Thursday, January 22, 2009

Two new books

A couple of new books arrived in the mail today:

Farmer's "The Synoptic Problem"- whereas I've read a lot of articles that cite Farmer and a lot of people who have given me Farmer's argument, I haven't read Farmer myself and I figured it was about time.

John Wenham, "A Fresh Assault on the Synoptic Problem: Redating Matthew, Mark, and Luke" - this should be interesting. Wenham describes himself as an "undogmatic Augustinian" in the Introduction and I didn't think there were too many of these guys left. He thanks people like Peter Head, Michael Goulder, and Bernard Orchard (who co-authored my favorite book on the Synoptic Problem, "The Order of the Synoptics: Why Three Synoptic Gospels?") for reading over his manuscript.


Also, I will be posting about Brant Pitre's "Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of Exile" soon. Without being overly zealous, I honestly think Pitre's work could cause a major paradigm shift in so many aspects of NT scholarship. Dr. Pitre's ideas have implications for source criticism, Christology, Pauline theology, etc.

2 comments:

Esteban Vázquez said...

Wenham's is a superb book, and I can date my final rejection of Marcan priority (my commitment to which was never very strong) to when I read this volume. Of course, he can't be followed everywhere he would lead, but it is an outstanding book all the same.

This particular volume of Farmer's I haven't had the pleasure to read, but I recommend that, whenever you can, you get your hands on the "New Synoptic Studies" he edited, published by Mercer University Press. Well worth your while!

Josh McManaway said...

Wenham's argument is interesting. Most of the time I don't think I even understand what he's saying.