Read The Fathers

Here is a great find on the inter webs, http://readthefathers.org, a blog that has put together a reading plan of the church fathers. It is a 7-year plan through the patristics while reading 7 pages a day at most, it started with Clement of Rome and over three years has gotten to Jerome.

I signed up for the daily email on the blog and am really enjoying getting an email from them everyday with a link to the reading for that day. They also do a few things other than the daily reading, like blogs on different figures in the church.

Anyways, check it out, its a really great resource.

Notes on N.T.Wrights Christian Origin series vol.1-3 by Andrew Perriman

In a Previous post I mentioned Andrew Perriman's notes on N.T. Wright's Christian Origin Series. I struggled to post a pdf of them last time, but was able to now. Here they are below. And the link to the original as well as some other good resources by Perriman is: http://www.postost.net/2003/09/christian-origins-and-question-god

Great Video Resource for Philosophy (Wi-Phi)

I recently found this great website, http://www.wi-phi.com/,  that has short videos explaining important concepts in philosophy similar to the way "the khan academy" teaches all their subjects. Wi-Phi and Khan Academy are actually partnering together to bring some of WiPhi's videos onto Khan academy.

The subject list of Wi-Phi is impressive and the videos are fun and packed full of good info.

Probably one of the best things about Wi-Phi is their page of resources that brings together some of the best free and basic resources for philosophy on the web. I copy and pasted it below and had a fun time checking out some of these links.

Philosophy:

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP): The SEP is an excellent free online encyclopedia of philosophy with each entry created by experts in the field.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP) : The IEP is a non-profit organization that provides open access to detailed, scholarly information on key topics and philosophers in all areas of philosophy.

Philosophy Talk: Ken Taylor and John Perry create incredible podcasts on a wide range of philosophical questions.  It's a perfect resource for a beginner in philosophy.      

Philosophy Bites: A set of podcasts where hosts interview top philosophers on bite sized topics.

Open Yale Courses in Philosophy: A free resource of classes at Yale University in philosophy.

History of Philosophy (without any gaps): Peter Adamson, Professor of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy at King's College London, takes listeners through the history of Western philosophy, "without any gaps." Beginning with the earliest ancient thinkers, the series will look at the ideas and lives of the major philosophers (eventually covering in detail such giants as Plato, Aristotle, Avicenna, Aquinas, Descartes, and Kant) as well as the lesser-known figures of the tradition.

Philosopher's Zone: A radio program that works through issues in ethics, metaphysics, and logic.

Philosophy Now: Philosophy Now is a newsstand magazine for everyone interested in ideas. It aims to corrupt innocent citizens by convincing them that philosophy can be exciting, worthwhile and comprehensible, and also to provide some light and enjoyable reading matter for those already ensnared by the muse, such as philosophy students and academics.

Philosophy for Children: Philosophy for Children's primary purpose is to introduce philosophy into the lives of young people. One of their principal activities are the "Philosophers in the Schools" program, which brings people trained in philosophy into K-12 classrooms to do philosophy sessions with students, our teacher-education workshops, and our parent-education project. Be sure to check out their excellent blog as well. 

Online Learning:

Khan Academy: Khan Academy offers a constantly growing library of free videos that covers K-12 math, science topics such as biology, chemistry, and physics and even a few videos on history.

Smart History: Smart History at Khan Academy is the leading open educational resource for art history. They make high-quality introductory art history content freely available to anyone, anywhere.

EdX: EdX is a non-profit created by founding partners Harvard and MIT. EdX offers MOOCs and interactive online classes in subjects including law, history, science, engineering, business, social sciences, computer science, public health, and artificial intelligence (AI). 

Open Culture: Open Culture brings together high-quality cultural & educational media for the worldwide lifelong learning community.

MIT+K12: An amazing resource that aims to promote STEM education where MIT students create videos that teach basic scientific and engineering concepts to primary school students in an entertaining fashion.

LearnOutLoud: LearnOutLoud is an organization that offers high-quality podcasts and radio shows on a wide variety of subjects, including philosophy, psychology, economics, and history. 

Other Interesting Links:

Open University 60-Second Adventures in Thought: These fast-paced animations explain six famous thought experiments, from the ancient Greeks to Albert Einstein, that have changed the way we see the world.

