Baptist Review of Theology now available on-line

I happened to come across a request for two articles from the Baptist Review of Theology on the Association of British Theological and Philosophical Libraries (ABTAPL) list. I contacted Professor Stanley K. Fowler, Academic Dean of Heritage Seminary in Ontario and asked if he would consider allowing me to place the journal on-line. Professor Fowler not only agreed to do so, but kindly provided me with an almost complete set of the journal to scan. The series lacks only issue 3.1 - perhaps someone has a copy that they could loan me to finish the set? You can access the Table of Contents here.

The journal only ran between 1991 and 1998 and contains a number of interesting articles, including one in French by Don Carson.

Transactions of the Baptist Historical Society now online

I was asked last year by Professor John Briggs, Chairman of the Baptist Historical Society, if I could assist them by digitising and hosting the Transactions of the Baptist Historical Society (1908-1921) and the Baptist Quarterly (1922-present). I quickly learned - through my contacts at the Baptist training colleges - that the Transactions represent a unique historical record valuable not just to Baptists, but to church historians, theologians and missiologists across the denominations. These old volumes are currently on restricted access in those few colleges that have paper copies.

The Baptist Quarterly will take me most of this year to complete, but the Transactions of the Baptist Historical Society are now available on-line. To further assist colleges I have provided a link at the top of the page to a compressed archive that contains all the PDF files and a separate table of contents (total file size around 65MB). These can be placed on College servers at no charge as the entire collection is now Public Domain.

Christian Focus March Giveaway

Christian Focus are offering a number of their titles in their March Giveaway in exchange for a mention in a blog post (see site for conditions).

Articles by W. Stanford Reid now on-line

The following articles are now available in PDF:

W. Stanford Reid, "The New Testament Belief in an Old Testament Church," The Evangelical Quarterly 24.4 (Oct. 1952): 194-205.

W. Stanford Reid, "The Covenant Interpretation of Culture," The Evangelical Quarterly 26.4 (1954): 194-209.

W. Stanford Reid, "The Psychology of Conversion," The Evangelical Quarterly 28.1 (1956): 33-42.

W. Stanford Reid, "The Reformed Approach to Christian Aesthetics," The Evangelical Quarterly 30.4 (1958): 211-219.

W. Stanford Reid, "The Historical Implications of Christianity," The Evangelical Quarterly 37.2 (May-June 1965): 68-81.

W. Stanford Reid, "The Beginning of Wisdom," Evangelical Quarterly 48.3 (July-Sept. 1976): 144-153.

These articles appear by permission of the Trustees of The Priscilla and Stanford Reid Trust.

New Title: Paul as Missionary by Trevor Burke & Brian Rosner

Paul as Missionary

The following book is due to be published shortly:

Trevor J. Burke & Brian S. Rosner, eds., Paul as Missionary: Identity, Activity, Theology, and Practice. Edinburgh: T & T Clark International, 2011. Hbk. ISBN: 9780567604750. pp.420.

Description
Paul as Missionary: Identity, Activity, Theology and Practice takes the view that before anything else Paul must first and foremost be identified as a ‘missionary’. Using the entire Pauline corpus the contributors to this volume assess what Paul’s correspondence can tell us about how he perceived his role and identity. The work comprises four parts: in section one, Paul’s identity as priest, eschatological herald, and missionary-pastor are explored while in part two topics such as the apostle’s activity among pagans, his suffering, and Paul’s ‘missionary message’ to the church at Rome are considered. Section three comprises essays on the Spirit as the governing dynamic, the glory of God as the apostle’s missionary goal, and the importance of Paul’s Christology in shaping his mission to the Gentiles. Finally, part four addresses Paul’s missionary praxis, including his support of his missionary enterprise.

