Is There a Structure in Luke’s Travel Narrative? by Tan Geok Hock

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As those who regularly visit my websites will know I am very keen to promote not just theological material produced in the West, but contributions to biblical scholarship from all over the globe. For this reason I host a number of journals published in the Majority World (e.g. Indian Journal of Theology, Melanesian Journal of Theology, etc.). I therefore wanted to mention a book published in Kindle-format which is a summary of a Master’s Thesis written by a Malaysian scholar, Tan Geok Hock, entitled Is There a Structure in Luke’s Travel Narrative?
 
This work would prove of interest to anyone studying Luke or the aspects of the Synoptic Problem that it touches upon. The author argues that the material in the travel narrative section of Luke’s Gospel is arranged thematically, rather than chronologically, into three blocks each with its own distinct theme. Viewed from this perspective the author seeks to provide solutions for a number of historical problems with traditional interpretations of the narrative. The thesis also has implications for the emphasis Luke places on the city of Jerusalem, for discipleship and suffering for one’s faith.

Although the text is not free, the research it contains is certainly worth much more than the small amount that Amazon are charging for it. As far as I am aware it is rare for a higher level thesis from the Majority World to be made widely available and such an opportunity for “cross-pollination” of Western and Eastern scholarship is surely to be encouraged. It would be wonderful to see more such material becoming available.
To purchase and download a copy of the e-book please use the Amazon links below.

End of Year Review for 2012

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Let me begin by thanking all those who have helped to make 2012 the most successful year since biblicalstudies.org.uk’s launch. I have greatly valued the contributions of all those who took the time to pray, post a comment, e-mail a question or just contacted me to point out a broken link. I have put together a brief summary here of what I consider to have been the highlights of the last year and my plans for 2013.

New material added in 2012

The following journals were added to the site in 2012:

Ashland Theological Journal
Churchman
Foundations
Grace Journal
Grace Theological Journal
Haddington House Journal
Mainstream (Baptists for Life and Growth)
Melanesian Journal of Theology
Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society
Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology

Of these, two (Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society and Churchman) took a total of 7 months work to complete. The remainder were added using existing scans supplied by the various publishers. The websites currently host between 18,000 and 19,000 peer-reviewed theological articles.

Increase in Visitor Numbers

Following the release of Churchman journal there was a significant increase in visitor numbers to the site, reaching over 64,000 in October and 60,000 in November. This put biblicalstudies.org.uk’s ranking in the top 400,000 websites in the world according to Alexa.

Site Support in 2012

In May I had the privilege of attending the European Leadership Forum in Hungary and through contacts made there received a grant from a Charitable Trust. This has allowed me to upgrade my computer hardware and software and begin a major site-wide design update to make accessing the site via mobile devices easier. Also as a result of the Forum I took on paid advertising [from Tyndale Seminary Europe] for the first time since the start of the current recession.

Things That Just Didn’t Work

In order to keep focused on your main purpose it is necessary from time to time to prune away those things that didn’t quite work out, such as:

Multiple File Formats

Over the years I have experimented with a variety of file formats to see which could be accessed most easily, including pdf, iPaper and djvu. Of these pdf has proved to be the one which most users can use and so I am in the process of removing iPaper from the site and were necessary re-scanning djvu format articles into pdfs.

Multiple Languages

Getting  articles translated into other languages has been time-consuming and not particularly successful. So, for the time being I am putting this on hold.

The Next Phase in Development

For the last 12 years I have had a list of journals in mind that I wanted see on-line and have concentrated my efforts in making that a reality. Over the last  months, truly remarkably, I have seen the last two on my list “fall into my lap” as it were.

This has brought me to the realisation that it is now time to move on the Phase Two of the Theology on the Web project, something that has only taken form in detail over the few weeks or so. Phase Two involves a slight shift in focus from adding new material (though more will still be added), to making the 18,000-19,000 (soon to be over 21,000+) articles easier to find on-line. To this end I plan to convert the tables of contents pages into database-friendly CSV files for incorporation into Tyndale House’s Scripture Tools for Every Person (STEP) software. Within that superb (and free!) software package the articles will be linked into the verse structure offering the readers relevant secondary literature to enhance and inform their Bible study. This process should a couple of months to complete, but will mean that many more people will gain access to the resources I already have on the sites.

Looking forward to 2013 I hope to make the following my priorities for the year:

  • Convert journal tables of contents into a database
  • Re-optimise pdf files with the aim of reducing their file size as much to reduce visitor bandwidth.
  • Roll-out new website layout throughout the sites
  • Find further advertisers for the sites
  • Add more material
  • Establish a base of support – click here to find out how you can help

Thank you again for your support over the last year – have a Wonderful Christmas!

Digitisation of the European Journal of Theology

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European Journal of TheologyThe editor of the European Journal of Theology Dr Pieter Lalleman has kindly agreed that articles older than three years can be digitised and placed online on biblicalstudies.org.uk. Due to the number of articles being uploaded it will not be possible to create a blog post for each one. Instead I would recommend that interested readers visit the table of contents for the journal on a regular basis to see what has been added.

As final permission has to be sought from the authors – and these are not always easy to track down – some articles may not appear online for some time, if at all.