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What Is Biblical Literacy?
We complain about it, write about it, claim it’s important or even critical, design programs to create it, but what is it? I don’t mean that none of us know what we mean when we say “biblically literate” or “biblically illiterate,” but do we all mean the same thing? I don’t think we do, and…
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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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Experiencing the (Baptism of the) Holy Spirit
This is a topic where I tend to make just about everyone uncomfortable. Long time readers may recall a previous discussion of speaking in tongues, and my own experience of it. Those who expect me to be intellectually oriented and rational are uncomfortable with mystical experiences, and many who are comfortable with the mystical experiences…
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Another Cautionary Note on the Manhattan Declaration
This time it’s from my former community, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, though from the Spectrum Magazine blog, which doesn’t follow the church HQ drummer. It’s The Manhattan Declaration: Approach with Caution, and it’s worth a read.
Speaking in Tongues and Prayer Language
In a comment, Kris asks: Hi! Can someone tell me if I can start another post rather than comment on someone else’s post? If so, how do I do that? I would like to discuss the question of Holy Ghost tongues and whether we should pray in an unknown language as Christians or if it…
James McGrath on the Conservative Bible Project
… in the Christian Science Monitor, no less. (HT: Exploring Our Matrix.)
Wrong, Wronger, Wrongest
Isaac Asimov on The Relativity of Wrong. I found this article extremely helpful in explaining theories and how they develop or are replaced. (HT: Abnormal Interests).
He Died for Us – St. John Chrysostom
From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian church via Hebrews: Ancient Christian commentary on Scripture, New Testament X, commenting on Hebrews 9:15-17. How did he become mediator? He brought words from God and brought them to us, conveying what came from the Father and adding his own death. We had offended; we ought to…
OneNewsNow on the Conservative Bible Project
It looks like pretty much the same article I referenced earlier (I didn’t take the time to compare them word by word, but many of the quotes match. The only reason I’m referencing this separately is the headline: The battle for truth in Bible translation. Is it possible that anyone thinks the project really is…
Comment Moderation Accidentally Turned On
I don’t know how it happened, but when I moved my WordPress installation to this server, comment moderation was turned on and the settings reverted to registration required. This represents an error on my part (though I’m not sure just what), not a change in policy. Moderation is again off and any user can comment.
Notes Elsewhere on Advent 2C
I have written a couple of articles this week for my Participatory Bible Study Blog that relate to the week’s lectionary passages. 1) Translating Philippians 1:9-11 comparing three translations of the passage and discussing the difficulties of getting a clear English rendering and 2) The Mosaic Bible and the Lectionary – Update discussing the use…
Another Honest Creationist
… and he really is a creationist. His name is Todd C. Wood, he teaches at Bryan College in Dayton Tennessee, and he blogs at the creatively named Todd’s Blog. Now for reasons that may have something to do with the college’s name and location, Bryan College often strikes people as an obscurantist sort of…
Consumer-mas
A while back I wrote The Real War on Christmas. Now Thomas at Everyday Liturgy has called this stuff what it is–idolatry.
Can We Set Tight Boundaries for Translation
J. K. Gayle has a post on this topic that I think deserves discussion. Head over there and comment!
Top 3 Weak Consensus Views
OK, I’m going to get into trouble (perhaps) for linking to the same guy twice in a row, but I starred two of his posts in a row in Google reader, and that’s out of 281 subscriptions, so something must have clicked. In any case, Doug Mangum lists three weak consensus positions, Q as the…
Biblioblog Top 50 Demise (or Not) Bears Good Fruit
If the demise of the monthly Biblioblog top 50 bears more fruit such as lists like this one from Doug Mangum, it could well be a good thing. At first I thought we had such a thing from Jim West, even including “pazang” in the rating, but now in the comments he says it’s based…
Professors are Liberal and They Translate the Bible
Just in case you thought reinventing Jesus was just a liberal project … I haven’t said much about the conservative Bible project, mostly because I suspect everyone can guess quite accurately what I think, but this article on Yahoo! News lays out the ideas, such as they are. I keep thinking this must all be…
Of Strategies and Goals
As if it isn’t bad enough that we Christians many times cannot agree on what is essential and thus get carried away with arguments about minor details, we also sometimes have a problem distinguishing talking about a strategy from the actual goals. So we sometimes condemn brothers or sisters for disagreeing with the goals, when…
Death of Newspapers = Death of Objective Journalism?
As if objective journalism was the rule before blogs came along to “steal” newspaper content. I agree with Ed Brayton, who also quotes Radley Balko on this one.
Another Good Post about the War on Christmas
… from Allan Bevere. This relates to my earlier post, The Real War on Christmas.
John Cassian on Bible Reading
John Cassian was a monk and ascetic writer from Gaul and lived in the late 4th and early 5th centuries AD [source]. I found this in Hebrews: Ancient Christian commentary on Scripture, New Testament X, though I went to the Order of Saint Benedict Lectio site for the translation I use here: YOU must then,…
Why both Bock and Borg are on my Ready-Reading Shelf
I have been wanting to respond further to the excellent discussion over at Reclaiming the Mind, to which I linked a couple of days ago, but I’m not really an academic, and Karl Barth notwithstanding, I’m not really a theologian either. (I now am close to 100 comments behind on keeping up with the thread…
Origen on the True Meaning of Scripture
From his Commentary on the Gospel of John X.27, copied from newadvent.org: When He was raised from the dead, John 2:22 His disciples remembered that He spoke this, and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said. This tells us that after Jesus’ resurrection from the dead His disciples saw that what He…
The Mosaic Bible and the Lectionary – Update
As I mentioned in an earlier post I’ve been trying to test the value of Holy Bible: Mosaic NLT (Meditations) for a lectionary preacher or teacher. I use the weekly lectionary texts regularly for my personal devotions, attend a lectionary study group each Wednesday at noon, and also use the texts on those few occasions…
Translating Philippians 1:9-11
Philippians 1:3-11 is one of the Lectionary passages this week, and so I read through it this morning during my devotional time in Greek. Now Paul is good at long sentences. I remember the embarrassment once working with a Greek student who was translating this passage in his second year. He was doing OK in…
Biblical Studies Carnival XLVIII Posted
… at Clayboy. On the topic of the size of this carnival, allow me to give an opinion. I’m not in the current carnival. I didn’t nominate any of my posts, and not surprisingly nobody else did either. This is a good approach, I think. Use only the nominations as those of us involved in…
St. John Chrysostom on Law and Perfection
From Hebrews: Ancient Christian commentary on Scripture, New Testament X, p. 116, (with translation taken from A Collection of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church), commenting on Hebrews 7: Was the law then of no use? It was indeed of use and of great use, but to make humans perfect it was…