The 2018 Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship

North Park Theological Seminary's Nyvall Hall
Home of the Annual  Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship

Live streaming links: here 

This coming September 26-27, 2018, North Park Theological Seminary is hosting its annual Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship which invites one Old Testatment lecturer and one New Testament lecturer to speak on their current research and how it is relevant to the mission and ministry of the church. 
    This year, our OT lecturer is Dr. Nancy L. deClaissé-Walford, The Carolyn Ward Professor of Old Testament and Biblical Languages at the McAfee School of Theology. She is the current OT editor of the Word Biblical Commentary series and will be giving the following lectures on Wed morning: 

Dr. Nancy L. deClaissé-Walford - The 2018 Old Testament Lund Lecturer

Wednesday, September 26, 2018
9-10:15am: Lecture 1 – “Let the Floods Clap Their Hands:  An Ecological/Feminist Reading of the Enthronement Psalms (Psalm 93-99)”
10:30-12pm: Lecture 2 – “The Embodied Praise of God in the Songs of Ascents (Psalm 120-134)”

    I'm especially excited that a mentor who was on my doctoral dissertation committee is the NT lecturer: Dr. Seyoon Kim, Emeritus Professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary. He has two major works that will be published within the next year: his long-awaited commentary on 1-2 Thessalonians in the Word Biblical Commentary series and a book on Jesus and Paul. The latter is the subject of his lectureship which take place Thursday morning: 

Thursday, September 27, 2018
9-10:15am:  Lecture 1 – “Justification & God’s Kingdom.” Part 1
10:30-12pm: Lecture 2 – “Justification & God’s Kingdom.” Part 2

    The Lund Lectures are live-streamed and the link for the livestream will be posted on the seminary website here. Scroll to the middle of the page and click "Watch Live" about 15 minutes before the 1st lectureship begins. 
    I hope many will join us in person and online. Best, MJL.

The NT Lund Lectures 2017: Grant Macaskill on the Mystery and Sufferings of Christ

Prof. Grant Macaskill, the NT Lund Lecturer for 2017

Today (Sept 28, 2017), the New Testament series for the Nils W. Lund Memorial Lund Lectureship was given by Dr. Grant Macaskill, the Kirby Laing Chair of New Testament Exegesis at King's College in the University of Aberdeen, who spoke on theme of participation in Christ. But unlike past tendencies in scholarship to frame Paul's participation language vis-à-vis justification, Macaskill framed Paul's participation language with God's providential working of history to its eschatological end, and under the category of Providence is the unique participation of the believer in the sufferings of Christ.
    But I'm actually getting ahead of the series. The 1st lecture, entitled: "The Mystery of Revealed: Christ and Cosmos," focused on the Christology of Colossians 1:15-20 as the starting point for reading all of Scripture as a whole. Using the movie The Unusual Suspects as an example (spoiler warning!), Macaskill explained that no one can watch the movie a second time without remembering the plot twist: that Kevin Spacey's character is actually Keyser Söze, the main villain of the story. Likewise, the Christian cannot read the Bible without remembering the mystery unveiled anticipated by both Wisdom and the Torah is Christ. Creation and the Law are not the last word on reality. Christ is. 
    The link to the 1st Lecture is below: 


     Building on the theoretical framework of set forth by the 1st lecture, Macaskill's 2nd lecture drew out the implications of the church's participation in the mystery of God unveiled in Christ. The 2nd lecture was entitled: "In the Likeness of the Image: Participating in Providence." This lecture started off slowly and methodically but ends on a pastoral crescendo. Wow! Probably the most powerful insight was the discussion of the believer's participation in the sufferings of Christ as part of participating in God's providence. 
     A believer's suffering is not like Jesus' suffering, nor is it analogous to the sufferings of Christ, but rather it is a participation in Christ's sufferings. Christ died a senseless death. When the Son needed the Father the most, it appears that God had abandoned him on the cross. When our experience of suffering lacks glory or purpose, when our suffering seems senseless, this lowest point of human experience can manifest Christ-likeness that no other experience can duplicate. Suffering does not have to be redemptive to be meaningful. There is a particular way that a person can suffer or even be martyred, and it resembles Christ. The person who suffers Parkinson's disease, the still-born baby, and any apparent senseless death can resemble Christ. God's providential care becomes evident only in retrospect, not at the moment of suffering, but only afterwards when ultimately He works out his purposeful end even in what, at the time, seems senseless.
     To hear more, follow the link to the 2nd Lecture below. MJL

