TIME-SENSITIVE: Put Stocks in Someone’s Stocking!

On 9 December 2024 By Daniel B. WallaceIn Bible Translation, Christmas present, Contemporary Issues, Early Christianity, Exegesis, New Testament Studies, Textual Criticsim, Theology

The year 2024 is almost in the books. It has been a wild roller coaster ride of a year. Ironically, instability seems to be the only thing that is consistent this year. The silver lining in the nimbostratus clouds of 2024 is that the U.S. stock market has done quite well overall. And that brings me to a special invitation.

As we enter the traditional season of giving, families also use this time to evaluate their tax situation. Granted, the continually shifting tax code doesn’t make that an easy exercise. But one constant of good news is that donating securities that have been held for a year or more offers the potential for a double tax benefit—a full fair market value tax deduction and elimination of capital gains taxes.

Many non-profits now allow direct stock donations (i.e., not having to sell the stock first). If the Lord has blessed you financially, you might want to consider giving some shares to one or more charitable organizations that you support. Many such organizations are in need of large financial infusions: although the stock market has done well, the economy is still doing poorly for too many of us. Giving a gift of shares is a very tangible way to show what really matters to you without adding to your living expenses.

The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts now has a “stock option” for donations. You may donate stocks and bonds directly to CSNTM without having to sell them first. Stock gifts to CSNTM are handled by Overflow, the leading giving platform for the digital age. This can be a great way to invest in our shared mission to preserve the New Testament text and take advantage of the benefits for charitable giving in the U.S. Tax Code. (Alternatively, you can use these instructions to complete the transaction with your brokerage on your own.)

I wanted to put my stock where my mouth is, so I clicked on the CSNTM “donate stocks” page https://www.csntm.org/partnership/donate-stocks and donated some stock.

Giving securities to CSNTM was a snap. It took less than 10 minutes (and I’m old and slow!) to make the donation. Overflow makes it easy.

There is some urgency for such donations, both for CSNTM and other charities. Stock donations through Overflow must be made by December 10 to guarantee posting for 2024. That’s for the guarantee; Overflow recommends giving by December 13 to almost ensure (not quite a guarantee) that the gift will be credited for 2024.

But there’s something else to consider for the long term: a donor-advised fund. Some donors like to set up their own private family foundation as a means of distributing gifts to favorite charities. But establishing a donor-advised fund with a firm like Fidelity Charitable can provide the ability to claim a higher tax deduction of 30% of your adjusted gross income compared to the 20% limit with a private foundation.

And the news gets better when you want to donate securities. By opening a giving account and contributing the shares to your donor-advised fund, you eliminate capital gains tax exposure and secure a charitable deduction based on the shares’ fair market value. Best of all, you can decide where to donate at a later date and, when the time comes, recommend a larger grant from your donor-advised fund than if you sell the shares and donate the net proceeds!

Our partner, Overflow, streamlines this process as well. You can donate from your donor-advised fund simply and securely here.

This is timely news for me and my family. I will be contributing more to my stock donations today, because I want to give CSNTM a generous Christmas present so that the Center can carry on the work that faithful scribes began 2000 years ago.

Help Train the Next Generation of Christian Scholars

On 16 September 2024 By Daniel B. WallaceIn Contemporary Issues

The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (csntm.org) has been involved for the past twenty years in a hugely successful internship program. The highlight for the new batch of interns each year is participation in the fall academic conferences. They sit at the feet of some of the best biblical scholars on the planet and get to see firsthand what an academic paper/presentation looks like, including the Q&A that follows.

The impression made on these students lasts a lifetime, and it very often changes the trajectory that they are on in their service to the body of Christ. The long-range objective is to raise up the next generation of biblical scholars to be leaders with a profound respect and deep appreciation for the New Testament. In this way, CSNTM is training the next generation of biblical scholars.

But none of this would be possible without serious financial backing. There is an opportunity right now to double the impact of any donations you give from now until September 19. North Texas Giving Day is on Thursday, September 19, and from now till then, you have the opportunity to support CSNTM’s interns—bright students who have demonstrated excellence in academic work and hold great promise for a future in biblical scholarship and church leadership.

Over the four decades of my teaching career, I have had the privilege of mentoring nearly two hundred interns—starting with Dallas Seminary students and continuing on, for the past twenty years, with CSNTM interns. These incredible scholars-in-the-making have gone on to earn PhDs from prestigious schools such as Cambridge, Oxford, Edinburgh, St Andrews, Aberdeen, Baylor, Notre Dame, Sheffield, Birmingham, Yale, Exeter, and the Catholic University of America—to name but a few. These alumni now teach in seminaries and universities, write world-class works on the Bible and theology, and help to keep New Testament scholarship on sound footing. They are today’s scholars, professors, translators, missionaries, and pastors, collectively helping others see the truth and beauty of Scripture and keeping Christian faith tethered to the biblical text.

Not only do these interns receive individual instruction from me and our research team, but they also engage in a rigorous and enriching program that is intentionally designed to equip them with the skills to seek truth and approach biblical scholarship with integrity, excellence, and faith.

