Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • David Ker – Gay Africa

    David Ker has taken on the world at ThinkChristian.net, or so it probably seems to him. The comments provide some additional links and some vigorous comment.

  • Quote of the Day – On Leviticus

    … Byu inculcating worship patterns that emphasize mind over body, word over deed, and rational thought over “merely” reflexive sacramental systems, all legacies of the Protestant Reformation, religious communities learn to be at home in the cognitive, typically abstract world of theological ideas.  Ritual invites something different:  the active participation in “embodied” theological reflection.  Both the knowing and the learning of theology come from performing the ritual act itself. …  (Samuel E. Balentine, Leviticus (Interpretation, a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching), page 5)

    I have only read the introduction and the commentary on the first chapter thus far, but I am extremely impressed by this commentary.  While I would agree that protestants tend to downplay ritual and emphasize belief as mental assent, I would note that the other commentary on Leviticus that’s on my plate right now, David W. Baker in Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (Cornerstone Biblical Commentary), also points out the value of learning through ritual.

    I think, however, that our tendency is to look for concrete doctrine in the rituals, and thus to miss the way in which God chose to communicate those particular doctrines.  We may also learn from Leviticus both that there is a spiritual value in ritual, and also something about how that works, and how we can gain from it in our worship today.

    Liturgy is, I think, sadly neglected, and for most of my time teaching and writing, I’ve contributed to that neglect.  I started to see things differently after reading Jacob Milgrom’s three volume commentary on Leviticus in the Anchor Bible series.  As I study Leviticus and the rest of the Pentateuch further, I am convinced even further that this should change.

  • All #1 Meme

    James McGrath has proposed a meme, and it even got past my prejudice against memes.  He asks for a phrase that makes your blog #1 in the Google search results.

    I found “she-bears homily” which finds my post which is a proposed a homily given the scripture on Elisha and the She Bears.  I don’t know if there really should be a hyphen in “she bears” but I used it in the post and the search works either way–at least for today!

    I tag nobody or everybody, as desired.

  • Most Popular 10 Posts of 2009

    Here are the ten most popular posts of 2009, as determined by my wp-stats plugin:

    Does Gordon Fee Discard Part of the Bible?
    ESV vs KJV (Better Bibles Blog)
    Suppressed and Talking about it Everywhere
    Criticism Example: The Parable of the Sower
    Translating Psalm 46
    Seventh-day Adventist Education and Evolution
    Can Anyone Identify this Spider?
    On the ESV
    Eastern Orthodox Tradition and Atonement
    Interpreting the Bible III – The Impact of Inerrancy

    There are really very few surprises here for me, though I am often surprised immediately after I post something at what attracts links.

    I have made similar lists on my Jevlir Caravansary blog and my Participatory Bible Study blog. The surprise of the year for me is that of the three into which I split this blog a couple of years back, Participatory Bible Study is the most popular. I had expected this one to remain well ahead of the other two.

  • Most Popular 10 Posts of 2009

    After noting that on my Jevlir Caravansary blog, two of the top ten posts were editions of the Christian Carnival, which says things about the traffic on that blog, I was gratified to note that all of the top ten posts here are ones that I wrote rather than compilations of links.

    When I split my original blog, Threads from Henry’s Web, into three, I expected Threads to be the most popular, this one to be second, and Jevlir to run a distant third.  Jevlir has fulfilled its role as last place holder.  But this blog has become substantially more popular than the original Threads.  It appears I have many more readers who want to read what I right about the Bible than my more general ramblings about whatever else interests me.

    With that, here are the top ten:

    Ephesians 6:18: Always Pray in the Spirit
    e-Sword Bible Software
    John Wesley on 2 Peter 1:3-11
    Notes on 1 Corinthians 13
    What is the Best Bible Version?
    Hebrews 12:1-12: The Lord’s Discipline
    Hebrews 11: Honor Roll of Faith
    Isaiah 64:6 – Menstrual Cloth
    Reading Psalm 46
    The Orthodox Study Bible: Wrap-Up (For the Moment)

    There were no surprises there, since I saw the top post climb through the rankings. It’s interesting how popular a topic praying in the Spirit actually is.

  • Todd Wood – the Evolutionist?

    A few weeks ago I mentioned that I had started reading Dr. Todd Wood’s blog (using the title Another Honest Creationist). The reason I call Dr. Wood honest (as opposed to some other creationists) is that he acknowledges that young age creationism relies on the Bible and specifically on a particular understanding of the early chapters of Genesis.

    I find it difficult to believe that someone can be a young earth or young age creationist on any other basis. The scientific evidence is simply much too strongly against it. Dr. Wood, like Dr. Kurt Wise, admits that there is substantial evidence for evolution, yet they accept young age creationism because that is what they believe the Bible teaches. I disagree on their interpretation of Genesis, but I can respect their stand and their honest statement of their reasons for taking it.

    Of course some other young age/earth creationists don’t like this approach. They believe that there really is no evidence for evolution and that there is some sort of conspiracy amongst scientists to pretend that evolution is true even though, they say, it is not.