The OT Lund Lectures 2017: Brent Strawn on the Bible as Poetry, Not Narrative

Prof. Brent Strawn, the OT Lund Lecturer for 2017

This week we're right in the middle of North Park Theological Seminary's annual Lund Lectureship and Symposium on the Theological Reading of Scripture. Each year, for the Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship, the seminary invites one Old Testament scholar and one New Testament scholar to speak on cutting edge issues in biblical studies but to present their work in a way that theologically informs the mission and ministry of the church. The audience to which they present are ordained pastors, church leaders, seminary graduate students, undergrads, and the wider church body. Nevertheless, as a scholar, I myself always learn and benefit from our lecturers.
     Yesterday (Sept 27, 2017), we had the privilege of hearing from our OT Lund Lecturer Dr. Brent A. Strawn, Professor of Old Testament and Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program at the Candler School of Theology in Emory University. His OT series was on the theme: The Difference between the Right Word and the Almost Right Word (of God): On the Nature of Holy Scripture. It was a very provocative series.
    In his 1st lecture, entitled: "The Greatest 'Story' Never Told: Rethinking the Bible's Macrogenre," Strawn argues against seeing the Bible as story. The Bible is not a narrative, and if it is presented as such, it is because the interpreter has constructed its contents in story form. The dangers of presenting the Bible as story is reductionism. Narrative is an imposition on Scripture. It imposes an orderliness and sequencing to Scripture leaving out, at times, important themes, messages, and experiences. The cost is too high. 
    As an alternative maco-genre, Stawn suggests that the Bible ought to be construed and read as poetry. One pastoral note worth making is the difference reading the Bible as story vs. reading the Bible as poetry makes. With the former, a person races through the narrative to get a sense of its plot and with much of Scripture's content slipping through the cracks in the reading experience. But with the Bible as poetry, the reader wrestles with every word, thinking about its meaning, slowing down to see the connections of the word with the rest of the sentence and with the entire poem as a whole. 
   The link to the 1st Lecture video is below: 


Note: the video of the lecture is done through Facebook. The tech crew is experimenting with FB's chat function for online participation


     In the 2nd lecture, entitled: "'I Am Large, I Contain Multitudes': The Poetics of Scriptural Contradiction," Strawn describes several reasons why the Bible's macro-genre as Poetry is a better way to understand the nature of Scripture and how to interpret it. One of the most striking observations he made was what he called the Bible's "re-utterability." Often when we think of the Bible as a story "back then" or as history, this model of reading creates significance distance between the text and the reader. The reader is tempted to dismiss the content of Scripture as something for the people of that time not ours. But poetry is re-utterable. It closes the gap between the text and interpreter. We are invited to experience poetry, and Scripture does the same. The rawness, candor, and perspective of the text is something the reader enters into; it is a sacred space from which we experience the text as God's word. It changes the reader. It transforms. To this, I say: "Amen!" 
     The link to the 2nd Lecture video is here: 


I hope you are challenged and blessed as much as I was by the series. Next up: the NT Lund Lectures by Prof. Grant Makaskill which was today. I'll post on this soon. MJL

2016 Lund Lectures: Were the Reformers Wrong? by Iain Provan (Day 2)

Dr. Iain Provan asking the question: Were the Reformers Wrong?
for the 2016 Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship

