In the first installment I set out the traditional Greco-Roman letter format and looked at the ldquo Judases rdquo and ldquo Jameses rdquo in the New Testament There seemed to be only one good option for whom the Judas Jude to whom this letter is attributed could be the Judas Jude who is the
John W. Martens
John W. Martens is an associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn,where he teaches early Christianity and Judaism. He also directs the Master of Arts in Theology program at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. He was born in Vancouver, B.C. into a Mennonite family that had decided to confront modernity in an urban setting. His post-secondary education began at Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas, came to an abrupt stop, then started again at Vancouver Community College, where his interest in Judaism and Christianity in the earliest centuries emerged. He then studied at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, and McMaster University, with stops at University of Haifa and University of Tubingen. His writing often explores the intersection of Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman culture and belief, such as in "let the little children come to me: Children and Childhood in Early Christianity" (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), but he is not beyond jumping into the intersection of modernity and ancient religion, as in "The End of the World: The Apocalyptic Imagination in Film and Television" (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford Press, 2003). He blogs at www.biblejunkies.com and at www.americamagazine.org for "The Good Word." You can follow him on Twitter @biblejunkies, where he would be excited to welcome you to his random and obscure interests, which range from the Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Timberwolves, to his dog, and 70s punk, pop and rock. When he can, he brings students to Greece, Turkey and Rome to explore the artifacts and landscape of the ancient world. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and has two sons. He is certain that the world will not end until the Vancouver Canucks have won the Stanley Cup, as evidence has emerged from the Revelation of John, 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, and 4 Ezra which all point in this direction.
Posted inThe Good Word
From Palm Sunday through Holy Week
As we have reached Palm Sunday I wanted to provide links to previous writings here on The Good Word blog and one found at the Bible Junkies blog Please also go The Word to find the most recent columns for Palm Sunday and Easter The Palm Sunday post is a reflection on how quickly our attention can
Posted inThe Word
A Shocking Love
One of the most difficult things for Western Christians to grasp is the reality of the miraculous which infuses the whole of the New Testament We labor more than we know under the assumptions of a world that is a closed empirical system from which God is absent Rudolf Bultmann the great 20th-
Posted inThe Good Word
The Letter of Jude Online Commentary (2)
In the first installment I looked at the ldquo Judases rdquo and ldquo Jameses rdquo in the New Testament There seems only one good option for whom the Judas Jude to whom this letter is attributed could be the Judas Jude who is the brother of Jacob James and Jesus nbsp Modern scholarship h
Posted inThe Word
Encountering Hope
But we had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel rdquo There it is in a short summary sentence the end of their hope When hope is placed in the past tense it is over You get up share a last word and embrace with your friends dust yourself off and begin to walk home The Greek tense of the v
Posted inThe Good Word
The Letter of Jude Online Commentary
In January 2012 I began blogging a commentary on the Gospel of Mark available at the Bible Junkies blog and now at America Magazine which I completed just last week My somewhat ambitious goal is to write an online commentary on every New Testament document though I have given myself the equally
Posted inThe Good Word
Church as “Community of the Shaken:” Tomas Halik and the Lost Sheep
Last year I spent some time reading the powerful book The Night of the Confessor by nbsp the Czech Roman Catholic priest Tomas Halik His readings of the Gospel in light of the Church today moved me to write four blog posts at Bible Junkies I reproduce one of those posts here Church as quot Commu
Posted inThe Good Word
Images of Peter from the New Testament, or How did Peter become the First Pope?
In case you have not heard, Pope Benedict XVI resigned. Nowadays, to choose a successor they gather all of the Cardinals under 80 from around the world and fly them to Rome to choose a new Pope. But how did Peter become the first Bishop of Rome, the man we call “Pope”? Practice, practice, practice? No, that’s how you get to Carnegie Hall not Rome. So, what are the lessons that the New Testament offers for those who are about to choose a successor to Peter as the Bishop of Rome? First of all, each Gospel tells us that Jesus called Simon bar Jonah early in his ministry to follow him and Peter answered that call . This is a call all the papabile have already answered, so they are in good position in that respect, though Simon bar Jonah was a Jewish fisherman when he was called, which none of the Cardinals can claim to be. Second, Jesus gave Simon a nickname, and this fact in itself is very cool, but the content of the nickname, Cephas or Petros, “the Rock,” is even better (Mk. 3:16; Matt. 16:18; Jn. 1:42). Once Simon received his nickname, he generally was called Peter, except by his mother and Paul; she doubtless kept calling him Simon and Paul kept calling him Cephas, probably to show that he still knew Aramaic. We do not know if any of the possibilities for Pope have nicknames, such as Marc “Frenchy” Ouellet or Peter “The Young” Turkson, but even if they did, their names were not given to them directly by Jesus, so this might not be a deciding factor. Upon becoming Pope they do get to choose a new name, which is itself cool, but not as excellent as having Jesus choose one for you.