Many discussions around the Bible founder on the shoals of factual accuracy. The “facts of the matter”, and claims that they are either accurately or inaccurately reported, generate much heat (and for those who like good knock down arguments1 delight). This should not surprise us, for since the Enlightenment, we have worshiped “facts”. Indeed respect [...]
Browsing Posts in Education
Here is an extract from the long video I linked to the other day. The extract covers reasons why we should teach theology to adults and children together.
Yesterday I was asked: If Noah lived before the law was revealed to Moses, how did he know how to distinguish “clean” and “unclean” animals? It is still holiday time (it’s the summer in NZ, though with all the rain and cold in recent weeks you wouldn’t believe it) so my answer was less full [...]
I have read the Bible professionally, and encouraged and taught others to read it, in three continents. The situations differed, including an African and a Western University, a Baptist theological college and a Bible School in a refugee camp. I have also supervised some exciting theses that develop interesting perspectives on understanding the Bible. So [...]
Psalm 90 makes a fine reading for a new year. Through the psalm, time (and especially the haunting disparity between short brutish human time and the timeless divine reality) is a strong theme. The psalm is peppered with time words: dor generation in v.1 (x2) b’terem before in v.2 shanah year in vv.4, 5, 9, [...]
Sadly the students who need this advice most probably don’t read my blog ;) However, for students and others who do here is some good sensible advice and a quick revision of some of the more useful operators one can use in searching Google. HT: Lifehacker from HackCollege.com PS more than 70% of students in [...]
It’s the silly season, I’ve nearly finished the marking, but only “nearly”. So I needed some silliness. In an effort to demonstrate “scientifically” that Ruth was written by women I submitted the first chapter in various translations to the Gender Analyser. The results were uninspiring, it reckons with varying degrees of confidence that the chapter [...]
Back in 2004 on the 15th of November I was also bogged down in marking (is there nothing new under the sun?) so i posted this little gem: Blame Steve Taylor for this post, that or the end of the year has finally got to me… But Steve’s post “everyday spirituality of ironing” which reads: [...]
My ex-boss has been reading John Piper & DA Carson’s The Pastor as Scholar and the Scholar as Pastor. These two are among the most prominent poster-boys for Conservative Evangelical (with very big Cs and Es) views. I have more sympathy for what I’ve read of Carson, but neither really connects with the things that [...]
One of the interesting results of nearing retirement from Carey is that I find myself becoming more aware of “elephants in the room”. Somehow while I was still counting my remaining teaching at Carey in multiple years they remained, by and large, unnoticed. In this post I’d like to address the “elephant” of struggling students. [...]
