David R. Law, The Historical-Critical Method: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: Continuum, 2012), 19. The task of the interpreter is surely to allow the Bible to speak for itself and not to impose an official interpretation upon it. The text should be examined on its own merits and we should not impose an a... Continue Reading →
Back in June, the tag team of Josh Bowen and Megan Lewis (i.e. Digital Hammurabi) interviewed Hebrew Bible scholar Joel Baden on the subject of the authorship of the Torah. For a long time, it was assumed that Moses stood behind the books of Genesis through Deuteronomy, but with the rise of critical scholarship this... Continue Reading →
Michael D. Coogan, "In the Beginning: The Earliest History," in The Oxford History of the Biblical World, Michael D. Coogan, editor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 20. The ancient Israelites did not live in a cultural vacuum. From prehistoric times on Palestine was linked by trade with Egypt and Mesopotamia, and one or the other... Continue Reading →
Mark D. Nanos, Reading Paul within Judaism: Collected Essays of Mark D. Nanos, vol. 1 (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2017), 24-25. There is no reason to believe that Paul opposed circumcision of children born to Jewish parents, and good reason to suppose that he did not. And there is no reason to suppose that he... Continue Reading →
Author: S.J. ThomasonBook: Why Christianity Matters: Historical, Sociocultural, and Moral Reasons to Follow Jesus Christ (1st edition [out of print])Publisher: Kindle Direct PublishingYear: 2020Total Page Count: 410Price: $14.49 (print) I. INTRODUCTION From the time I was a teenager to just prior to my deconversion, I was an avid reader of Christian apologetics. If you could go back in time to the year 2000,... Continue Reading →
Martinus C. de Boer, Paul, Theologian of God's Apocalypse: Essays on Paul and Apocalyptic (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2020), 2-3. Paul's understanding of Christ and his saving work is permeated from beginning to end (from Christ's resurrection to his Parousia) by the categories and the perspectives of apocalyptic eschatology. Indeed, Paul goes further since he... Continue Reading →
“Entirely out of place is obscene, silly, and vulgar talk; but instead, let there be thanksgiving.”- Ephesians 5:4 (NRSV) “At least liberal scholars have some type of accreditation to validate what they say. You don’t have shit….”- YouTube personality Praise I Am That I Am Back in mid-June I posted to my website a review of The... Continue Reading →
To see other posts in this series, please go to the series’ page. The psalmist wrote, You [i.e. Yahweh] have given them [i.e. humanity] dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and... Continue Reading →
David R. Law, The Historical-Critical Method: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: Continuum, 2012), 8. The terms 'criticism' and 'critical' have negative connotations in everyday speech. 'To be critical' or 'to criticize' normally means to find fault with someone or something. This is not intended to be the meaning the term has when applied to... Continue Reading →
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