Poythress Summarizes James Barr
Vern Poythress's book "Symphonic Theology" is available free at his site. Today I was searching my hard drive for a summary of James Barr's list of common exegetical fallacies in his famous and deservedly influential book, The Semantics of Biblical Language. I regularly employ the third and fifth concepts below. I consider them very important. Take a look at Poythress' summary: James Barr has published a long catalog of mistakes made by biblical scholars. Without going into detail, I list six...
Son, Say Something Nice About Your President-Elect!
Parents sometimes force a child to say something nice about the sibling with whom he just finished a death match. That is not the way John McCain spoke about Barack Obama, as evidenced by his gracious speech last night—and it's not the way I feel like speaking, either. I can say this out of a true heart of love: I am happy that the African-American kids I know from long-term outreaches in my community have now been given hope that they can climb higher than the inane and profane entertainers...
NIV, TNIV, and Five Points for One of My Faithful Readers
A few days ago I offered five points to the first person to note in the comments why this juxtaposition was counter to my expectations: NIV 1Co 7:26 Because of the present crisis, I think that it is good for you to remain as you are. TNIV 1Co 7:26 Because of the present crisis, I think that it is good for a man to remain as he is. One Mr. Brian Collins of Taylors, SC, got it right: Because the NIV translated ἀνθρώπῳ in a gender-neutral way and the TNIV translated it as "man." Of course, the...
The Quotable Wife
My wife was listening to an otherwise good sermon which happened to run afoul of my dissertation's thesis. We'd talked about the issue at hand (the definition of love) many times. As we passed each other in the hall, she said with a smile... "You've ruined my ability to listen to a good sermon!"
Foolish and Unlearned Questions Avoid
When I was a summer camp counselor at a Christian camp in 1999, I once had a cabin full of younger junior high campers. One of my campers at least was only in sixth grade, and he was a bus kid. That means his parents were lost, but that the church came by every week and took him to Sunday School in a big bus full of other kids. Obviously, this kid knew very little about the Bible—only what he couldn't help learning once a week on Sunday mornings. But here he was at camp, in my cabin on the...