How Much Weight Do I Put on One Greek Word?
Bill Mounce, ESV translator, is right on target: I have always taught that Greek grammar doesn’t necessarily answer all the questions definitively. Sometimes it does, but normally it gives us the legitimate range of possible interpretations, and then context and theology make the final determination. Read Mounce's whole post. One of the most helpful things I learned from my doctoral courses at BJ Seminary—and I learned this especially from Dr. Randy Leedy of BibleWorks NT diagram fame—is that...
“Etymology” = “and” + “shopping center” + “o” + “nonplussment”
A great point about the way languages changes—and how fickle people are about that—from John McWhorter in Books & Culture (Jan/Feb '09): Every word in a language is the end product of eons of heedless transformation. The lay public is mesmerized by this process and endlessly curious about it (so long as the explication doesn't become too technical) and yet tends to view current manifestations of the same kinds of change as lackadaisical and repellent. If ēt picked up a stray g in early Old...
Counting the Ten Commandments
Were you aware that different groups enumerate the ten commandments differently? Knowing about alternative interpretations helps me ask questions of my own interpretations that I haven't yet thought of. The major crux interpretum I'm aware of in this passage regards the enumeration of what Protestants (except Lutherans) call the first two commandments. If "you shall have no other gods before me" and "you shall not make for yourself a graven image" are one commandment, then it is acceptable to...
Why Women Don’t Play Football
I do enjoy a good football game, though in order to have more time to lay up treasures in heaven I catch only about two a year. I caught most of yesterday's SuperBowl, however, and it was a thrilling game. The best moment came when my wife said, "Wow! That guy is 6 foot 4, 284 pounds!? That's why no women play football; they wouldn't want their weight broadcast on national television!"
CONTROVERSY!
Controversy pushes blog readership up, I'm told. But I like blogs that tout the helpful books, articles, and MP3s someone is reading or listening to (like Andy Naselli). I also like blogs that give me exegetical or grammatical or ministerial tidbits to chew on (like Phil Gons and Rod Decker). I've tried to make my little blog accentuate the positive like these blogs instead of majoring on controversy. But now's my chance! Someone has criticized me on another blog! If I can stoke this...