Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Does Gordon Fee Discard Part of the Bible?

    In the third part of his interview series, Adrian Warnock makes the following comment in asking a question of Dr. Wayne Grudem:

    I was impressed by your compassion and fairness in the introduction of your new book expressed towards your egalitarian colleagues who you mention by name.

    At a later point, talking about Dr. Gordon Fee, Wayne Grudem says:

    I doubt that people understand the full implications of a move like Gordon Fee’s in his commentary on 1 Corinthians when he basically says that 1 Corinthians 14:33

  • Christian Carnival #CLI Posted

    I almost forgot my link to the Christian Carnival #CLI, so that’s it. Thanks to Nerd Family for hosting an excellent carnival.

  • The Most Annoying Theologian I’ve Never Read

    . . . is Wayne Grudem. Well, not quite true. The most annoying theologian is Peter Ruckman of the Pensacola Bible Institute, and I have read some of his stuff. I’ve also read articles by Grudem, and I wouldn’t come close to excluding him from Christianity, so I guess I have read him and he’s not the most annoying. So how about I wanted a provocative title?

    When there’s someone I really don’t want to take the time to study seriously, it’s nice to have someone else, whose reading ability I’ve come to trust in the blogosphere, take a look. And that is what Dave Warnock has been doing. The first item was Responding to provocation, and the second Starting to understand connections. I am substantially in agreement with Dave on these things. It might also be a good idea, of course, to read the original interview, starting here.

    Like Dave, I believe the connections can be broken at any point. I discuss inerrancy here and I have some thoughts on gender language and translation here.

    Later today I will be posting on salvation and particularly on the question of who will be saved and whether we can know. I’m also going to respond to one point in the third part of Adrian’s interview with Wayne Grudem, [update] which I have now posted here. Three recent posts of mine are also relevant, The Danger of Unchanging Truth, And I’m not . . . , and Truth, Pluralism, and Absolutism. None of these respond directly to Adrian Warnock (not to be confused with Dave) and Wayne Grudem, but they do relate.

  • Textual Critism on 1 Corinthians 14:34-35

    I’ve posted something on this over on my Threads blog, titled Does Gordon Fee Discard Part of the Bible?. That post is a response to part of a interview with Wayne Grudem by Adrian Warnock.

    I think it will be of interest to readers of this blog for the textual criticism aspects, though less so for the controversial theological aspects.

  • Truth, Pluralism, and Absolutism

    There has been a rather interesting, if somewhat confused, discussion over on Locusts and Honey about pluralism and truth. The reason I’m not commenting there is that most points have already been made in that thread and I want to go off on a tangent.

    I believe there’s a substantial problem with many discussions of Christian apologetics, and also of many subjects within religion. It is that the word “proof” is much overused. Questions such as whether one can prove the existence of God or not, whether one can prove one’s religion is true, whether one can prove a particular event took place, or even whether some specific doctrine is true.

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  • And I’m not . . .

    . . . an evangelical, that is.

    Jason Woolever posted an interesting entry several days ago about what it means to be an evangelical and I’m finally getting around to commenting. It’s not that I have a problem with Jason’s post. It’s more that I have had some problem finding a good, current definition of what it means to be evangelical. I think Jason’s points would generally be accepted by most people who call themselves evangelicals in my experience. (I know, not a scientific sample, but since I’m only concerned with how I use the label, that works.)

    I’ve been having trouble with the evangelical label for some time, most recently when I read some evangelical commentaries on Daniel and found that their critical views were more liberal than mine. I’ve even been called an evangelical by a few people myself. So I think Jason’s list is a rather convenient opportunity to examine some key points.

    So let me look at these points one by one:

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  • Australia Moving on Stem Cells

    Australia is reversing a previous stand and allowing therapeutic stem cell cloning. Read the full story on Yahoo! News.

  • Can a Translation be Completely Accurate

    There’s an interesting thread in the Religion Forum right now, What is a Biblical Translation?, which goes into the issue of whether one can create a 100% accurate Bible translation.

    Of course, the answer is “no.” If you want 100% accuracy, you need to go to the source language. But even there you bring yourself into the process, and because you bring yourself, a fallible, finite human (unless you’re special), into the process, your reading will never be 100% accurate.

    In a later message, one member asks the question of whether God could make a translation 100% accurate. I sense that all theists are supposed to automatically respond with “yes!” But I disagree. Only by changing the very nature of language could God create a 100% accurate translation. Only by changing the very nature of humans, making us non-finite and not just sinless, could God make us understand such an accurate translation with 100% accuracy.

    The bottom line is this: If you use a translation, you will indeed lose something. I’ve commented before about the need to compare translations and be very careful with context in order to alleviate this problem. But none of those options are equal to knowing how to read the source languages.

    But beyond this, we must face the fact that no matter how versed one becomes in the source languages one is still human, still fallible, and still well removed by history and culture from the writers of the source. We have a drive to find the one and only totally accurate revelation, but we really have no mechanism for understanding such a thing. We see dimly in a mirror, and we’re going to have to get used to the humbling reality of living with that.

    If you comment, please go to the thread there.

  • Hiding the Evidence about Human Evolution

    This one has been going on for some time now, but it is still an active fight of which we should remain aware. Kenyan Pentecostals are trying to prevent the display of Kenya’s famous humanoid fossils in the national museum along with their evolutionary explanation. (See the ABC News story here.)

    The major complaint is that the theory of human evolution presented with the fossils is presented as fact. But the actual fact is that there is no alternative scientific explanation for these fossils. Christians should not be involved in trying to hid the evidence. I think it’s a hopeless task, but the only way to provide an honest reason to present an honest explanation would be to produce such a scientific explanation–coherent, testable,and capable of explaining the available evidence. I’m not holding my breath.

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  • Excavators in West Bank find Early Christian Church

    According to a story in the Washington Times credited to the London Daily Telegraph, excavators in Israel have found a very early Christian church. They are now presented with the standard conundrum of preservation vs. digging. Hopefully a compromise can be found. This would be a site of great interest for settling some issues about the history of Israel prior to the monarchy.