough sleep
  • [12:21]  What a writing habit looks like
  • [12:40]  Thinking about the audience
  • [12:50]  The audience for the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible
  • [13:12]  Writing books for other scholars
  • [13:42]  Writing to please the Lord
  • [14:12]  Advice to his younger self
  • [14:57]  Researching philosophy of science in preparation for Miracles
  • [15:23]  How to read and understand difficult boo [15:51]  Under-appreciated books in the discipline of biblical studies
  • [16:15]  Memory, Jesus, and the Synoptic Gospels, by Robert K. McIver
  • [17:39]  How having ADHD has helped him as a scholar
  • [18:10]  Having a healthy perspective on strengths and weakness
  • [18:55]  The right way to think about scholars more successful than you
  • [19:55]  What it means to be a biblical scholar at this time in history
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Craig Keener on reading, writing, and biblical scholarship

Video interview, with a table of contents for the topics

https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/craig-keener-on-reading-writing-and-biblical-scholarship/

  • [0:00]    Devotional reading habits
  • [0:34]    How he reads in preparation for his next book
  • [0:57]    How he keeps up with the latest scholarship
  • [1:20]    Writing the Acts commentary
  • [1:43]    Approaching the research process
  • [2:40]    Organizing 100,000 index cards before switching to a computer
  • [4:14]    Organizing research digitally
  • [4:55]    The importance of primary sources
  • [5:54]    Examples of using primary sources for understanding the biblical text: letter writing, viticulture, wolves and sheep
  • [7:01]    The importance of good secondary sources
  • [7:30]    How to choose secondary sources
  • [8:01]    E.P. Sanders on writing
  • [8:22]    The early writing process and organizing notes into a first draft
  • [8:56]    Making the first edit of a manuscript
  • [9:09]    Letting a manuscript sit
  • [9:27]    The editing process and refining a manuscript
  • [10:07]  Writing in stages and the importance of organization
  • [10:33]  What a typical day of writing looks like
  • [10:52]  How the Acts commentary changed his writing schedule
  • [11:38]  The importance of getting enough sleep
  • [12:21]  What a writing habit looks like
  • [12:40]  Thinking about the audience
  • [12:50]  The audience for the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible
  • [13:12]  Writing books for other scholars
  • [13:42]  Writing to please the Lord
  • [14:12]  Advice to his younger self
  • [14:57]  Researching philosophy of science in preparation for Miracles
  • [15:23]  How to read and understand difficult books
  • [15:51]  Under-appreciated books in the discipline of biblical studies
  • [16:15]  Memory, Jesus, and the Synoptic Gospels, by Robert K. McIver
  • [17:39]  How having ADHD has helped him as a scholar
  • [18:10]  Having a healthy perspective on strengths and weakness
  • [18:55]  The right way to think about scholars more successful than you
  • [19:55]  What it means to be a biblical scholar at this time in history