Baker takes a series of short sections here, and I’m not grouping them into any larger passage, because I’m under some pressure and these short sections are working for me right now. Let me note also that while the electronic edition of Rahlf’s LXX that I’m using today (GnomeSword) follows the English verse divisions, the…
I find it very interesting to watch the way Christians handle the ten commandments. On the one hand, they have become an icon of our Christian culture, so that nobody wants to claim that they don’t keep them. They’re regarded as a foundational and basic icon, so we keep trying to make them the firm…
In dealing with source criticism there are two broad questions for the Biblical exegete, as opposed to the actual source critic. The first is whether there are identifiable sources at all, or at least in any substantial sense, and the second is how important these sources are for exegesis. Though I’m not going to go…
Some of my readers who know that I employ historical-critical methodologies in my Bible study may be surprised to know that one of my most useful books on the gospels is Darrel Bock’s Jesus according to Scripture: Restoring the Portrait from the Gospels. There is a simple reason for this. I believe that before you…
I’m still following the division of David W. Baker’s commentary on Leviticus in the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary on Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Today’s passage equates to Leviticus 5:14-26 in the Hebrew text, and the Hebrew text is indeed better divided than the English or the LXX. While the section is indeed properly grouped together, the…
The story in Mark 8:31-38 fascinates me because the disciples were, in one sense, so right, yet they were so wrong. What we often forget is that there was good reason for the disciples to expect the Messiah to take over the throne of David immediately, to rescue their nation from the Romans, and to…
There are two questions I think will prove very much worth some meditation time. This is a rich passage, so obviously there are more, but let me emphasize just two. First, Paul uses Abraham a great deal. In an excursus on page 2015, amongst the notes on chapter 4, the New Interpreter’s Study Bible notes…
In reality I’m going to discuss framing the questions on the test passages I quoted last time, but in doing so, I need to highlight the way Christians contribute to a misunderstanding of one another, and by non-Christians who don’t understand how many of us use the Bible. There is, of course, that vocal group…
It is not entirely helpful to include these two sections under the same heading, but there is certainly a break between 5:13 and 5:14, so the division is understandable as Baker does it. We’re moving here to sacrifices that are required, first for inadvertent acts in chapter 4, and then for acts of omission that…
One thing that always interests me in the lectionary is the passages we don’t read. Often these are signaled by commas indicating a number of verses left out. At other times it may be interesting portions before and after. I see three interesting cases in the lectionary for Lent 2B. The first is in Genesis…