This morning we held Day 2 of the 2016 Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship with Dr. Iain Provan, the Marshall Sheppard Professor of Biblical Studies at Regent College. The theme of the Old Testament lectureship was: Were the Reformers Wrong? Some Reflections on Protestant Biblical Interpretation. His two lectures are based on a current book project on Protestant Biblical Hermeneutics. 
  The title of the 1st lecture was: On the Meaning of Words: The Literal, the Spiritual, and the Plain Confusing. This presentation made my head spin a bit. Dr. Provan wanted to recover a proper understanding of a "literal" reading of Scripture that was not "literalistic" but was defined as the Reformers understood literal vs. an allegorical interpretation of the biblical text. He cited Calvin and Luther who demonstrated, to my surprise, a remarkable sensitivity to grammar, historical context, the text within the larger canonical context, and other communicative acts between the author and the reader. In the past, I always made a distinction between the historical critical method and a literal reading of Scripture, favoring the former over the latter. But under Provan's redefinition of "literal" according to Calvin and Luther, the historical critical method and a literal reading of biblical texts are not competing but mutually informing. Listen to what he has to say on this topic directly by watching the video of his lecture below:



    The title of the 2nd lecture was: Empty Speculations and Froth: The Reformers and Allegorical Reading. Here Dr. Provan traced the history of an allegorical reading of texts beginning with Homer, through the patristics, and into the Medieval Age. He argued that the primary purpose of allegory was to domesticate the text and remove its offense. Hence Heraclitus removed the embarrassment that the Greek gods of Homer were barbaric, crude, and no better than vicious humans were by allegorizing the gods as symbols of something else less offensive. When applied to Scripture, Dr. Provan argued that the allegorical reading seriously undermined the authority of Scripture because it often removed the offense of a "literal" reading (note: "literal" as redefined by the Reformers).
   Rather than allegorical, or typological, Dr. Provan believes the biblical authors employed "iconic mimesis" or a figural reading of Scripture, the example of which he gave was Paul's use of Sarah and Hagar in Galatians 4:21-31 translating ἀλληγορούμενα as "figuratively" and not "allegorically." Provan compared Philo's allegorical reading (i.e., symbolic mimesis) of Genesis with Paul's figural one (i.e., iconic mimesis), giving a clear example of the differences between the two. You can listen for yourself with the video lecture below: 


   With this last lecture, the Lund series concluded this morning. But the 2016 Symposium on the Theological Reading of Scripture began the same day later in the evening and will continue on the theme of Science and Religion through Saturday afternoon. Since the schedule is packed, I may not be able to post summaries and links to the video until after the symposium ends. But like the Lund Lectures, the sessions are being livestreamed here:  http://livestream.com/northpark/lund-and-symposium
   Stay tuned! MJL

2016 Lund Lectures: Paul and Personal Flourishing by Susan Eastman (Day 1)

Dr. Susan Eastman speaking on Paul and Personal Flourishing
for the 2016 Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship 

This morning was the first two sessions of the 2016 Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship with Dr. Susan Eastman, Associate Research Professor of New Testament at the Duke Divinity School. The theme for the New Testament lectureship was: Paul and Personal Flourishing. Here she presented research from her upcoming book with Eerdmans Reframing Paul's Anthropology. 
   The title of the 1st lecture was Being Bodies: Paul's Body Language and Ours. The content of the lecture was interdisciplinary and engaged literature from the ancient world of Paul, the cognitive sciences, and philosophers who engaged with the cognitive sciences. 
The central thesis of this lecture was that the internal logic of Paul's body language is solidarity. She shared how the cognitive sciences explain how our neural networks are designed to create cognitive space for "we". Our bodies want to communicate with each other. This is not willed. It is an innate response. It is a shared imitation, examples of which include how babies imitate facial expressions; that is, they see each other through another person's gaze even though the baby is not even aware he or she has a face. 
   Human beings are shaped by their environment. We imitate larger social realities. Ancient views of the body understood that the concept of self-hood includes input from the body, the brain, and "what is out there" which feeds information back into our conscience experience as a systemic loop. Self is a constant traffic between what is outside and inside. The physical body is not a barrier but a bridge to our surroundings, to people, and to God. Bodies are conductors between us and those around us. We internalize our relationships to the point where they become constitutive of who we are.
   If the social systems which we internalize through unconscious imitation are corrupt, fallen, and sinful, it results in damage to ourselves and ultimately death. It takes a divine action to set us free from the social systems and sin which we have internalized. 
   There is more, but I'll let you watch and hear the lecture yourself (below) courtesy of Covenant Church's youtube channel. Susan Eastman is outlining here what she calls a participatory anthropology (jump to 1:42 for the start of Lecture 1)