Table of Contents


Abbreviations
List of Contributors
Introduction

Part One - Paul's Identity
Paul as an Eschatological Herald Seyoon Kim
Paul as Missionary-Pastor James W. Thompson
Paul and His Ethnicity: Reframing the Cathegories James C. Miller
Paul - An Israelite Priest who offers the Gentiles as a Sacrifice to God Richard Gibson

Part Two - Paul's Activity
The Mission of God in Paul's Letter to the Romans Beverly Roberts Gaventa
Paul and the Multi-Ethnic First Century World: Ethnicity and Christian Identity J. Daniel Hays
The Sacrifical-Missiological Function of Paul's Sufferings in the Context of 2 Corinthians J. Ayodeji Adewuya
Was Paul's Grace-based Gospel True to Jesus? Paul W. Barnett

Part Three - Paul's Missionary Theology
Paul's Christology and his Mission to the Gentiles Arland J. Hultgren
A Missionary Strategy in 1 Cor. 9.-19-23 Karl O. Sandnes
The Spirit as the Controlling Dynamic in Paul's Role as Missionary to the Thessalonians Trevor J. Burke
The Glory of God in Paul's Missionary Theology and Practice Brian S. Rosner
Reconciliation as the Heart of Paul's Missionary Theology Stanley E. Porter
Paul's Theology of the Gospel Roy E. Ciampa

Part Four - Paul's Missionary Practice
Universality and Particularity of Paul's Understanding and Strategy of Mission William S. Campbell
'The World of Life': Resurrection and Mission in Philippians James Ware
Paul, patronage and pay: what do we know about the apostle's financial support? Steve Walton
Pauline Mission as Salvific Intentionality: Fostering a Missional Consciousness in 1 Corinthians 9.19-23 and 10.31-11.1 Michael Barram
(Mis)Reading Paul's Letters Through Modern Eyes E. Randolph Richards

Index of Scripture
Index of Modern Authors

Author(s)
Trevor J. Burke,
Trevor J. Burke teaches New Testament in the Bible department of the Moody Bible Institute, Chicago, USA. Prior to this, he has taught New Testament in seminaries in Nigeria and Fiji.

Brian S. Rosner,
Brian S. Rosner took his PhD from Cambridge University, UK, and is Senior Lecturer in New Testament and Ethics in Moore Theological College, Sydney, Australia.

Visit publishers's Website

Rob Bell and Universalism - some resources

There have been a number of detailed reviews published of Rob Bell's latest book. Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived (HarperOne, 2011). I do not intend to repeat their contents here, though I think that two are worth mentioning. Kevin DeYoung's review is the most helpful covering in some detail problems with Bell's exegesis, understanding of history and eschatology [a pdf version of the review can be found here]. I have to agree strongly with his statement that:

This is a book for people like Bell, people who grew up in an evangelical environment and don’t want to leave it completely, but want to change it, grow up out of it, and transcend it. The emerging church is not an evangelistic strategy. It is the last rung for evangelicals falling off the ladder into liberalism or unbelief.

This brings me the second review by Albert Mohler. Mohler concentrates on the similarities between Bell's theology and that of Nineteenth Century Liberalism. For Mohler, Bell is simply Schleiermacher redivivus.

Now, to my main purpose in writing. Here are some on-line resources that might be of help. I have extensive bibliographies on both Hell and Universalism. From these these articles might be of most interest:

Graham Keith, "Patristic Views on Hell - Part 1," The Evangelical Quarterly 71.3 (1999): 217-232.

Graham Keith, "Patristic Views on Hell - Part 2," The Evangelical Quarterly 71.4 (1999): 291-310.

Richard Bauckham, "Universalism: a historical survey," Themelios 4.2 (September 1978): 47-54.

Timothy K. Beougher, "Are All Doomed to Be Saved? The Rise of Modern Universalism," The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 2.2 (Summer 1998): 6-24.

