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Dr TK Dunn on the Importance of the Old Testament
This is an extract from a longer interview, which I will also embed. I think Dr. Dunn has some valuable comments on the relationship of scripture and what it means for our study. And here’s the full interview from which that was extracted.
Fences: Mending or Rending
The following is a sermon I presented at the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Pensacola on September 11,2005 and originally posted here on September 13, 2005. I’m reposting it because when I went to look for it, I found that the original post had somehow been truncated, and also because there is a one word at a…
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Quick Note on Applying Matthew 7:1
(This is an exegetical and application note on Matthew 7:1 to accompany a devotional on my wife’s devotional list.) There are two directions that people have taken on Matthew 7:1, both of which I think are mistaken. Even Jesus cannot create a one liner that someone else can’t apply foolishly. The first approach to Matthew…
Of Double Standards and Cesspools
Steve Matheson at Quintessence of Dust notes regarding Dembski’s Uncommon Descent blog: Uncommon Descent is a moral cesspool, a festering intellectual ghetto that intoxicates and degrades its inhabitants. . . . C’mon Steve! Don’t hold back! Tell us how you really feel! While I lead with the controversial (and I agree with him about UcD),…
NRSV Study Bible
Westminster/John Knox Press is publishing a study Bible including the apocrypha, The Discipleship Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version Including Apocrypha. There are some notes on this at New Epistles. It looks like an interesting one.
Dealing with the Theological Implications of Evolution
There are two extremes in how Christians respond to the possible theological implications of evolutionary theory once they are convinced that the theory of evolution is valid. The first is to claim that there are no implications whatsoever. This is represented by the statement: “The Bible tells us that God created; science tells us how…
Series on Reading the Text(s) of Scripture
This series, done jointly on Everyday Liturgy and Through a Glass Darkly should be well worth your time to follow. I will certainly be following it.
Jim Getz on Peter Enns and WTS
He has some good, balanced (in my view) thoughts here.
Fundamentally Altered Viewpoint
Alan Lenzi, of Bible and Ancient Near East, asks a simple question: Does awareness of the ANE archaeological, linguistic, cultural, and textual materials discovered in the last 150 years or so fundamentally alter our understanding of the Hebrew Bible? As soon as I’ve finished writing this short post I’m going to go to his blog…
TVUUC Shooting
On Sunday, July 27, there was a shooting at Tennessee Value Unitarian-Universalist Church in which two people were killed. Moderate Christian Blogroll member Shuck and Jive is following this tragedy. I will be following it via his blog and the news stories he links to. I join my prayers with those already offered for the…
One Reason Theology Students Lose their Faith
There are many different faith journeys, and I would not presume to speak for all of them. One reason, however, for theology students to lose their faith as they become more educated is that they are given no room to explore questions that they have and are greeted with judgmental attitudes. This specifically applies to…
Newbigin: Proper Confidence
With it’s subtitle, “Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship” this little big sets sail into a rather intense area of debate, and one which is very relevant to recent discussions on this blog. I’m not really going to try to summarize it. It is only 105 pages and those aren’t too terribly intense if…
Ad for New OT Professor at WTS
While I acknowledge that a seminary has a right to choose their people and support their confession, this suggested ad gets closer to the way I feel about it. Peter Enns was pretty conservative from where I sit.
Discernment and Revelation
Yesterday I wrote a post regarding judging revelation by means of reason, and in particular pointed out that one of the problems I see with Biblical inerrancy is that it cannot be demonstrated in this fashion. In a failed attempt at being brief I failed to underline that this is only one of my many…
Peter Enns Leaving WTS
I wanted to report on this mutually agreed separation, because I have previously reported on the problems. (HT: Through a Glass Darkly.)
What Would we Do Without PZ Myers?
Some of us like to be angry, and if we’re Christians and angry, then PZ Myers is a very useful person. After all, how can one be properly angry without someone at whom one can direct one’s rage? Enter PZ Myers, who has now performed his act of desecration on the communion wafer. At first…
Using Reason to Judge Revelation
One of my objections to inerrancy is that it is impossible to demonstrate. Lacking a perfect standard external to the Bible and also lacking perfect understanding, we are unable to actually demonstrate that the Bible is, in fact, without error. Some apologists seem to believe that if we just apply the right set of standards…
Christian Carnival CCXXXIV Posted
. . . at A True Believer’s Blog, a first time host. Go over and check it out!
Genesis Links
I started collecting links through clips on my bloglines account (yes, the blogroll is public), and one thing I’ve found is that I collect a remarkable number of links and I comment on only a few of them. There have been a number of good posts on Genesis recently, and I want to provide links…
Who Speaks for Religion?
If I went around my neighborhood asking friends and neighbors just what evolutionary biology was all about, then went and found an evolutionary biologist and asked him to defend the comments of all the “evolutionists” in my neighborhood, I think he would be justly annoyed. He would probably tell me that these people didn’t understand…
James McGrath on James A Herrick
There’s at least one benefit to regularly reading certain blogs, and that is that you get comfortable with the topics on which you trust that particular blogger. It’s impossible to check everything or to read even a tiny fraction of the books I’d like to read, so this is very helpful. One of the blogging…
Horrors! A Plague of Bible Reading!
. . . or so I might be led to believe by reading Christians Spend Too Much Time Studying the Bible (HT: JakeBouma.com). I don’t know enough about the pastor who wrote this, so I can’t say whether it provides an appropriate balance for his congregation. Perhaps he is plagued with church members whose noses…
Good Theology – Bad Exegesis
I’ve encountered this a few times, so I was delighted to find this little discussion, courtesy of John Hobbins, whose post on the educational value of reading biblioblogs is also good. Awilum.com goes on my blogroll.
Going Back to the Original
Sinaiticus, a 4th century manuscript of the New Testament and parts of the LXX Old Testament, will go on display, starting this July with some portions, and available completely by next year (MSNBC.com story). The story got me thinking about what it means to go back to “the original.” KJV-Only advocates will tell you how…
Science with Pre-Ordained Conclusions
One problem for creationists has been the lack of publications in peer-reviewed journals. In a typical attempt to bypass reality with labels, Answers in Genesis has duly produced a “peer-reviewed journal,” the Answers Research Journal. A major problem, of course, is that “peer-reviewed” tends to imply more than simply that there is a panel that…
Doggy Oaths
I’d like someone to explain to me how dogs can become sworn officers. I imagine a lot from my dog’s expressions and attitudes, but I’m at a loss on this one.