   The title of the 2nd lecture was: Knowing God: Cognition and the Spirit in Paul's Thought. Here she gave an exegetical interpretation of Romans 8 and explained the Spirit's role in cognition. She focused on divine communication between God and believers through the mediation of the Spirit. There are depths of human awareness that cannot be discovered by human agency alone but are revealed through divine intervention. We can only know when the Spirit gives us new modes of speaking and new ways of knowing. 
   One of the most profound moments in the lecture was when Dr. Eastman used the example of facilitiated communication among autistic children to describe how the Spirit works. "How do I talk and connect with others when my lips do not move and my body does not cooperate?" From this question and subsequent answer, she goes on to discuss how believers speak through our bodies as a shared speech act with the Holy Spirit who – through the interpersonal, interactive relations between the body of believers – mediates to us how to pray, how to speak to each other, how to know one another and God within the church. Hear more from Dr. Eastman directly through the video below (jump to 1:33 for the start of Lecture 2)

   Tomorrow we will have Day 2 of the Lund Lectures featuring Dr. Iain Provan of Regent College speaking on the theme of Were the Reformers Wrong? Some Reflections on Protestant Biblical Interpretation. 

    Come join us for the public lecture in Isaacson Chapel at Nyvall Hall starting at 9am CST on the North Park University campus. Or, you are welcome to watch the livestream of the lectures here: http://livestream.com/northpark/lund-and-symposium
    Hope to see you there! MJL

Coming Soon: The 2016 Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship (Sept 28-29, 2016) at North Park Theological Seminary

I can't think of a better occasion to resume blogging than to announce the upcoming 2016 Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship held at North Park Theological Seminary here in Chicago. Named after the seminary's 4th dean (1922-54), and held in conjunction with the seminary's annual Symposium on the Theological Interpretation of Scripture (this year's theme is "Science and Religion"), the #LundLectures feature leading scholars in the States and abroad invited to speak on cutting-edge issues in New Testament and Old Testament studies. 

Nils Lund teaching class as a professor of NT (1922-54)
Photo ©2013 Historical Photo Collection at NPU

This year, for the New Testament lectureship series on Wed morning Sept 28, Susan Eastman, Associate Research Professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School, will be speaking on the theme Paul and Personal Flourishing. Her lecture schedule is as follows: 

9:00–10:30 am	Being Bodies: Paul's Body Language and Ours
10:30am–12pm	Knowing God: Cognition and the Spirit in Paul's Thought

    For the Old Testament lectureship series on the following Thurs Sept 29, Iain Provan, The Marshall Sheppard Professor of Biblical Studies at Regent College, will speaking on the theme Were the Reformers Wrong? Some Reflections on Protestant Biblical Interpretation. His lecture schedule is: 

9:00–10:30am	On the Meaning of Words: The Literal, the Spiritual, and the Plain Confusing
10:30am–12pm	Empty Speculations and Froth: The Reformers and Allegorical Reading

I'm really looking forward to hearing from both our invited lecturers. These lectures will be live-streamed (and hopefully also recorded; if so, I'll post the links on my blog later) and during the live-stream, listeners can send questions during the Q&A through the chat function. The livestream will be available either on the Cov.Church.tv website or on the Covenant Church's youtube channel. I'll try to post an updated link to the lectures once I hear from the tech crew exactly how they will be handling the livestream. But this won't probably be something I can do until early Wed morning before the 9am lecture begins. Stay tuned! MJL

Postscript 9/26/16: I received word from the tech crew. The livestream for the Lund Lectures will be here: https://livestream.com/northpark/lund-and-symposium

2015 Lund Lectures at North Park Theological Seminary

Professor Nils W. Lund
Dean and Biblical Scholar at North Park (1922-54)

For many such as myself, the Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship held annually at North Park Theological Seminary here in Chicago is a real treat. It provides an opportunity for faculty, students, and friends of the seminary to hear first-class scholars speak on the salient cultural issues of our day and offer a theological response from, and for, the Christian church. This year, following the theme of the Symposium for the Theological Interpretation of Scripture on Race and Racism, North Park Theological Seminary has invited Associate Professor of Old Testament Bo Lim from Seattle Pacific University, and Professor of Biblical Studies Emerson Powry to be our plenary speakers. 

