The concluding chapter is short, and to the point. It’s a rattling good read, not only nicely summing up the more exciting ideas that have been presented and argued in the preceding chapters, but also pulling them together into a more coherent whole. Like most good conclusions there is a tendency to over-simplify, so probably [...]
Browsing Posts in interpretation
Chapter 4 discusses matters of most direct concern to biblical scholars (as such). It contains a wealth of material to bring non-specialists (like me) more up to date on Hebrew and other North West Semitic epigraphy from the Iron age. There are continually intriguing glimpses of this ancient world and its adopting, and adapting, of [...]
No, not old photographs, that’s easy – just scan them in, but all the times when something seems missing, and the absence seems to us to make sense… For a book I am helping edit, on Land and Gospel, one a couple of authors want to make bricks from absent straws. That is they notice [...]
For years now I’ve been getting more and more fed up with the way weird sects, and Christians who have become nearly as weird, get away with making the Bible mean whatever they like. It is no wonder that less and less Christians (in the West) bother to read the Bible, if it means half [...]
Photo by FilmNut (This is a repost from the old blog because I want to refer to this post in my next one – original Nov 2009) I have just been marking the final assignment for our introductory course on Understanding and Interpreting the Bible. We used Duvall and Hays book as the core and [...]
Conrad Gempf had a great post a few years back “Three Things ‘Gentile’ Christians May ‘Never’ Understand“. I’ve used this with several classes over the years. It’s fine, it’s well written, and it’s SO true! (Especially if you hear his comment that These are three things that ordinary western evangelicals without a Jewish mindset will [...]
Well, I’m busy with this week’s sermon, after the helpful comments on my post last week Helicopter gunships in Joel – a plea for help :) though none critiquing what I actually preached :( I am tempted to make this post too a plea for assistance ;) Instead, I’ll just note that my theme is [...]
So, how did I preach about “Helicopter gunships in Joel“? As I said, this was part of a series on “How to Read the Bible” and though the sermon was on Joel 2:5-8 the title was “The Bible is NOT a code book… the Bible means what it says“. I’m uploading my presentation and an [...]
Photo by Chris M0EEG My problem is a variant of Lingamish’s, but with existential urgency. He asked about one sort of almost unpreachable text (the vengeance passages in the OT) whether he should not just cut the Gordian knot and hack them from Scripture. I am preaching this Sunday (tomorrow already :( I have to [...]