Meet Tomorrow’s Bible Scholars—Interns You Can Support Today: https://www.northtexasgivingday.org/story/Csntminterns

When you help us reach our $20,000 goal this North Texas Giving Day by allowing your combined donations of $10,000 to be matched, you enable this year’s interns to attend two prestigious academic conferences—the annual meetings of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Society of Biblical Literature. These conferences provide invaluable experiences for emerging scholars. In fact, last year, one of our interns secured a publishing deal for his book while attending the ETS conference with CSNTM!

Be sure to give between now and September 19 to have your gift DOUBLED!

With gratitude,

Dan Wallace

Don’t let your new year’s resolution die: it’s time to geek on Greek!

On 15 January 2024 By Daniel B. WallaceIn Contemporary Issues

Zondervan is offering a 30% discount on all videos of language courses! My lectures based on Greek Grammar beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament are included.

https://courses.zondervanacademic.com/biblical-languages/greek/greek-grammar-beyond-basics

The course on DVDs is half price through January 21! https://churchsource.com/products/greek-grammar-beyond-the-basics-video-lectures-an-exegetical-syntax-of-the-new-testament?variant=14932164870213

Preserving the Word of God for generations to come

On 4 December 2023 By Daniel B. WallaceIn Contemporary Issues

I am delighted to share some exciting news that has been a great blessing to my team and me at the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM)! Through the generosity of a valued donor, the Center has received a remarkable $150,000 matching grant for our Year-End campaign. This means that every dollar contributed during the fundraising period (Nov. 1st – Dec.31st) will be doubled, presenting an incredible opportunity for us to advance in our fundraising goals, and an opportunity for you to join us in this noble task.

This grant has been designated specifically for our project at Oxford University’s Bodleian Library, where my team and I are preparing more than 100 manuscripts for digitization. Since returning from the initial phase of this expedition, we have been eager to return to these manuscripts, as we have discovered a few unidentified palimpsests (a manuscript whose text was erased, with another layer of text written over the previous one) that require multispectral imaging to bring up the undertext clearly for reading.

In order to receive adequate funds to move forward in this project, CSNTM is anticipating meeting this matching grant through Year-End contributions.

The support that we have received throughout this past year has been invaluable to us, and we cannot thank our supporters enough for the integral role that each plays in advancing our mission and fueling our passion.

I invite you to join CSNTM in this centuries-long mission to preserve ancient manuscripts and make them accessible for research and translation, by contributing to this match grant goal. Every dollar that you donate will be doubled, and thus, will double the impact that you will have on our efforts at the Bodleian Library, as well as on other crucial projects that are in process.

There is an urgency for these projects to get fully funded; all handwritten manuscripts—regardless of age, material, or care—are deteriorating. We are in a race against time to preserve them before the deterioration is so bad that these codices literally fall apart in one’s hands.

CSNTM is committed to following in the footsteps of the countless scribes who copied the New Testament for later generations—or, as one scribe wrote at the end of his manuscript more than one thousand years ago, “the hand that wrote this is rotting in the grave, but the letters remain until the fulness of the times.”

As we close out this year, I find myself reflecting with gratitude for all that we—the CSNTM staff and you, our partners—have accomplished as a community of people dedicated to the preservation of Scripture. I am eagerly anticipating the promise that this coming year holds for CSNTM and our mission. Thank you for joining us in this endeavor!

Daniel B. Wallace
Executive Director
The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts

“Sayings of Jesus” papyrus (P.Oxy. 5575) now published

On 4 September 202310 September 2023 By Daniel B. WallaceIn Early Christianity

An early papyrus with text from Matthew, Luke, AND the Gospel of Thomas has now been published

This fragment was published in the latest volume of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri (volume LXXXVII), 31 Aug 2023. It’s known as P.Oxy. 5575. It’s been a long time coming. Over a decade ago, 8 of my students worked with me for several months, deciphering the fragment, determining its source(s), and offering a preliminary dating. Rory Crowley discovered that part of this papyrus had material that looked to be from the Gospel of Thomas.

We took high-resolution digital photographs of POxy 5575. Jeff Fish (Baylor University) and Mike Holmes (Bethel University, Museum of the Bible) took over the editing after I submitted preliminary work in 2015.

All of us independently dated the MS to late second or perhaps early third century, making it the oldest manuscript with text from Matt 6 (Sermon on the Mount). Significantly, the Institute for New Testament Textual Research (INTF) in Münster, Germany, assigns only a handful of New Testament papyri to the second or second/third centuries. Although this is not technically a NT papyrus (it’s syncretistic, including portions from Matt 6, Luke 12, Thomas 27, and perhaps one or two others), that it includes portions from these books at such an early date is astounding.

It also is now the oldest extant fragment from the Gospel of Thomas. The very first papyrus that was published in the Oxyrhynchus volumes, P.Oxy. 1, was from an “Unknown Gospel,” later known to be from the Gospel of Thomas. In a later volume, two other Greek fragments from Thomas were published (P.Oxy. 654, 655). Then, in the 1940s, the 4th century Nag Hammadi codices were discovered, which included the Gospel of Thomas en toto, a work in Coptic. One other fragment from Thomas has been published, which comes to six total. As far as I know, P.Oxy 5575 is the only one that is syncretistic. How these various works were put together–oral tradition, pre-written source for Gospel of Thomas, memory, or?, and what this might tell us about an early Christian community are intriguing questions which will no doubt spawn a myriad of speculations.

Let the fun begin!

See the report on it in The Daily Beast: