A year ago or so I was invited to contribute to SBL's project
Bible Odyssey which was launched about two months ago. I was told that this week my article on the
"Alexandrian Text" is highlighted on the Bible Oddysey home page, together with an article on
"The Earliest Versions and Translations of the Bible" by Brennan Breed and a timeline of
"The History of the English Bible" and a newly added videoclip on
Early Christian Martyrdom featuring Candida Moss.
Just a week ago, John Kutsko of the SBL sent out a report about the two first months of the website, and it turns out that "People are very interested in ... 'life in first century Galilee' and 'how the Hebrew Bible relates to the
ancient Near East,' as well as 'the binding of Isaac' and '
the woman caught in adultery.'” The last entry is written by my friend Jennifer Knust and we have worked a lot together on this topic for some years now. There is a
related video clip in which Amy Jill Levine discusses the pericope adulterae, and another entry on the
manuscript history of the passage (John 8:1-11) by another friend of mine, Chris Keith. Earlier this year, Chris, Jennifer and I contributed to a conference at SEBTS,
the Pericope Adulterae symposium.
Kutsko continues his report on the Bible Odyssey webpage saying that many visitors come from North America and Europe, but that there is also strong traffic from Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Israel. Personally, Kutsko thinks the "Ask the Scholar" button (see the magnifying glass on the image above, or go
here) is the coolest of all. Here they have received questions such as:
- Why does God speak in the plural in Genesis?
- Was John the Baptist an Essene?
- How many scholars believe that Q existed as a source for Matthew and Luke?
- Has the biblical figure of Satan evolved?
- Why is ‘almah in Proverbs 30:19 translated differently?
- How does domestic architecture vary in the Second Temple period?
My new article on "Manuscripts of the Lord's Prayer" has just been published on the Bible Odyssey, a website developed and maintained by Society of Biblical Literature. On the Bible Odyssey, biblical scholars "share the latest
historical and literary research on key people, places, and passages of
the Bible."