News
(11 August 2010) In this photo of the Tokyo conference, notice that I'm the only person kneeling in traditional Japanese fashion!
(5 August 2010) I have just returned from a wonderful trip to Japan. As a result you will find some new haiku on my poetry page. Soon there will also be some additions to my 'Unpublished lectures' and to the photos.
(6 July 2010) I have finished writing my short book Jesus: A Very Short Introduction. This is to appear in the very successful series A Very Short Introduction, published by Oxford University Press (there are about 200 other books in the series). I had a maximum word length of 35,000 words (which I have used), but short books are not necessarily easier to write than long ones! I think it's an excellent series and I'm delighted to be in it. The series is intelligent, not at all dumbed down, but for people who may not want to read more than a short book on a subject they're not yet familiar with. Hopefully my book will reach a market other things I write do not.
(25 June 2010) I have just received my first copy of my new book Bible and Ecology: Rediscovering the Community of Creation (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2010), 226 pp, £14.95 from 'all good bookshops' or from Amazon.co.uk (with a reduction in price). This is the UK edition (the US edition is due from Baylor University Press later in the summer). It is a special pleasure to see in its actual published form a book that one has worked on for a long time.
(7 June 2010) I have just received my copy of David G. Horrell, Cherryl Hunt, Christopher Southgate and Francesca Stavrakopoulou, eds., Ecological Hermeneutics: Biblical, Historical and Theological Perspectives (London: T. & T. Clark [Continuum], 2010). which contains my essay, 'Reading the Synoptic Gospels Ecologically' (pp 70-82). For anyone interested in this subject, this volume is indispensable. It has a wealth of interesting material.
(8 May 2010) I have just received my copy of Edward W. Klink III ed., The Audience of the Gospels: The Origin and Function of the Gospels in Early Christianity (LNTS 353; London: T. & T. Clark [Continuum], 2010). This is a volume of essays taking up the discussion about the original intended audiences of the Gospels that was begun with the volume I edited: The Gospels for All Christians (1998). Klink's volume is very welcome because there has been relatively little discussion of the proposal made in The Gospels for All Christians that the Gospels were not written for specific communities but to circulate generally around the churches. It contains my own essay: “Is there Patristic Counter-Evidence? A Response to Margaret Mitchell.” Klink provides a valuable survey of the debate up until now, and there are also essays by Michael Bird, Justin Marc Smith, Craig Blomberg, and Adele Reinhartz.