Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Immigration and a Police State

    Does that sound too alarmist? I confess I’m always trying to find ways to write headlines that attract attention and I’m not very good at it. But I’m not sure that’s too alarmist for what’s going on in Arizona right now.

    I spent some time in Texas when I was in the Air Force, and I experienced searches when traveling near the border and traveling on a bus. No, I wasn’t searched or required to produce ID (I was not in uniform), but all the people who “looked illegal” were required to do so. We tend not to complain about such things when they do not impact us personally, but there is a great danger there.

    Making laws that are very difficult to enforce is going to produce enforcement methods that are difficult to justify. Once those enforcement methods are in place, we may have trouble getting them removed when the law applies to someone else–someone like us.

    I want to call your attention to a good blog post on this by Pastor Bob Cornwall on Ponderings on a Faith Journey. There are several things that Bob recognizes that people often ignore. First, he does realize that illegal immigration creates problems, especially for people on the border states. Enforcement such as requiring employers to get proper documentation is a valid method of enforcement. Second, he recognizes what some people on the other side fail to notice, that once you have a few million people in place, the “send them back home” solution isn’t as simple as it may look. Third, he recognizes that states are responding to a failure to deal with the problem at the federal level. It certainly is a federal problem, but it’s not one of the easier ones on which to build consensus.

    We have a number of issues that tend to lead toward over-policing, including immigration and drug policy. As time goes on, I believe we’ll find that the costs of attempts to solve these problems will become greater than the problems themselves. Unless, of course, we get creative and try looking for real, balanced solutions.

  • Fouling the Water and Trampling the Food

    That’s my post today on the Worldprayr blog. It’s based on parts of Ezekiel 34.

  • Review: Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Hebrews

    My primary training in biblical studies placed an overwhelming emphasis on historical study.  The idea was to get at the original meaning of the text as it would have been understood by those who first heard or read it.  I should note that amongst my professors there was some desire to look at reception, and there was also some desire to look heavily at denominational application (these were Seventh-day Adventist schools), but I rejected both elements quite strongly and stuck to historical study.

    Now I still have no problem with that approach, as long as that is seen as an approach rather than the approach to Bible study.  The Bible is indeed a document written in history.  I would no longer say, as I said at the time, that I approach the Bible like any other piece of ancient near eastern literature.  (At some other time I’ll discuss the problem I see with interpreters who remain in the sacred tradition and seem unable to see the historical meaning at all.)

    But what does a person whose approach has been entirely on the historical side do if he is convinced that there is also an approach to studying scripture that is not purely historical, but sees the Bible not as just another piece (or collection) of ancient near eastern literature, but rather as God’s revelation to the church?  Such a view means that the reception of the text through the history of the church is also critical.

    Where I actually started was with whole books by church fathers and by Christians through the centuries.  There is a benefit to this form of study in that you get a better picture of a particular writer by reading a substantial portion of his or her writing.  But I am still primarily a student of language and history and definitely not a professional theologian.

    Enter the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture series.  (I wrote this on completing my read of New Testament Volume X, but I think my comments apply to the whole series.) Here we have a selection of patristic commentary on various passages.  It simple to read and follow and contains the full text of the scripture in question.  The variety and the selection is great, and most of the commentary is brief.

    You shouldn’t expect to use this as a full commentary.  It’s not intended to be.  Neither should you expect it to give you a full introduction to each church father.  It’s providing snippets that relate to particular scriptures.  But you can find the context of the various fathers and their contribution by looking at the brief bios and the summary timeline in the back.

    I’ve found myself providing many quotes from this book as I’ve read.  It has been a far back-burner type project, and in many cases I’ve gone on to find the context of the quotes online, for which the Christian Classics Ethereal Library has proven very useful.  I’ll be bold enough to note also that I find some statements by the fathers to seem somewhat wide of the mark.  I think they were subject, as I am, to a desire to make the scriptures support their own pre-established views.  I would note that they are closer to the time and language of the texts, and thus they provide some help in discovering the historical meaning as well.

    This is really turning out to be more notes on using the church fathers and writers from other periods in Bible study and less a review of this particular commentary.  Let me summarize.  I think the selection is excellent, the volume well-organized, and provided one makes use of the resources provided, one can gain substantial value using any of these volumes in study.

  • Christian Carnival CCCXXIV Posted

    … at Other Food.  I like the brief comment from the editor on each post.

