Join us for an exciting night celebrating recent publications from our resident faculty. We will hear from Dr. John DelHousaye and Dr. John Meade about their research on the Biblical canon and the theology of Ephesians. Light refreshments will be provided with books available for purchase.
Details
- Registration: The event is free and open to the public with no registration required.
- Date: Monday, November 5th, 7 p.m.
- Location: Phoenix Seminary Chapel
Speakers
John DelHousaye: “What If the Reformers Began with Ephesians?”
Martin Luther relied heavily on Galatians and then Romans for his understanding of the gospel. John Calvin loosely based his Institutes on the latter. But what if they had focused on Ephesians, which gathers many of the themes of these earlier letters but also contextualizes them in a communal direction under the headship of Jesus Christ? Without pitting one Pauline letter against another or criticizing the valuable contributions of the Reformers, this talk explores this union with Christ as a possible center of Paul’s gospel.
Dr. DelHousaye’s new book Engaging Ephesians explains the phenomena of the text of Ephesians in a way that allows readers to work through and understand it on their own. It is divided into fourteen sections, which allows it to correspond perfectly with the length of a semester and be adopted as a course textbook. At the head of each weekly section, significant individuals and key terms are listed and expounded upon in subsequent commentary. In addition, each chapter has a vocabulary list for all words that occur fifty times or less in the Greek New Testament. Also helpful are discussions on matters such as literary structure, rhetoric, semantics, and syntax. This reader-friendly guide allows readers to engage Ephesians in a deep, profound, and faithful manner.
John Meade: “How the Biblical Canon Lists Shaped Our Bible”
In the first few centuries of the church’s history many books and scriptures were circulating. Some books had been very important to early Christians for a long time and some had already been deemed to be written by heretics. To help clarify the boundaries between these books and the canonical books, Christians began to draft lists of the canonical books of the Old and New Testament, that is, lists of authoritative and universally recognized books upon which doctrine was determined. These lists spawned the making of other lists of useful books for Christian discipleship. Dr. John Meade’s recent book provides the evidence for all these biblical canon lists. His talk will summarize his findings and show how these early lists have a direct influence on the very contents of our own Bibles today.
Dr. Meade’s new book The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity provides an accessible presentation of these early canon lists. With a focus on the first four centuries, the volume supplies the full text of the canon lists in English translation alongside the original text, usually Greek or Latin, occasionally Hebrew or Syriac. Edmon L. Gallagher and John D. Meade orient readers to each list with brief introductions and helpful notes, and they point readers to the most significant scholarly discussions. The book begins with a substantial overview of the history of the biblical canon, and an entire chapter is devoted to the evidence of biblical manuscripts from the first millennium. This authoritative work is an indispensable guide for students and scholars of biblical studies and church history.
