I Posted on Prescriptive Grammar
. . . over at my Jevlir blog.
What I Want for Election Day: A Health Care Plan
I haven’t seen any results from New Hampshire yet, so this is probably a good thing to write about politics. I’m going to try really, really hard to keep this short. I am very much encouraged by the increased voter turnout thus far, both in Iowa and New Hampshire. I hope it is a trend…
Common Theme, Lectionary for Baptism of Christ – A
The texts are Isaiah 42:1-9, Psalm 29, Acts 10:34-43, and Matthew 3:13-17. (Check them on Textweek which is a wonderful resource.) I like to think about common themes in these passages so that I can, if I want create a sermon or a lesson that incorporates all four texts. In this case I see a…
ADELFOI = Brothers and Sisters
I’m probably beating a dead horse to death, but I encountered the following quote in reading Victor Paul Furnish’s commentary on 2 Corinthians: . . . adelphoi is used quite inclusively by Paul when he addresses a congregation; he is thinking of all those, female as well as male, who are in Christ. . ….
Why I Don’t Like Left Behind
Hat tip to Gentle Wisdom for this quiz on eschatology: What’s your eschatology?created with QuizFarm.com You scored as Amillenialist Amillenialism believes that the 1000 year reign is not literal but figurative, and that Christ began to reign at his ascension. People take some prophetic scripture far too literally in your view. Preterist 100% Amillenialist 100%…
Why People Hate Hillary
During the 1992 presidential campaign that gave us Bill Clinton, I remarked to a friend that if they would just swap out the candidates for their wives, they would have my vote. In particular I thought Hillary Clinton was substantially smarter than her husband. Since then I have lived in the south and watched eight…
Anchor Bible: 2 Corinthians – Introduction
One of my more esoteric goals in life is to complete a study of every book of the Bible form the original languages working with a commentary that takes critical issues into account. I have read the Bible through in its original languages. This is a different type of study. I will generally read other…
Becoming Righteous and Becoming Rich
I’m currently doing some study in 2 Corinthians for some of my personal study, partly because I became interested in the structure of the book when studying 2 Corinthians 5:21. I blogged about that previously, looking at the interpretations of Wright and Piper. In that post I obliquely questioned whether 2 Corinthians 5:21 was such…
From my Blogroll: Better Bibles, Baptists, and Brothers
Better Bibles was one of the earliest entries on my blogroll, and one of the blogs I read before I began blogging myself. I look to the authors for lots of challenging material on Bible translation. They often go much deeper than I would. But these posts are not just about explaining who’s on the…
Literal Nonsense – the HCSB of 2 Corinthians 8:11-12
I’m doing some studying in 2 Corinthians right now, and I encountered the following translation while reading it through in the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB): 11But now finish the task as well, that just as there was eagerness to desire it, so there may also be a completion from what you have. 12For if…
Rounding Up My Blogs
I’ve written two posts that might interest readers of Threads. The first is on how we listen and read, and the second is on capitalization in translation of the Hebrew scriptures. (And no, the Hebrew doesn’t have capitalization, so what gives?)
J. Barton Payne on Theistic Evolution
A friend of mine e-mailed me a link to this post on Higgaion. It’s an interesting discussion, and Payne’s attitude is far from dead today. To the excellent article, I would add only a couple of questions. First, on what basis do people determine that Genesis 1 & 2 must be narrative history? I am…
English and Greek Ambiguity: 2 Corinthians 5:21
This relates to my previous post on translating ambiguous passages. The last clause of this verse reads, formally translated, “so that we might become [the] righteousness of God in him.” I’m interested in the range of meanings that might be heard by a modern English reader for the final phrase, “in him.” A number of…
Capitalization as a Translation Issue in the Hebrew Scriptures
In my ratings for the Bible Version Selection Tool, one of the areas on which I compare translations is capitalization of pronouns referring to God or to Jesus. The interesting thing about this is that the Hebrew text has no analog to capitalization of any kind, while edited Greek texts and some late manuscripts can…
Presuppositions
I’m not generally presuppositionalist myself, but this post in an interesting discussion on young earth creationism is part of an interesting discussion. Check it out.
Information, Laziness, and Voting
News stories this morning pointed out that Romney outspent Huckabee 6 to 1 in Iowa, yet in the end it wasn’t enough for a win. It’s interesting that the expectation is that spending is equal to votes. It’s unfortunate that it’s often quite true. Voters frequently complain about the behavior of candidates–too many sound bites,…
Raymond Brown on Ambiguities and Literal Translation
After my comments earlier about Piper and the ESV, I found this comment by Raymond Brown in An Introduction to the New Testament: For the purpose of careful reading or study, which concerns us here, one must recognize that sometimes the biblical authors did not write clearly, so that the original texts contain certain phrases…
Once we faced Lions . . .
Now we’re afraid our neighbors might think we’re weird. A Christian ministry founder says he believes American Christians are not ready for persecution. I wonder what was his first clue? [HT: Dispatches]
New Christian Carnival
. . . is at Ancient Hebrew Poetry, including one post from Threads!
Miniposts
I first saw these on Pursuing Holiness, and tried them on Participatory Bible Study and Jevlir, but now I want them here. They are just too convenient for those links and one-liners.
Blogroll: Geocreationism.com
Having decided to blog a couple of times per week about my blogroll, I’m going to start with a site I just added, Geocreationism.com. If you’ve been following this blog for any period of time, you will have noticed occasional comments from Geocreationist, and this is his blog. I have a couple of reasons for…
Working the Blogroll
One reason I enjoy the blogosphere is that it involves an exchange of ideas, often between people who differ a great deal on what they believe. I was pruning out my blogroll yesterday (I only removed defunct blogs), and it occurred to me that the blogroll really is not very meaningless. It contributes to someone’s…
Another Interesting Lectionary Omission
Since I’ve been attending a lectionary discussion group during Wednesday lunch, and therefore spending more time on the lectionary texts, I’ve been interested in the way the texts are selected. For this coming Sunday, Epiphany, one of the texts is Isaiah 60:1-6. “Now what could possibly be interesting about that?” you might ask. I’m glad…
Christian Carnival Posted
The latest Christian carnival is Ancient Hebrew Poetry.