I will be dealing frequently with issues of date and authorship while discussing Paul. The reason for this is that there is a considerable variation in what books scholars believe that Paul wrote, so while giving perspectives, I need to deal with the differences in the books attributed to Paul and what picture emerges of…
When I was working on my MA, one of my professors recommended a paper I had written for publication. He suggested submitting it to the university’s journal, Andrews University Seminary Studies. I was of course greatly pleased to have one of my papers recognized in this way, especially considering the respect I had for that…
It’s amazing to me how frequently we are do biblical criticism, but are not sufficiently critical in evaluating the results. Now don’t take this as the complaint of someone who is afraid that biblical criticism will undermine the scriptures. I think the Bible can handle it. It’s not that I don’t think there will be…
I’m using “critical” here in two senses: 1) critical study of the Bible, as in using the methodologies of the historical-critical method and 2) critical in the sense of “of key importance. I believe that issues such as the inspiration of scripture, the nature of scripture, historicity (or not) of various passages, and creation and…
Michael Bird has a really excellent post on critical and faithful study of the gospels. I’m not going to extract from it, though my hat tip goes to Darrell Pursiful who extracted an excellent quote. I was reminded of a book my company published recently, From Inspiration to Understanding: Reading the Bible Seriously and Faithfully….
… and a mighty interesting interview it is, including discussion of how authors, readers, and texts were understood in the ancient world.
I’ve noticed in conversation with a number of pastors over the last few years that many tend to take a more conservative view with regard to authorship of the New Testament than they do of the old. This is, of course, strictly anecdotal, limited to my own experience. For example, someone may argue vehemently for…
I’ve just completed reading Frank J. Matera’s II Corinthians: A Commentary in the New Testament Library series. I’m going to post a few notes in review of that commentary, but this is just a brief note, a passing thought, and definitely not a completed theory. There are many cases in which critical theories about authorship…
The biblioblogosphere is alive with discussion of the released photo, line drawing, and preliminary translation of what appears to be the oldest example of Hebrew writing to date. I found it originally through Evangelical Textual Criticism, but have since read quite a number of posts about it. I’m afraid, however, that I must be missing…
I have written quite a bit about this topic on this blog, and am also doing a series related to it on my Threads blog, so I was glad to see another summary article (HT: Dr. Platypus). Most lay people are not well acquainted with critical theories about the Pentateuch, as they get the briefest…
