Scripture

Christians (mis)reading Torah

August 26, 2010

This post is part of a series I’m trying out. Details explaining why it’s the sort of post it is can be found on the series page, although I’m hoping each will stand in their own right. One of the first things Christians should remember when talking about the first five books of the Bible [...]

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The Bible doesn’t say …

August 26, 2010

I felt a need to add a disclaimer to the page for my projected new series: There is one final but significant disclaimer. Everything on these pages is wrong – at least in someone’s eyes. The Bible and its interpretation – beyond a few fairly factual or platitudinous statements – is strongly, widely and passionately [...]

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Introducing the Old Testament to readers

August 23, 2010

This is part of an experimental set of simple introductions I’m trying out. Comments on what is unclear, what ought to be included, or changed, are welcome. The pieces are none of them intended to be longer than two sides of a typical book, so around 800-1000 words each. They are meant as simple guides [...]

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A quick blogging update and a prospective new series

August 3, 2010

Blogging has been very light for the last ten days as I’ve been taking a break from pretty much everything, work included. I’ve written almost nothing and read comparatively few blogs. Mainly I’ve walked, window-shopped, read light trashy novels, watched vacuous TV and films, and caught up with some friends. I’m sorry, therefore, if I’ve [...]

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Keeping our caricatures of Judaism?

July 16, 2010

Mark Goodacre notes today how difficult biblical scholars have found it to correct the popular prejudices shared among Christians about the Pharisees. There would seem to me to be an number of factors at play, but perhaps the three most significant are these. The sources are problematic. Perhaps the only first-hand writings we have from [...]

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If that’s a key Christian belief, I’m a heretic

July 10, 2010

I find this recent post from Ken Schenck somewhat bizarre. Piper’s position here demands all the key Christian beliefs (God created Adam directly as the first true human) while considering one’s position on time prior to that as tangential. In effect it says, perhaps God created the world in six literal 24 hour periods. Perhaps [...]

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Hendel’s farewell: faith, evidence and SBL

June 23, 2010

I have been observing from the sidelines the latest spat about the membership and purposes of the Society of Biblical Literature. Joseph Kelly has a very helpful summary post with good links to the main players. I find I have a couple of observations to make. First up, I agree with those who say this [...]

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Have you got a mutilated Bible?

June 20, 2010

Update: 21/06/10 – as Alex points out, I was so pleased to find this quote I forgot to say what I was talking about. The Bible in question, like all BFBS Bibles at the time, was printed without the Apocrypha – that’s the mutilation in question. Oops. Well, according to Archbishop Frederick Temple, you might [...]

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The slave’s testimony, or, an unintended exegetical confusion

June 14, 2010

I tend to think that one of the most common mistakes people make in reading Scripture is to move far too quickly to interpreting one passage by another. It is too easy to read John into Paul, or Paul into Luke, in such a way that we miss some of the point of each, and [...]

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Strange Scriptures: Israel, Palestine and a genocidal God

June 3, 2010

I don’t really know what I want to say in this post. But this week it has been extremely uncomfortable watching and listening to the news of Israel’s raid on the Gaza would-be blockade-busting convoy, while at the same time reading through some of the bloodier passages in the book of Joshua, retailing the Israelite [...]

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