Dr. Randy Richards is the retiring Provost and Chief Academic Officer and will be the Research Professor of New Testament at Palm Beach Atlantic University. He has authored several books and articles, including Inscriptions and Papyri in the forthcoming ALNTS series (with James Harrison) and Misreading Scripture with Individualist Eyes(with Richard James). Luke 12:20 is often translated something like, “Your soul will be required of you.” But the Greek verb is active and plural: “They will demand your soul from you.” Who or what is “they”?
Dr. Steve Walton is Professor of New Testament at Trinity College in Bristol, U.K., an ordained priest/presbyter in the Church of England, and former Secretary of the British New Testament Society. His many publications include (with David Wenham), Exploring the New Testament, vol. 1: The Gospels and Acts. He is currently working on a major critical commentary on Acts for the Word Biblical Commentary Series. Luke directs the opening words of his Gospel to one “most excellent Theophilus.” Is Theophilus a real person’s name (probably) and is there anything more we can infer about him and his significance for Luke from the little said in the first verses of Luke’s Gospel combined with knowledge of the surrounding world?
Recently, David Capes was in London and visited mission-central for Book-Aid. This UK charitable trust has been around 35 years and provides quality Christian books at “affordable, local prices” in the United Kingdom as well as countries in Africa. Christine Pulsford, daughter of the founders and now director, joins David to talk about the history and mission of this unique ministry.
Book-Aid collects books from hundreds of supporters at collection sites across England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Then they sort them in their headquarters and ship them. Book-Aid supplies Bibles and Christian literature to their partners living around the world where books are wanted but not easily found or affordable.
The books are sold and not given away. This ensures the dignity of the books as well as those who receive them. Also, they are sold in bookshops. This creates jobs in places where jobs are scarce. Book-Aid staff are keen on sending the right kind of books to their partners. Books that are too “academic” or in the wrong languages are sold online to provide income for the charity.
If you find yourself in London, make your way to south London to see their incredible book shop. If you’re not in London, you too can help by donating to the charity at their website www.book-aid.org. David toured the book shop and saw hundreds of great books he wanted to buy.
Joining Christine and David on the podcast is Rob Bradshaw, librarian at Spurgeon’s College in London. He is one of their trustees at Book-Aid. In addition to all his volunteer work, Rob runs a website called “Theology on the Web” (https://theologyontheweb.org.uk). Rob does in the digital world what Book-Aid does in the print world. Rob and David did a podcast together in January 2021. To hear the podcast (20 minutes) click here.
The Early High Christology Club (EHCC) was a loose association of scholars from various backgrounds and different religious traditions.
They all became convinced that the early circles of the Jesus movement regarded their Lord as having “high” or divine status.
Carey Newman, executive editor at Fortress Press, joins David Capes on “The Stone Chapel Podcast” to talk about the beginning and contribution of the “club” to modern scholarship.
Both Capes and Newman were founding members of the club, and unfortunately, they are the only surviving members.
Over the roughly 25 years the club “met,” it boasted some of the most significant voices in New Testament Studies: Larry Hurtado, Alan Segal, Paula Fredriksen, Donald Juel, April DeConick, Martin Hengel, Pheme Perkins, N. T. Wright, Marianne Meye Thompson, Richard Hays and a host of others.
As an informal club, it had no membership. But scholars who heard of the group wanted to become members and own one of the coveted coffee mugs produced by Baylor University Press.
To be a member, a scholar needed to have written books or articles making the case that the evidence demonstrates that Jesus is worshiped from early moments of the movement and set in such close association with God that he could properly be referred to as divine.
After relating the “founding myth” of the organization in the mid-1990s Carey Newman situates the club within the stream of scholarship.
Some regard the worship of Jesus to be a later development in the first century (60-70 years after the execution of Jesus). Others think it happened much later (hundreds of years). But members of the EHCC generally make the case that historically it arose for various reasons within the first decade of the movement.
Several Early High Christology Club members have lectured at the Lanier Library: Larry Hurtado, Richard Hays, Mike Bird, and N. T. Wright. Among the special collections, the library has the libraries of two of the founding members: Alan Segal and Larry Hurtado. It also houses many of the books of Peter Davids and David Capes, two key members.
The late Larry Hurtado’s blog is a good source of information about the club as well as all things New Testament: https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com
The title of the book neither David or Carey could remember was Israel’s God and Rebecca’s Children: Christology and Community in Early Judaism and Christianity (Baylor University Press, 2007).
A Word in Edgewise 
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