   CovTV, the media division of the Evangelical Covenant Church, kindly live-streamed and recorded the lectures, which are posted below. The first lecture (Wed Nov 3) by Dr. Lim is entitled: "A Tale of Romance or Spousal Abuse?: Love and Violence in the Book of Hosea" where he works through the violent sexual metaphors used by prophets to describe God's judgment on Israel and the nations.

There is a problem with the audio, so scroll for ward to 1:37

The 2nd Lecture is entitled: "Prophetic Ministry Among Exiles: The Contribution of Asian and Latino/a American Biblical Interpretation."  Concerning the latter, Bo does an excellent job surveying the history of interpretation on the problem of exile, frames exilic discourse in the Old Testament with sociological models that help us recognize different types of emmigration/exile patterns (some forced by conquest; others voluntary), and then carefully argues how modern immigration movements by Asian and Latino/a Americans parallel ancient exile patterns, when the analogues fall apart, and why exilic texts speak powerfully to immigrant communities. 

    The following day (Thu Nov 4), Dr. Powry gave his first lecture covering the New Testament canon on the topic: "The Pastor's Counsel to Enslaved Christians." Emerson focuses not only on the interpretation of biblical texts concerning ancient slavery at the advent of early Christianity but provides insights on the history of the texts' reception, especially among African American congregations, and the latter's own painful history of slavery in the United States. 

The 1st lecture begins at 14:57

Both the 1st and 2nd lectures are in the same video clip, but jump to 14:57 for the 1st lecture without the introduction, and for the 2nd lecture, scroll to 1:52:11.

This is the same video but the 2nd lecture begins at 1:52:11

Concerning the 2nd lecture entitled "'Slaves of God': Another Look at Paul's (Ironic) Identity Marker," Emerson investigates Paul's use of the self-designation "slave of [Jesus] Christ" (δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ; Rom 1:1; also Gal 1:10; Phil 1:1) and challenges the idea that Paul somehow tries to redeem the metaphorical use of the term δοῦλος by adding a measure of dignity to it since the worth of the slave is attached to the (high/glorious) stature of the Master himself (contra the classic thesis of Dale Martin's Slavery as Salvation - 1990). Provocatively, Dr. Powry argues that Paul did not remove the shame component intrinsic to ancient forms of slavery. Theologically, Paul was challenging his congregation that the cost of following Christ and declaring Christ as Lord meant, in fact, that the Christian will experience shame, suffering, and indignation. The faithful Christian is not spared from the shame associated with being a slave (of Christ) or the cross-bearing life. That was a stunning challenge!
    I hope the links above make these four lectures readily accessible to you. Enjoy and be blessed! MJL

The Apocalyptic Paul and Divine Initiative

This past Thursday Sept. 25th, on the 2nd day of the 2014 Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship, Dr. Beverly Gaventa, Distinguished Professor of New Testament at Baylor University,  gave two lectures on Paul's letter to the church at Rome. 
   In the first lecture, entitled "What Part of the Word "All" Don't We Understand?" Gaventa gives an apocalyptic reading of Romans, from beginning to end, highlighting points in the text where transformations (in life and the human condition) take place. Much in the spirit and exegetical legacy of Karl Barth, Ernst Κäsemann, and J. Louis Martyn (her doctoral supervisor), Gaventa emphasizes the essentiality of divine initiative, because the anti-God powers of Sin and Death have so thoroughly enslaved humanity that no amount of repentance will change the human condition. 
   Focusing on Romans 3, and seeing in Rom 5-8 a recapitulation of the same themes in Rom 1-3 but at a larger cosmic scale, in her own words, Gaventa offered this challenge: "The human problem is larger than that which can be handled by repentance and forgiveness. Slaves cannot repent their way out of slavery. They can only be liberated. Salvation is not about being forgiven but being delivered by God." 
   Gaventa then gives a really poignant illustration by comparing the sociological and psychological slavery of the child-soldier as an analogue to the kind of slavery experienced under the rule of Sin and Death. There is more to share, but I'll let you hear from Gaventa herself via the video link (below). 

