classics digests, reflections and reviews
Old and New Testament Manuscripts, Textual Criticism, Exegesis and Hermeneutics
Five years ago, I published a series of blogposts on the earliest New Testament manuscripts, in one of which I tabulated all Greek manuscripts of all 27 NT books that have been dated to between 2nd and 4th century by both LDAB and NTVMR[1]. This particular post and the series have become the most viewed posts of my otherwise obscure blog. Recently, one reader posed a question, “Where can I […]
Read more
For those interested in the devotional practices of earliest Christians, in particular, whether, how and why they worshipped Jesus. this is a valuable read. Prof. Dunn, in dialogue with Profs. Larry Hurtado and Richard Bauckham, presents the complexity and richness of New Testament Christology. Although answers provided by these scholars are far from satisfactory — partly because they all disagree with one another on certain points, it is very interesting […]
Read more
Having grown up as an atheist, I used to treat all religious practices with contempt. Even after my conversion to theism, rituals and liturgy have remained alien to me, partly by choice, partly due to circumstances. My experience and understanding of Christianity have been mostly on the intellectual level. In this regard, Prof. Hurtado made a significant impact on me, as he piqued my interest in the lives of the […]
Read more
As I’ve recently updated the table of earliest New Testaments manuscripts, according to dates assigned by Leuven Database of Ancient Books (LDAB) and New Testament Virtual Manuscript Room (NTVMR), I thought it would be interesting to see how these two data sources compare with one another. Both LDAB and NTVMR hold detailed information on thousands of manuscripts, but only about three hundred are in common between them, that is, entries […]
Read more
The author of this book, Prof. Larry Hurtado, passed away on Nov. 25, 2019. When he was alive, I pestered the professor with many questions about New Testament studies. He was gracious enough to answer all these questions from a complete stranger, on one condition: I read his books. I finished this a week after his passing, partly to fulfill my promise and partly to pay tribute. Perhaps the best […]
Read more
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. –John 3:16 It seems fitting to spend some time during this Easter weekend to look at the textual history of one of the most famous verses in the entire Bible, John 3:16. A verse that captures the essence of Christianity. For this exercise, I wrote a […]
Read more
The Back Story There is a Chinese saying, “You never regret how little knowledge you have until the time comes to use it”. Many times in the past two years, I was painfully reminded of that truth. When I started writing this “Exploring LDAB” series last year, I ventured into fields that were totally strange to me, and was forced to learn many things I had never thought of learning […]
Read more