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 Teaching Bible
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 [...]
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, [...]
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. [...]
David Lamb has a fine rant: I hate Study Bibles. Here’s the heart of it: Study Bible comments are kind of like stuff on the internet. Sometimes the information is good, sometimes it’s junk. But at least when you go to the internet, you know you’re going to find some junk. You don’t expect to [...]
The Barna group have a new book reporting a five year project on why the young are leaving church. The study of young adults focused on those who were regular churchgoers Christian church during their teen years and explored their reasons for disconnection from church life after age 15. From this study theyextract a brief [...]
The Southern Baptist Convention is apparently considering a name change. Jim West is upset (about this, as he is about so many other things). He’s thinking himself that he’d “like to follow suit and consider a name-change for myself “. I have a great suggestion: How about changing your name to “Southern Baptist Convention” the [...]
I’ve always had a sneaking envy of physics teachers. Their subject comes with such a neat set of well understood and widely agreed (almost universally1 principles and concepts. In biblical studies everything is so frustratingly a matter of (almost always widely) different interpretations and approaches. But now I have another reason to envy physics teachers. [...]
I realise that in my enthusiasm for the infographic I probably didn’t explain well what I meant in my last post: Flip, this is good. Teaching on this model would involve groups of students together (and separately) addressing a series of issues or situations (carefully chosen and prepared case studies, or actual situations that come [...]