    One of these, Joseph Mastropaolo, offers a $10,000 prize for evidence of evolution, and sends e-mails out to people and then if they don’t respond, he puts them on a list on his web site.

    All of this is fairly standard stuff in the creation/evolution debates, althought Mastropaolo’s twist of requiring his opponents to put up $10,000 of their own money, thus making this all more of a bet than a prize is interesting. I think that the prize offering thing is generally the last resort of those whose pockets are empty, but it’s all pretty common.

    But what’s humorous is that Mastropaolo sent an e-mail to Dr. Wood asking him to put up some evidence and then added him to the list of non-responding evolutionists.

    He says:

    170. Dr. Todd C. Wood, of Bryan College, who wrote, “There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it.” Upon request and with the incentive of unlimited $10,000 grants for his Center for Origins Research, he did not send any evidence. Can it be that there is no scientific evidence to support evolution? Can it be that Todd C. Wood uses brass and bluff like the other 363,000 anti-science evolutionists worldwide? (12-30-09)

    So a young age creationist who is working on building evidence for creationism is now an example of an evolutionist. Who ever would have imagined it?!

  • Biblioblogs Rankings

    Someone new has provided Alexa rankings for the Biblioblogs for the month of December.  Joel Watts suggests passing this around in order to keep up the competition.  I think it would all be fun if less people fought over the whole thing.   It’s a bit of fun competition based on some rather loose stats, not a life and death struggle.

  • Is Intelligent Design Religious?

    David Opderbeck has an excellent post on the question of whether intelligent design (ID) is religious and how this relates to our view of natural theology. (HT: Through a Glass Darkly)

    In the post, he gets into an issue that I have raised before, which is the question of whether we really want to advocate teaching of a sort of “creation lite” (my term) in public school classrooms. I personally say this not form the perspective of keeping religion out of the public school classroom, but rather to keep the state out of the business of teaching religion. I believe that two things generally result from the state trying to teach religion: 1) They do it badly, and 2) They tend eventually to want to enforce whatever it is they have decided to teach.

    Opderbeck says:

    But even if a plausible argument could be made for the constitutionality of teaching some version of ID in a public school, I personally find this “wedge” strategy pragmatically and theologically suspect….[I’ll leave you to go discover the analogy he uses where I have the ellipsis!]

    The imagined Christian majority in this country often seems to believe that whatever is taught in the classroom will be acceptable to them. But a review of the differences in viewpoint among Christians on many issues should suggest that it is difficult to create a single course that is acceptable to all. I would not object to a course in the Bible as literature, for example, provided it was clear that this was not a class in the Bible as a source or object of faith.

    I think Christians ought to seriously consider whether or not strategies used to get some form of religion taught in the public school classroom might do more damage to faith than their potential benefit (or damage) to the state. Perhaps we should recapture the notion that it is the task of parents to pass on their faith to their children.

  • Is Inerrancy an Essential Christian Doctrine

    Obviously I don’t think so, but I must now add C. Michael Patton to the list of those who do accept the doctrine of inerrancy themselves, yet don’t believe it is an essential of the Christian faith, which he does in his humorous “AND OTHER STUPID STATEMENTS” series, If the Bible is not Inerrant, then Christianity is False.

    Dr. Patton lists many of the reasons I have listed as to why the doctrine of inerrancy tends to breed other problems, such as a Christianity that is bibliocentric but not Christocentric.  Now let me be clear that one can actually be both, provided one always is more Christo- then biblio-centric.  One can also lose sight of Christ because one puts too low a value on scripture that points to Him.

    Other than the fact that I am a Christian who no longer accepts the doctrine of inerrancy, even in its more nuanced forms, I agree with Dr. Patton’s article.  I find his story of Gregg very interesting as well, and it reflects many, many stories I’ve heard as well.

    In fact, the first reaction I usually get when I tell folks I left the church pretty much at the same time I received my MA in Religion, is that I must have discovered errors in the Bible and thus lost my faith.  But that is not the case.  My problem was with what I saw as the all-encompassing claims of Christ which in turn led me to question the validity of such a leap–not merely a leap of faith, but one also of deep trust.

    I think that both those who think they must hold to the doctrine of inerrancy or lose their faith entirely, and those who abandon the faith because they discover errors make a common mistake.  They make the Christian faith primarily about the knowledge of facts.  Now doubtless there are facts involved with Christianity.  Jesus either died for my sins or he did not.  He was either raised from the did or he was not.

    But my belief doesn’t alter those facts.  More importantly, my simple acknowledgment of the evidence for certain facts doesn’t constitute Christian faith.  After all, even the devils believe and trouble.  For one to be in Christ, however, one needs to believe and trust, and that trust goes beyond the facts.

    For me, the experience of life trusting in Jesus has made it one or another fact from scripture proven either right or wrong is going to change that basic trust.  “Jesus Christ and Him crucified” has become the unshakable center and I can examine other things openly with no fear.

  • Comments for NIV Revision Committee

    Wayne Leman reminds us that comments for the NIV2011 revision are only open until the end of December.  I never can make a final decision on these things, which would make me a lousy translation committee member, but if you have suggestions now is the time!