  • How Bible Translation Should be Done

    J. K. Gayle has a couple of posts on translating the Psalms that are really quite helpful.  The first one I read, which is actually the second, is The Difficulty of Psalm 90, in which he discusses some thinking and feeling that may be generated by hearing the Psalm and the first one, which I read second, various poet translators turning around Tehillim 90, which provides several translations with different approaches and characteristics.

    I personally find some things I like and some I don’t like so much in all of these translations, which is not a criticism of any of them.  I really appreciated the chance to read them all side by side.  And as much as some of this material deserves comment, that’s not my purpose in writing this post.

    Probably the most difficult question I’m asked when I am teaching is this:  What is he best Bible version?  I find that terribly difficult, and I annoy people who ask it all the time.  They think it deserves a simple answer.  I should be able to point them to the one best version, and they can just go use that one.

    But instead I ask them what they’re going to use it for, how they approach studying the Bible, and something about their own study and background.  What’s the best Bible version?  The simple answer, which I put on the cover of my book, is:  The best Bible version is  he one you read!

    I usually get by for that one for a few minutes until some bright person wonders just which Bible version they will actually read, and then we’re back to the starting point.

    Now I haven’t always been this way.  When I was in college I could have given you the simple answer, and I would have been satisfied with it.  I would have recommended a mostly literal version.  In those days that probably would have been the NASB.  But then I did some more studying and I became concerned with comprehension.  That made things much harder.  Now in those days there were many less options available, but I was also concerned with how I would translate in my studies.

    It seems that over the years I have become so much less knowledgeable on this subject.  At least I can no longer provide a single, definitive answer to the question, and my response seems to get longer every time I try.  When I hear a preacher say, “What the Greek really says is …” I cringe, not just because he’s probably wrong, but because he’s probably missing so much even if he’s right in some sense.

    The problem is that translation always loses something, and I suspect always adds something to a text.  Now I’m not going to start claiming that all translations are equal.  There are wrong translations, but there are many partially right translations.

    One of my own early problems was checking translations purely on propositional content.  Is a translation of a parable or a poem correct because it contains the same set of propositions?  Is a clear translation of a parable more correct than an obscure one, irrespective of how clear the parable is in the first place?

    The problem is that we often translate as a means of conveying information about the Christian religion.  But just as I’ve found over the years that simply knowing the cognitive content of my faith is far from sufficient, so I have come to learn that the cognitive content of a translation may be much less than adequate.  When I left graduate school I was quite well acquainted with Christian doctrines and very well acquainted with the Bible.  I was referred to as “the human concordance.”  I knew what was there.

    At the same time I left the seminary with that knowledge I also left the church.  I returned in a church pastored by a man who knew no Greek and Hebrew at all, but who did know Jesus.

    I was again reminded of this same issue in a different form when I was discussing with my former student Geoffrey Lentz.  (Geoffrey was my student when he was high school age.  He has since graduated with an MDiv from Duke.)  We were discussing sermons, and I expressed my distress with that particular genre of speech.  (I am occasionally invited to preach, though not by tense clock-watchers!)  I commented that I found it very hard to really cover a subject in 15-20 minutes.  He said to me, “I regard a sermon more as poetry than prose.”

    How’s that for student teacher reversal?

    I think it’s the same point.  The content of faith and spirituality is not simply cognitive.  There can be a variety of ways to express it.  It can be felt as well as known.  It can be expressed in many ways.  Often our best translations of the propositions of faith can suck the life right out of it.

    Or so it seems to me in the growing ignorance of 30 years since I graduated.

  • On Character, Discontent, and the Old Testament

    I have somewhat of a tradition of reflecting somewhere on my blogs about books I am about to publish. So today I want to look at Allan R. Bevere’s new book The Character of Our Discontent.

    Allan is a primarily New Testament trained preacher who has decided to take on some major passages in the Old Testament in preaching to his congregation. In turn, he has collected them to share with others.

    My friend Alden Thompson, who is author of Who’s Afraid of the Old Testament God?, also from my company, generally leads off weekends of discussion of the Old Testament with a litany of the reasons that people don’t like the Old Testament. He then takes a look at the Old Testament in the New, and especially in the teachings of Jesus and then he’ll say something like: “So you may not like the Old Testament, but Jesus did!” Now he says it so nicely that nobody is offended, but he certainly catches people’s attention.

    I specialized in Hebrew and ancient near eastern literature, so I tend to lean toward the Old Testament in my own study and teaching. But amongst those who teach outside the seminary, that is all too rare.