Professor Beverly Gaventa delivering the first of two Lund Lectures
in Isaacson Chapel at North Park Theological Seminary

In the 2nd lecture, entitled "Free and Costly Grace," Gaventa caught me by surprise (in a good way!). Focusing on Rom 12, Gaventa argued that grace is free because Christ died for all (5:18; 8:32), but it is costly because having been liberated, the Christian worships God by becoming a "living sacrifice" (12:1). There is nothing easy or trite about worship. Genuine worship is returning to God what is God's. There is no limit to God’s claim on us. Worship leads to ethical living. 

   I thought this was a very powerful challenge to the church, and I deeply appreciated the prophetic call back to true worship that honors God where I don't throw my money into the coffers but instead "throw my whole body into the offering plate" (her words, not mine). 

   I did walk away with some questions, however, namely what role does human response to divine initiative have in Paul's soteriological scheme. In Gaventa's explanation, faith as trust does not appear to be a response that gets one into salvation. Faith is not an entry point. God saves all, but people have not heard about this good news yet. When they hear, and believe what they hear, they worship God for what he has done. And even here faith is a gift, not a human work. So the element of volition or choice plays a minimum role in this reading of an apocalyptic Paul. It's hard for me to think about faith as trust without including an element of volition or choice, though I would not reduce faith to just choice or cognitive assent. Faith is much more. 

   In any case, all I can say is: wow! Fantastic lecture and pastoral challenge! So grateful that Dr. Gaventa was here at North Park to share her work and words with us. To listen to her 2nd lecture yourself, again, see the video links below. Blessings!

Lecture 1: Jump to 3:55 to skip the introductions: 

Lecture 2: Video begins immediately with the lecture: 

The 2014 Lund Lecture Kicks Off with the Song of Songs and Human Intimacy

On Wednesday Sept. 24, the 2014 Nils W. Lund Lectureship launched with an excellent set of lectures from Dr. Tremper Longman III, the Robert H. Gundry Professor of Biblical Studies, at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, Calif. 
   The first lecture, entitled: "Celebration and Warning: Sexual Intimacy in the Song of Songs," was a brilliant summary on the history of interpretation on the Song of Songs, where he demonstrated that the allegorical interpretation of the Song was quite late, beginning with Jewish interpreters like Rabbi Akiba (c.a. AD 100), continued through the Targum traditions (Song of Songs 1:2-4), and was popularized in Christian discourse by Hippolytus, Origen, Jerome, Bernard of Clairvaux and medieval interpreters.  He gave some hilarious examples of Christian allegorical readings: e.g., Hippolytus (AD 200) read the verse "My lover is to me a sachet of myrrh lodging between my breasts" (1:13) as meaning the beloved is the Bride of Christ, the church, and each breast represents the Old Testament on one side, and the New Testament on the other. 
    Some warnings from both Jewish and Christian traditions were poignant. Rabbi Akiba, for instance, stated that anyone who treats the Song of Songs, not as an allegory of God's love for Israel, but as a cheap love ballad to be sung in banquet halls "has no share in the world to come!" A literal reading damns the reader to hell! But read as an allegory, the Song of Songs becomes "the Holy of Holies." 
    The Westminster Assembly apparently warned that a literal reading likens the Song of Songs to "a hot carnal pamphlet formed by some loose Apollo or Cupid" rather than the beautiful story of the Bridegroom's (Christ's) unrelenting love for the Bride (the church). 
    Longman takes to task the allegorical reading and argues that the Song of Songs is not a plot-driven story but a collection of love songs, an anthology, which nevertheless has a collective literary and theological coherence. The Song is about human intimacy and sensuality, and more importantly how they might reflect the image of God. Longman ends the first lecture with some, in his words, "R-rated" translations of the Song (vs. his older, collaborative PG-13 translation with the New Living Translation committee), including Song of Songs 4:1-5:1. I'll let you hear him give the R-rated version via video link (below). As one audience member said: "The man did not blush!" when translating the Hebrew, all of which can also be found in his Song of Solomon commentary with NICOT. 