"Where the Fires are Not Quenched": Biblical, Theological & Pastoral Perspectives on Hell by Jonathan Gibson

Norman Hillyer on the Servant of God

The following article is now on-line in PDF:

Norman Hillyer, "The Servant of God," The Evangelical Quarterly 41.3 (July-Sept. 1969): 143-160.

Revd. Hillyer has asked for feedback from those who read his article, so please leave a comment if you find it helpful.

Norman Hillyer on Matthew's Use of the Old Testament

The following article is now available on-line in PDF:

Norman Hillyer, "Matthew's Use of the Old Testament," The Evangelical Quarterly 36.1 (Jan.-Mar. 1964): 12-26. Click here to read.

Reverend Hillyer (who is 90 this year) has kindly granted permission to place all his articles published in Evangelical Quarterly on-line. He would be pleased to know if they are still helpful - so if you like the article please leave a comment below. I will forward the feedback to the author.

Website Year End Review 2010

2010 has been an extremely busy year for the Theology on the Web websites, with a noticeable development from placing individual articles online to placing whole journals online as well. The following journals are now avialable on-line for the first time. The current  incompleteness of some of these journals is an indication of how difficult it is proving for me to get hold of copies in the UK to scan.

Australian Biblical Review
Caribbean Journal of Evangelical Theology
Indian Journal of Theology

There has also been a shift from digitising western journals to making available those from the Far East. Given the increasing numbers of visitors from this region and the sites purpose in making good theological resources to those in the Two Thirds World this is a very welcome development.

New Tables of Contents

The following two journals are avialable online at their host sites, but I have added tables of contents for them both on biblicalstudies.org.uk in order to make access to them easier.

Andrews University Seminary Studies

Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal

New website launched

On the 1st November I launched biblicalarchaeology.org.uk, which will provide resources on the vast field of Biblical Archaeology. Much work needs to be done to make the site the comprehensive resource I hope it will become.

Future Additions

This year I also registered two more domains: reformationchurch.org.uk and gospelstudies.org.uk. reformationchurch.org.uk follows on chronological, of course, from medievalchurch.org.uk  The subject matter of this period of Church History is immense and complex, so development is expected to take several years.

gospelstudies.org.uk was registered in case it becomes necessary to increase the amount of material on the 4 Gospels beyond that which would easily fit into the structure of BiblicalStudies.org.uk comfortably. I have no timescale as yet for the development of this site.

Early in the Near Year I am hoping to start work on the digitisation of the Transactions of the Baptist Historical Society and its successor Baptist Quarterly. I expect that these will take a considerable time to complete.

And Finally...

2011 marks the 10th Anniversary of BiblicalStudies.org.uk. A partial history of its development can be found on Archive.org's WayBack Machine.

I would like to thank all of my visitors for their encouragement and assistance over the years. Without your ongoing support this milestone could not have been reached.

The Reverend Dr John Bowden dies at 75

I personally would want to disagree with his choice of books for publication, but his importance for theology in the United Kingdom cannot be denied. Read The Telegraph obituary here.

Indian Journal of Theology to be placed on-line

I pleased be able to announce that I have been given permission to place on-line the Indian Journal of Theology. This is a rare journal here in the UK, but one that seems to contain much useful material. Progress on digitisation can be seen here.

The following issues are currently unavailable to me and I would be like to borrow or to purchase the missing volumes at a reasonable price:

Vols 1-5
8.2-3
9.1, 3-4
10.1-2
11.3
14.2-4
15.3-4
16.3-4
17.1-2
20.1-4
26.3-4
34.1-4

Paul and Jesus Through Jewish Eyes

The following article is now available on-line in PDF:

John Fischer, "Paul in his Jewish Context," The Evangelical Quarterly 57.3 (July-Sept. 1985): 211-236. Click here to read.

My thanks to Dr Fischer of Menorah Ministries for his kind permission to place the article on-line. His Evangelical Theological Society address Jesus Through Jewish Eyes: A Rabbi Examines the Life and Teachings of Jesus can be found here.