All posts relating to religion, including those on the relationship of religion to other fields, such as science and politics
I’m always interested in answers to the question of why bad things happen to good people, though a pastor I know always says this is the wrong question. He says a better question would be why good things ever happen to anybody! Somebody else recently pointed out to me that in Christian theology there are…
I commented earlier on the difficult choices involved in translating an Old Testament reference that does not match the Old Testament passage in your own translation. Here’s an example from the NIV1984. First, Psalm 8:4-6 – what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You…
A couple of days ago I discussed gender-neutral language in a post dealing with both inerrancy and Bible translation issues. Today, as I was doing some reading about Hebrews, I encountered a vigorous comment against such language in a passage in Hebrews. The passage in question is Hebrews 2:6-8, and it quotes from Psalm 8:4-6….
I chose to do some reading from Hebrews this morning, but instead of using my NA27 or my UBSIV text, I went to Bible Gateway and read from the SBL text. There I encountered (again) the reading chwris rather than chariti. (I checked out NA28 online and I see it still reads chariti. I tend…
As most of my readers know, I’ve been working on revising my study guide to Hebrews. At least I keep mentioning it. I’m only about two years overdue on the project. When one deadline or another must be missed I tend to miss mine and work on other people’s stuff. So today I was reading…
I’m both unsurprised and unconcerned. Why do I say that when I urged people to vote? I believe in participation. I believe in doing our best with the political system we have available to us. I don’t believe in getting worried about it. In addition, by following good polling data, and avoiding partisan inflation of…
Dave Black posted today about keeping up Greek and its importance for exegesis. I’ve extracted that post to the JesusParadigm.com site so as to have a specific link. Everything he said could apply to Hebrew as well. I turned to his passage, though I was confident I would be able to read it. I’ve read…
… or On the Meaning of Words, Particularly Inerrancy There’s a post on First Things titled Ehrman Errant. Now criticizing Ehrman is apparently great sport, and Blomberg has replied to some of the types of criticisms Ehrman presents in a book, which Louis Markos reviews. The reason I mention Mike Licona, a colleague of Markos,…
I believe in the separation from church and state. I’m not talking about the principle derived from the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, though I do accept that as well, but rather about a Christian principle. I believe that the more we depend on the power of Caesar to accomplish our goals, the…
It turns out that I was off the track a bit in saying what we would discuss in Sunday School this morning. I think it’s one of the problems of teaching from a book I wrote. Everything is familiar and I can’t remember precisely what we’ve discussed and haven’t. I should perhaps take better notes,…