The 2nd lecture was entitled: "God Loves Sex: A Theological Reading of the Song of Songs." Again, you can listen to his lecture directly (link below) but by way of summary Longman talked about relational brokenness, healthy sexual expressions in a marriage context as well as deviant ones, and attempts to outline a biblical theology of human sexuality in dialogue with the rest of the Christian canon. It was a great way to kick-off the Lund lectureship and the Symposium on the Theological Reading of Scripture.

Prof. Longman chatting with North Park seminarians
at the end of the Lund Lectureship

For links to video recordings of the lectures, please see the following: 

Lecture 1: Jump to 6:09 to skip the introductions:
    

Lecture 2: Jump to 1:17 to skip the introductions: 

Ancient Traveling or the War Machine: Vote!

Bronze Corinthian helmet (ca. 5th cent. BC)
Photo taken by Max Lee © 2014 Museum of Corinth

Here are a couple of announcements for this blog:

1. Throughout the week, I'll be posting on the Lund Lectureship and the North Park Symposium on the Theological Reading of Scripture (click for details). Especially if there are papers and lectures on the topic of Paul, his gospel, and theology, I will definitely make comments and provide links to video for anyone who wishes to hear the lectures themselves. The papers for the symposium will not be recorded (correction! there might be live-streaming for the papers and responses: here) but they will be published in the next issue of Ex Auditu and you can get a summary and review of some papers from my posts throughout this week. 
2. Want to have a say on the next set of topics I pursue on this blog? I'll be taking a vote throughout the week of the Symposium. I was thinking of starting a series of blog posts on either the topic of ancient traveling (by foot, sea, etc.) or military warfare or it can be something else if anyone has a good suggestion. Which topic are you interested in? To vote, become a subscriber to this blog. Look to the left of this page and click the button "Join this site" under the heading "Followers." You can sign up using a google, yahoo, twitter, and other accounts. Then reply to this post indicating what topic you would like this blog to pursue. Vote: ancient traveling, military warfare, or other (name the topic). Also, it would be great if you gave a quick intro and let me know who you are and your own interests in the ancient world or anything Apostle Paul (but this is optional). That's it! I'll let people know of the results next week. 

Hope to hear from the many anonymous readers of this blog out there in the world-wide web! Blessings!

The Antikythera Mechanism used to navigate sea-waters
Photo taken by Max Lee© 2014 Athens Museum

The 2014 Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship

Every year, North Park Theological Seminary not only holds the prestigious Symposium on the Theological Interpretation of Scripture, but also sponsors the Lund Lectures which invites one Old Testament scholar and a New Testament scholar to speak on any number of themes which reflect the cutting edge research in biblical studies and are of contemporary interest today. This year, I am excited to hear a friend and senior colleague at Westmont College, Dr. Tremper Longman, speak on the subject of human sexuality and the Song of Songs (I've known Tremper for years since my one-year stint of teaching at Westmont back in 2002-3), as well as an influential figure in New Testament studies, Dr. Beverly Gaventa, speak on the subject of free and costly grace in Romans (I have not the pleasure of meeting Dr. Gaventa yet, but have heard her lecture on a number of occasions at SBL). Both will be fantastic, I'm sure! Here is a quick photo of the poster now being advertised throughout the North Park campus. 

By the way, thanks to the media department of the Evangelical Covenant Church, both days of the Lund Lectures will not only be video-recorded but also streamed live through the CovChurch.tv website. More details on how to watch the lectures live (and later as a recorded video) in the weeks to come.