This entry comes courtesy of my daughter who spotted this and passed it on to me. It is a blog from Dan Kimball asking the question if Christians are hated because of the gospel or the non-relational way we choose to share the gospel in the hope those not drawn to the gospel will react to us and against it.

I think the entry shows one of the strengths of the Emergent movement in asking perceptive relational questions.

I often am asked about books that can get one easily into the discussions about the gospels and their trustworthiness.

I have finally found one I can recommend that serves very well as an introduction to the host of issues residing here in the age of a need for a fresh apologetics. It is Mark Roberts' Can We Trust the Gospels?

It is written at an introductory level and divides the topic nicely into key questions. It is a very suitable introduction for high schoolers headed to college, although once they get there, they will need more. However, Roberts is pretty good at giving notes taking students to the next level. The book's strength is the clarity with which these areas are treated. Roberts studied at Harvard, so he knows the issues and the personalities involved in these discussions.He also is a pastor, so he knows how to communicate so that one does not need a PhD to get his point.

Well beliefnet.com asked me to come back and file a follow up, which I did today. The issue here is what Bill Maher said and how did he say it-- and is it relevant.

This is important because Jonathan Falwell came to Ann Coulter's defense, in part based on something Bill Maher did.

The follow up can be read at: http://blog.beliefnet.com/jwalking/2007/07/darrell-bock-on-christians-and.html

Here is the opening:

I have posted a piece on Ann Coulter at beliefnet.com. Thanks to David Kuo for the challenge to do so. Our body politic deserves and needs better than the tone approaches like hers raise.

You can see the full post at: http://blog.beliefnet.com/jwalking/2007/06/darrell-bock-takes-on-ann-coul.html

I really think that people need to think through her approach.

It is not a healthy way to engage.

&p

Years ago My wife and I took a tour of Greece and Turkey. My wife called it simply, "The Great Rocks Tour". She was right all the trip consisted of were tons of rocks, old rocks but famous rocks. This was not a "if you've seen one rock, you have seen them all;quot; tour. History was present in their arrangement, even where there was not much left.

Archaeology is a largely unknown field for people studying the New Testament. We prefer text to stone. However there are three books that can get you up to speed effectively.

Broadman-Holman has a book in the works on the Talpiot tomb. That is the Jesus tomb locale.

Although this claim has been largely debunked, this book will be worth the read because the chapters do a nice job of putting these claims in their historical-archaeological context. Chapters look at how archaeology should be done, how burial worked in Jesus time with a run through Jesus' crucifixion and burial, first century names, and issues associated with resurrection.

If you are a church leader, especially in the DFW area, you may want to save the date of October 29. Others of you may want to send a member of your staff who ministers to High School, College or Early Career Age members.

The Leadership Center at DTS is holding an all day conference called, Jesus in Prime Time. It is designed to discuss how Jesus is being treated in the media and help pastors, as well as college and youth leaders, get prepared to teach about Jesus in the digital age. This conference will not only treat some of the issues that have been the latest fads about Jesus, it will also spend a great deal of time treating how the media looks at this topic by engaging some leaders in different spheres of the media.

I am preparing for a long trip to Europe for a variety of professional conferences. I will be gone seven weeks but plan to keep blogging (July 4-August 24).

I will attend four conferences. The first is an international conference held every two years in Italy. It concentrates on one of the more fascinating of the books out of Judaism of the period of Jesus, 1 Enoch.

This year's conference will discuss the relationship between 1 Enoch and another key Jewish work, Jubilees. Both of these works were written before the time of Jesus. They come from parts of Judaism that thought about the origins of evil and proper moral life. Jubilees is more focused on the Law, and was one of the most well circulated books at Qumran. 1 Enoch has the most developed presentation of a figure who judges alongside God at the end, the Son of Man, a term that is Jesus' favorite name for himself from Daniel 7. I am currently reading these works as slowly as I ever have, as well as some scholarly literature related to these books. This is what professors do in the summer when they are not teaching; they study.

I am returning to Texas after my annual two week stint teaching in Los Angeles at Talbot Theological Seminary.

It is an encouragement to see how students preparing for ministry are so serious about serving the Lord. We worked through the gospel of Luke and covered the gospel showing how eschatology and ethics are side by side. Just start with how John the Baptist calls the nation to readiness for the coming of the Lord in Luke 1:16-17 and Luke 3:10-14 and go on from there.

