Every few days I get an e-mail from one or another Christian group that wants me to boycott something or try to get someone else to boycott. Though most of the e-mails I get are from conservatives, liberals are by no means immune to the urge to boycott. I’m not a boycotter. I don’t even…
Someone kindly e-mailed me a question about this Bible version, so I decided to take a look for myself. This is just a preliminary look, but you can find my notes at The Scriptures, and you can compare my results on this version with others using my Bible Translation Selection Tool. I would say that…
Again I’m addressing a very small portion of this chapter. To get the context in mind, please read my previous post Hebrews 6:1-3: Going On Toward Perfection. These three verses have generated a great deal of commentary, because they appear to be saying that if one falls away from the Christian walk he cannot return,…
1Therefore, leaving the beginning of the message of Christ, let us carry on to maturity, not re-laying the foundation of repentance from dead works, of faith in God, 2of the doctrine of baptism, of the laying on of hands, of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. 3This we will do if God…
A few years ago a number of my students in an introductory Bible study class arrived very excited. There was a town coucil here in Florida (I forget precisely where), that had invited a Wiccan–a witch!–to offer a prayer opening a public ceremony. My students were discussing what they would have done about this obviously…
I often run across things I’d like to mention on this blog just to call folks’ attention to them, but I hate numerous, short blog entries in which my only contribution is to say, “Hey! Look at this!” So I think that every so often I’ll provide a series of links to things that I…
In a short article, ScienceNOW Daily news discusses some new research that may shed light on how life first emerged on this planet. I want to call attention to the article for a couple of reasons, but primarily because this, in my view, is how real science is done, and how it sounds when announced….
I’ve been reading Psalm 46 in my devotional time, and have gone through it numerous times now. I’ve blogged about some of the things I’ve been thinking about while working with this Psalm at Threads from Henry’s Web, in an article entitled Translating Psalm 46. Reading poetry is a bit different from reading prose, particularly…
One of the things I find difficult to present to lay audiences is the range of options that a translator has in dealing with any passage. In particular poetry offers may options. One is not presented with just a couple of binary yes/no choices; rather, one is presented with a huge range of options, each…
With the reference to Melchizedek (chapter 7), the author of Hebrews ties Jesus as King to his argument, though he doesn’t dwell on that. There is a key thought here that I would like to look at briefly. Often we find people disagreeing over just what type of person Jesus is. Is he the gentle,…