Brila Youth Projects: Brila is a Philosophy for Children charity that supports youth through educational programming that challenges their assumptions about art, ethics, and human connectivity.

Squire Family Foundation: The Squire Family Foundation supports various efforts that are trying to make philosophy more accessible.  The site has an excellent set of resources on pre-college philosophy.

PLATO (Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization): PLATO advocates and supports introducing philosophy to K-12 students through programs, resource-sharing and the development of a national network of those working in pre-college philosophy. They have gathered an excellent set of resources on teaching philosophy at K-12 level.

SAPERE (Society for the Advancement of Philosophical Enquiry and Reflection in Education): SAPERE advocates ‘the advancement of education for the public benefit, in particular amongst those young persons up to the age of 16 years, by the promotion of the development of their skills in logical thinking and other philosophical techniques so that their personal and social lives are enriched.

Ask Philosopher: You ask. Philosophers answer.

Teaching Children Philosophy: this organization helps adults conduct philosophical discussion with and among elementary school children.

The Information Philosopher (I-Phi): I-Phi is a new philosophical method grounded in science, especially modern physics, biology, neuroscience, and the science of information. It offers novel solutions to classical problems in philosophy, notably freedom of the will, the objective foundation of values, and the problem of knowledge (epistemology).

Mel Thompson: Philosophy and Ethics: Mel writes introductory and popular books on philosophy, ethics and religion and believes that everything should be explored with an open mind.

H. Orton Wiley Lecture Series Archive

Here is a great resource!

Pointloma University in Sandiego runs a yearly conference titled "H.Orton Wiley lectures in Theology". This conference has brought in some great speakers and covered some great topics. The two I have listened to are:

James K.A Smith - Whose Afraid of Relativism?

John Polkinghorne - Science and Theology

Bulletin of Biblical Research

Here is a link for the archives for the "Bulletin of Biblical Research", an evangelical scholarly journal covering a wide range of topics in biblical studies and theology. The archive goes back to 1991 and contains articles by Gordon Fee, Michael Bird, John Collins, Douglas Moo and a few other recognizable names in biblical scholarship. I looked at a few years and some of the articles look great. I will try and post some of the good articles that I find.


https://www.ibr-bbr.org/bulletin-biblical-research

N.T Wrights Christian Origin Series Intro and Summary Notes by Andrew Perriman

I have been periodically reading through the first three volumes of N.T.Wright's Christian Origins Series for the past two years and now am halfway through the 2nd part. The three parts breakup as (1) New Testament and the People of God, (2) Jesus and the Victory of God and (3) The resurrection of the Son of God (the recently released volumes of Paul complete the series- I am not even beginning to think about touching Paul and Pauline studies now)- the whole series is massive and astounding and to read through Wrights tour of 1st Century Judaism, Christianity and the world of the New Testament is definitely an attempt at diving in the deep end for me. The books just feel "special" and historically speaking seems like a landmarker for all NT (and biblical) studies in the near future- they feel like the books people will be talking about and arguing about in 50 to 100 years from now. Richard Hays, Dean of Duke Divinity School, says on the back book jacket: "The sweep of Wright's project as a whole is breathtaking. It is impossible to give a fair assessment of his achievement without sounding grandiose: no New Testament scholar since Bultmann has even attempted- let alone achieved- such an innovative and comprehensive account of New Testament history and theology."

Because of the social and historical value of Wright's study, these books alone are worth wading through and at least being familiar with- not to mention the intrinsic value of Wright's presentation of Jesus and the world of the gospels. I picked these books up to help me go deeper into studying the gospels as I taught them, and it is nothing short to say it was a dynamite in my thought life and exploded the tunnels of possibly study and research wide open.

So have I built up excitement for the books enough yet??!! Well, the downfall or the stumbling block for the average laymen or bible student is that these 3 books combined are 1,883 pages (bibliographies not included!) and they aren't necessarily the "quick read" type of material- I remember when I first began to read vol.1 and it took me 2 hours to get through the 26 page introduction!! Eventually as I got his lingo and figured out who the heck "bultmann, schliermarcher, and harnack" were I started to move a little faster.

