It feels like a long time since my Turkey trip in March 2017. I took about 6500 photos from my study tour through Turkey. A big shout-out to Dr. Mark Wilson who was an amazing commentator…
museum
Paul’s Use of Precious Metals to Describe Pastoral Ministry in 1 Cor 3:11-15
It just so happens that the antiquities exhibit at the Getty Villa affords an opportunity to give a photo-by-photo commentary on Apostle Paul’s use of precious materials to describe the building blocks of pastoral ministry….
Once Again the Brutality of Ancient Boxing: Lessons from the Getty Villa Museum
It’s back to business and the main focus of this blog: interpreting the Apostle Paul in his Greco-Roman context. In the past, I had done a series of posts on athleticism in the Mediterranean world…
Recovering Papyri Fragments from the Wrappings of Mummy Masks
Cartonnage bath to separate out the used papyri from a mummy maskPhoto taken from Emily Teeter’s Ancient Egypt (2003) Prior to my post on the Symposium on the Theological Interpretation of Scripture, I wrote on the mummy masks…
Mummy Masks and Roman Egyptians
One of the best exhibits at the Getty Villa was the display of mummy masks from Roman Egypt. The use of portaits painted on the head of a mummy is a combination of Egyptian burial…
Walking through a Roman Villa at Getty
During a research trip to the libraries of UCLA and my alma mater Fuller Theological Seminary this past August 2015, I finally got my chance to visit the antiquities exhibit of Greek and Roman artefacts…
Popular Fear and Dread of the Afterlife
Apulian red-figure volute κρατήρ by”Underworld Painter” (330-320 BC) Photo from Staatliche Antikensammlungen Museum, Munich, GermanyImage credit: http://www.vroma.org/images/mcmanus_images/ Before I can post on philosophical criticisms lodged against fearing death, I need to outline what those fears were. As…
Death’s Despair and Despondency
The post on writing well was a fun literary get-away, but my “official” July kickstarter is on everyone’s not-so-favorite but inescapable subject: death. I’m reading Philodemus’ On Death (Book 4) and so the subject has been on my…
Gold’s Gym or God’s Gym?: Abstinence, Discipline, and Endurance for Godliness
Bronze boxer (ca. 2nd cent. BC) recovered from the ANTIKYTHERA shipwreckPhoto taken by Max Lee © 2014 Athens Museum Continuing from the post on ancient athleticism and training regimes, I wanted to make a few remarks…
Ancient Athletic Training: Regimes, Dieting, and Sports Complexes
When athletes train, they usually enter a sports complex called the palaestra (Latin; Greek παλαίστρα), which in classical times often referred to the wrestling ring but by the Roman era came to designate a specialized…