I believe that it’s easy to let our theology keep us from reading the Bible, especially the narrative parts. The Bible is filled with stories. One example is the story of the flood. When Genesis 6 says (using the KJV), “It repenteth me that I have made man,” the first reaction is to try to…
In comments to an earlier post one reader notes that there are those who call the Bible “words from the mouth of God.” I respond that I do not think the Bible is words from the mouth of God, but rather the testimony of people’s experience of God. There are those who think I diminish…
Scot McKnight has a post titled Greg Boyd and Hostile Forces, referencing Boyd’s contribution to the book Understanding Spiritual Warfare: Four Views. This is a book I’m adding to my reading list. The thing that interests me most about this is the idea that scripture doesn’t (broadly) support the idea that everything that happens is…
Update (1/15/09): For those in the habit of reading posts and skipping comments, I want to note that there is an important and substantial exchange of comments between Peter Kirk (Gentle Wisdom), Jeremy Pierce (Parableman), and myself that helps clarify this issue substantially. In my first post in this series, I made the following comment…
I had an unfortunate brain failure (probably need to reboot!) and missed the first part, then I was interrupted twice more, but what I did see of the Nova show The Bible’s Buried Secrets looked pretty good. Since for similar reasons (messed up time and all) I didn’t record, but it looks like the site…
I have delayed the final post in my notes on Ben Witherington’s book What Have They Done with Jesus? for quite some time. In the meantime I have read Backham’s book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses [my review]. Bauckham provides a much more coherent account of the principles that it appears Witherington is using, partially because…
Carl Zimmer has an excellent short post at The Loom commenting on the journalistic duties involved. Go read it–it will only take a few moments, but it makes a critical point. One of the failures of the Christian response to this is to get over-the-top about attacks on Christianity, when what we are actually dealing…
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…