Today the world lacks heroes and models.

The world lost one today. Ruth Graham, wife of Billy Graham, died today at 87. In sixty-four years of marriage, she was his rock and support, as well as a trusted partner. Together they were a model of marriage.

Here is what Billy said in a statement released through his spokesman, Larry Ross:

"Ruth was my life partner, and we were called by God as a team," Billy Graham said in a statement. "No one else could have borne the load that she carried. She was a vital and integral part of our ministry, and my work through the years would have been impossible without her encouragement and support.

I have been asked on various occasions why use a text like 2 Maccabees 7 to discuss resurrection? It is an important and fair question.

One uses such a text because it indicates (1) how physical a resurrection the Jews anticipated and (2) because the meaning of resurrection of Christians is what is being debated, making use of the Bible a problem for some who are listening to the discussion.

I am in California currently on my annual two week teaching stint at Talbot. I also had a meeting today with editors of a book for which I am writing a major essay on the use of the OT in the NT.

This essay is now in the final stages and is one of three views that will interact with each other.

Zondervan is the publisher.

The essay will work through multiple examples and attempt to describe how the progress of revelation works in the NT's use of the OT. How new contexts impact the meaning of a text and what it refers to will be a major concern, along with how that progress helps us to read earlier texts in light of fresh aspects of revelation with more detail and understanding for its meaning. The essay is a major update and expansion of the OT in the NT essay I wrote for INTERPRETING THE NEW TESTAMENT TEXT, released earlier this year by Crossway, a detailed study of the exegetical process.

There are more cases of blasphemy charges against Christians in Pakistan.
Two incidents have occured recently. They are detailed in a piece from Christianity Today online.

the URL is: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/juneweb-only/123-43.0.html

Here is the opening of the article by Elizabeth Lawson:

Pakistan's controversial blasphemy laws have been used against Christians in two recent incidents, prompting a louder by groups who say the laws are abusive.

I am slowly working my way through the comments that were made and got lost for a time (see Technical Problems June 1)

I will try to post a few a day until I get caught up. I have responded to most of those under Hollywood hype now, where by far the most comments were.

Also feel free to ask for topics you would like to see addressed, since I have more time in the summer.

The IBR Jesus Group, an international group of Jesus Scholars, are meeting in Dallas this week to begin the final stages of their work.

The Group which is examining twelve key events in the life of Jesus are covering three topics this weekend: (1) the temple incident, (2) Pilate's examination and crucifixion, and (3) the empty tomb and Jesus' appearances. The group has its final meeting next year before publishing its cumulative results, hopefully in late 2009.

Once again there has been an important legal judgment in a country where Christians are in a minority. This time it is in Malaysia, where the conversion of a woman to Christianity was not recognized.

Here is an excerpt from the report of the ruling:

PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia: In a controversial victory for Islamic law over secularism, Malaysia's highest court refused Wednesday to recognize the conversion of a Muslim-born woman to Christianity, ruling that the matter was beyond the jurisdiction of the country's civil courts and should be handled by religious authorities.

Dear Bloggers:I need to apologize that some comments have not been posted until recently. At some point a while ago, comments got lost in our queue and have just resurfaced. There were over 180 that went missing. I am not going to try and recover all of these. We think we have the issues now in hand. Let me say if you tried to comment and are just now seeign it that this is because we posted the backlog, but I have not gone through them becasue there are still issues in terms of my being able to link to your comment and reply.

Well, it has been a while since we heard from the Christians in Turkey and the aftermath of the martyrdom incident. It expresses appreciation.

Here is an update from one of the leaders in Turkey about the impact:

Dear Friends,
It’s been a long few weeks since our last email, and longer since the day we heard that our friends in Malatya had been killed. We thank you for praying for Turkey, for the widows of the slain, and for the Church in Turkey. And thank you for sending out the newsletter to others to pray.

There is more feedback and perspective on the move of Frank Beckwith to the Roman Catholic church.

David Howard brings a rare combination of credentials to his response, published Friday in the Wall Street Journal.

He is a former ETS President.

His uncle made a similar move in the 1980's.

His family history has a deep evangelical pedigree. I think you will find his remarks give an important angle on these events.

