This is a half-baked response to someone who got in touch with some questions after reading Why the missional church must also be prophetic…

Given the importance that the Shema would acquire for Jewish religious practice in the rabbinic period and has had for christology among Pauline scholars in the last thirty years, it is remarkable that it is so rarely quoted or discussed, on its own terms, in the literature of second temple Judaism. In fact, the only Jews of the time who show any interest in it are Jesus and a certain scribe who came and asked him, “Which commandment is first of all?” (Mk. 12:28). Jesus answers the man by reciting the Shema.

The publication of a reconstructed “Hymn of Babylon” has been in the news. The text of the hymn has been assembled from a number of cuneiform tablets from the Sippar library with the help of AI. The hymn is incomplete; it would have been about 250 lines in length, roughly two-thirds has been recovered. The work may date to the 13th century BC. It is made up of hymns to Marduk, to his temple Esagil, to Babylon the city and its river, and to the Babylonians. The authors of the article in Iraq journal say…

This is rewrite of a post from last year just to update the details, with some changes of perspective and emphasis. I’ll be honest. It’s in part a sneaky—but not unprincipled—way to get people to consider signing up for one or other of the programmes and projects that I’m involved in. Other excellent programmes are available.

There seems to be a lot of talk these days about reversing the decline of the West as a formerly Christian civilisation. Here’s an example that I happened to come across. The aim of the UK-based Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) is “to draw on our moral, cultural, economic, and spiritual foundations to develop a more hope-filled vision for the future and, ultimately, to re-lay the foundations of our civilisation.”

We don’t talk a lot about the “second death” in church, I know. At least, not in our church. I ended up down this rabbit hole—really, a small dead-end off the sprawling warren of New Testament apocalyptic thought—thanks to some helpful comments about the use of the expression in the Aramaic Targums. I’ve relied on Aune’s commentary mostly for the wider context. He considers the Hellenistic background first, suggests an Egyptian origin for the idea, then looks at the Jewish material.

When Paul says that God put forward the death of Jesus as—in whatever sense—an “atonement” (Rom. 3:25), he has in mind specifically the salvation of the Jews.