Arguing Textual Criticism on Facebook. What Have I Become?
I won’t argue textual criticism with those who insist on the exclusive use of the King James Version. But that doesn’t mean I won’t argue textual criticism. Here’s the tack I’m taking nowadays, something I’ve been working on for a while. It coincides with a paper I’m writing up for next year’s Bible Faculty Summit on differences between TR editions. I recently ran into a stranger on Facebook who quoted all the standard passages that are supposed to teach perfect preservation (“Thou wilt keep...
How Do We Treat Machines?
When Alexa is talking to me, I feel no compunction interrupting and basically telling her to shut up. Me: Alexa, what’s the weather going to be like tomorrow? Alexa: Look for partly cloudy weather, with a high of 63º and a… Me: Alexa, stop. And Alexa stops. It doesn’t record in its memory banks, User 3 interrupted me rather abruptly on Tuesday, October 6, at 9:14 p.m. Respond next time in a mildly surly manner, then escalate to outright rudeness if User 3’s behavior continues. I don’t feel...
Can People Learn to Read the English of the KJV?
One Sunday a few years ago I asked the teens I was teaching in Sunday School to read some verses out loud, and one of them read from the KJV. This is what he said—and I quickly took note of his pronunciation errors and saved them, because I thought they raised a good question. He hath shooed thee O man what is good; and what doeth the Lord thee God require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? Here’s the question: did he understand what he read? He read...
Three Critiques of Authorized that Bear Weight with Me
It’s been really, really hard to get responsible, unsympathetic people to offer critiques of Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible. I have come to feel that a patient and careful response from one’s opponents is one of the rarest honors accorded to a writer these days. Social media is a huge invitation to people to go off eighth-cocked. But I've been listening hard to my critics, and here are the top three substantive points they've scored against my viewpoint: 1. Let’s not...
Why Does the World Need the Church?
When popular Harvard political theorist Michael Sandel was a graduate student at Oxford in the 1970s, men and women were still separated into different colleges. Further befitting a staid institution such as Oxford, male visitors were not permitted to remain overnight in women’s rooms. By Sandel’s time these rules had gone the way of jaywalking, ignored by perpetrators and authorities alike. “Most college officials no longer saw it as their role to enforce traditional notions of sexual...