One of the things we are doing on this blog is to make us sensitive to brothers and sisters plight around the world.

This may mean establishing a "Christians as minorities" watch from other countries, so yiou can pray and be aware of what being a Christian means in other countries.

Today the spotlight falls on Pakistan as a threat against Christins near the Afgan border has become public.

A media contact I know in Israel has forwarded to me the following report on the situation in Turkey.

It reflects the ambivilence of many about what is going on there.

Daniel Pipes runs the Middle Eastern Forum and is a politically conservative commentator who also is pro-Israeli.

The artile is helpful because it outlines the roots and changes Atatürk introduced into the country in 1923, a literal encyclopedia of cultural change that is now under pressure, since Atatürk was a Middle Eastern secularist who tried to curb the political influence of Islam at the time while protecting Turkish interests.

There were fresh demonstrations in Izmir (Old Smyrna) last weekend. It involved several hundred thousand people marching in support of Turkey's secular government on the waterfront part of this resort city where Polycarp (2nd Century Chrsitian Martyr) was from.

At one time, Izmir was among the most European of Turkish cities.

There also is an interesting story on Konya, one of the more traditionally Islamic cities in Central Turkey, a city I visited in 2005. It can be found at:

The pictures of Herod's tomb continue to be published.

This next site has some excellent photos of the size and scale of the sarcophagus.

The pictures were part of a tour of the site the press took after the announcement of the find.

The relevant URL is:

http://www.crosswalk.com/news/religiontoday/11540253/

These are the first pictures that give a real sense of why people think this is the tomb.

Information on Herod's tomb and pictures continue to come in. Here is the URL for the site at Hebrew University, whose faculty are responsible for the dig.

URL: http://www.huji.ac.il/cgi-bin/dovrut/dovrut_search_eng.pl?mesge117861762132688760

A key part of this report reads:

The approach to the burial site - which has been described by the archaeologists involved as one of the most striking finds in Israel in recent years - was via a monumental flight of stairs (6.5 meters wide) leading to the hillside that were especially constructed for the funeral procession.

Well, there is a lot going on these days. Hard to keep up with it all. The Press conference on Herod's tomb was held and photos are now out. The locale is near Bethlehem.

You can find them at:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/05/070508-herod-photos.html

A full story is at:

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=15a40887-0d6d-435f-ba9d-0fca634e013c

There are other stories at the Time magazine site and the site for UPI.

As many of you have heard Frank Beckwith has reassociated himself with the Roman Catholic Church. Frank is a good friend and we have discussed this over the last few days. It came as a surprise to us all. I wish him well, even as I am sure we will be discussing this in the weeks and months to come. I look forward to the interaction with him and others on this. I will have more to say on this later as I have been doing interviews on it over the last few days. For now, here is the letter from the Executive Committee of ETS regarding the situation.

We'll we missed the exact anniversary by two days because I was at my middle daughter's graduation for her Master's in education. She will be teaching second grade in Tenneesee.

We have reached one year of blogging, avaerging a blog every other day. The most popular discussion involved Jesus' family tomb. The emergent church also got a lot of attention. The Gnostic gospels was the third key topic of the year in terms of reading and response. We will continue to blog key topics tied to Jesus, the New Testament, early Christianity, and the church, as well as issues that relate to Christians in the world.

The Press conference involving Herod's tomb has been held. It is a potentially important find in a location Josephus had indicated.

The site was vandalized in ancient times. Nonetheless it is clear that the sarcophagus was quite an ornate one, fitting in with the pomp often associated with Herod.

Details will be coming forth of the conference and find.

Here is the report on it:

I do not have many details, but supposedly the tomb of King Herod, died in 4 BC or so, has been discovered at Herodium.

There is a press conference tomorrow in Israel. Archaeologists at Hebrew University will announce the find, which supposedly is located between two palaces he built on a mount that sits near Bethlehem (the earlier version of this post said a locale near Jericho was in view).

My reading on the Middle East continues.

There is a solid book that is quite a helpful survey on the history there called The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future. It was written in 2005 and updated in 2006. It treats the history of Shia and Sunni conflict within Islam and surveys various countries and the history of this tension at the same time. It explains much about the insurgency now going on in Iraq and its roots in centuries long conflict. It also explains how Islam is not a monolith in terms of its views.