    I had a conversation just days before I accepted this manuscript for publication. A pastor with many years of experience lamented the lack of collections of good sermons, sermons that could provide an example to new preachers. I had to agree with him. In my experience, many people end up as pastors with much too limited knowledge and experience in some of the basics. I think preaching is better taught in most seminaries than subjects such as prayer, spiritual gifts, or even church management, but nonetheless there is a great value in having more material that covers some of the basics. So I found this combination irresistible, even though sermon collections often have poor track records for sales.

    There are two values in this collection that I want to emphasize. First, these sermons introduce some Old Testament characters and situations in a way that is easy to understand. They are worth reading on their own. This book isn’t heavy reading. You could read one of these sermons for a quite reasonable devotional. Second, they provide examples for people who may be afraid to start preaching from the Old Testament because they didn’t specialize in it. Now these are not sermons that come from hasty or light preparation. What they are is solid sermons that come from a non-specialist who put in the time to produce a good sermon on each topic.

    The presentation is easy to follow. The illustrations are good and to the point. You’ll find yourself directed to some good resources as you read. Allan doesn’t try to solve all the problems of Old Testament interpretation. What he does is apply some of the principles and lessons of these passages to the people found in the pews today.

    I’ve mentioned some books that I agonized over before publishing. I’ve even had some I expected would offend some folks. I didn’t have to agonize over this one. I was certain almost from the start that I was going to publish it. Oh, it might offend you in some places, though if so I’d take it as conviction. Some of those Old Testament characters provide quite a challenge to our very un-heavenly way of life here in the American church.

    So if you’ve been neglecting the Old Testament, here’s a chance to remedy that situation. My wife tells me that she feels that before she started getting involved in reading and studying the Old Testament she feels she was missing out on half the power God had for her in his Word.

    Or, as Dave Black said in commenting on the release of The Character of Our Discontent:

    An Old Testament-neglecting Christian is a contradiction in terms.

  • Do You Deserve a Light or a Heavy Beating?

    I’ve probably mentioned a few times that I studied under Dr. Alden Thompson at Walla Walla University (then WWC).  He’s the one who taught me Hebrew, though actually I joined his class in the second year, and also introduced me to Aramaic.  But more importantly, he introduced me to what I believe is a very constructive way of dealing with Bible difficulties.

    He’s just written a book, Beyond Common Ground: Why Liberals and Conservatives Need Each Other which pulls together many of the things I’ve heard him teach over the years.

    I’ll get around to referencing some of those on this blog as I have time, but today I just want to share a video put out by the publisher in which Alden discusses how he goes about understanding some passages from Luke. Now Alden is an Old Testament scholar (PhD, University of Edinburgh), but his passion is for Bible study amongst the laity.

    I’m delighted this little book has been published. My major regret is that it may be neglected because it is published by Pacific Press, a Seventh-day Adventist publisher. Though it was written to help address conflicts within that denomination, the ideas are applicable elsewhere as well. I’ve heard Alden teach some of this material to rooms filled with United Methodists, for example.

    Alden Thompson is also the author of Who’s Afraid of the Old Testament God? which my company publishes, besides being one of my teachers, so perhaps I am not fully free of bias.

    Nah. This book is good!

  • Fantasy in Death – and Reality

    I recently read J. D. Robb’s Fantasy in Death and enjoyed the advanced technology.  I told my wife when we had both read it that I felt that some of the technology described was at least possible and might well happen sooner than later.

    Well, it’s not nearly that type of capability–we’re still a long way from that, but we’re moving down the path.  Today in my gizmag e-mail I got an article on the Third Space FPS gaming vest that lets you feel the gaming action.

    Time marches on … sometimes faster than we want it to.

     

  • What Allegiance Comes First

    Dr. Bob Cornwall posts his sermon today, on Acts 5:27-32, dealing with an issue that is quite controversial in the American church, though I think it should not be: Where is my first allegiance as a Christian?

    He tells stories of early Christian martyrs and refers to Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He concludes:

    Peter is asking us the question: To whom do you owe your allegiance? Can we say with Peter, and with all due respect to the laws of this country: “[I] must obey God rather than human authority.” Am I willing to count myself among those early Christians who left the council and “rejoiced that they were considered worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name?”

    It’s worth reading the whole thing.

    What is your first allegiance?

  • Gov. Crist Vetoes Merit Pay and Tenure Bill

    You can find the full story in the Florida Times-Union.

    I am a supporter of merit pay, but in this case merit pay was tied to test results, which makes me much less happy. Even though I think pay should be based on merit everywhere, one must measure the merit in some realistic manner. I don’t think the FCAT does that. So despite my early support, I’m actually glad this one fails. (You can see some ambivalence in the way I wrote that first post, but you can call it a flip-flop if you want.)