Anyways, this winter I am trying to plow through some more of this series and maybe even finish it and as I was getting back into it I was looking for a summary or notes online of the 1st volumet to help me review and I found this amazing resource... a 44 page dense and rich summary of notes, quotes of the first three volumes in the series. They are written by Writer, Pastor and Theologian Andrew Perriman whose has written books on "narrative theology" and the eschatology for the emerging church as well as women in the ministry for IVP, he posted his summary notes on his blog and you can download them as a PDF.

This is a really helpful introduction to the series of Wright, it is a 44 page summary of 1,883 pages...so he leaves a few things out but really gives great quotes and synopsis of the major points of Wright's project. I highly recommend either reading it as an intro to the project or as a replacement if you think you will never get into all the books. I am currently using it to refresh the parts of read and hopefully it will help me read quicker through the parts I have yet to read.

Last thing, maybe a more helpful introduction to the work and thought of N.T. Wright is some of his more popular books. It seems like he compresses his scholarly work into more bite-size portions- these are great for those who don't want all the footnotes, debates and extra conversations. The way I see it the following three volumes can be substituted by these more popular books:

1. NT and the People of God: How God became King
2. Jesus and the Victory of God: Simply Jesus or the Challenge of Jesus
3. Resurrection of the son of God: Suprised by Hope

Reformed Philosophy

Interested in "reformed philosophy"....who isn't right?!

The reformed church has quite a history of formidable philosophers that is currently being carried on by philosophers like Alvin Plantiga and Nicholas Wolterstorff and James K.A. Smith. Here is a great website named philosphia reformita, at the top of the page it lists some of the big names in reformed philosophy, giving a brief biography of the philosopher as well as a listing of all the written works by the author and the online works that are available by that particular author. It also has a link to the philosphia reformita journal which has a few (but not many) of it's articles available for free.

Also here is a great website that lists the majority of Alvin Plantiga's articles and gives links of the ones that are available to read online.

Dr. Constable' bible study notes (sonic light)

On the resources page is the link to dr. constable's bible study notes; but it's such a good resource that I wanted to throw it out on the normal blog posts as well. I was just using it to look at his notes on the gospel of Luke and as I was flipping through around 300 pg's of notes on Luke I was astounded and just wanted to let more people know about this great resource.

Dr. Constable is a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS), which is known for it's theological bent towards dispensationalism, and I believe this will show in some of his notes on Daniel and Revelation.

Dictionary of Early Christian Biography

I have recently been searching through the "dictionary of early christian biography" and found it really useful....the content and great and probably one of the best things about it is that is free and easily accessible on the web and several bible programs. You can download the pdf version or more easily search it through studylight.


This dictionary covers early church history up till the 600's. It is full of names, doctrines, councils and literature of this time period. Fascinating time period and awesome tool to help dig through it.

Bible Q and A website

I have been reading the book of Job devotionally recently and as I am in the last few chapters now I was curious about how to read and interpret the figure of Elihu. Is elihu to be thrown in the same group as Job's friends or is he to viewed as a mouthpiece of God, a messenger preparing the way of the Lord. Confused by this, after finishing my quiet times I did what most 21st century biblical readers have done in their time....I googled my question. Upon doing so I found this great website: a biblical hermeneutics q and a website.

I didnt get a chance to flip through it in detail, but it helped me think through Elihu (gave reason for both sides) and flipping through some of the pages allowed me to see that there was quite a bit of other good questions and answers, I would recommend that it is worth taking a look.

Luther's Commentary on Galatians

Going through Galatians in SBS today. Found Luther's commentary on Galatians online at several different sources....here is one of the easier ones to access, don't even need to download. Though if you would like it on PDF or kindle version, that is easy to find online as well.


just go to the following link luther on galatians and then click on the book of galatians and it will give you luther's comments chapter by chapter

Bible Study Resource: ISBE online

I just found this website which has the whole ISB encyclopedia online: http://www.internationalstandardbible.com/.
I knew this was used on some other sites, but there is just something nice about having it's own site. I like the ISBE and use it from time to time as a basic Bible encyclopedia, I prefer to read the new "IVP Dictionaries" but those aren't free online right now :)

hopefully this could be a good resource for some people!