Tyndale House on Christian Scholarship
Got this from the Tyndale House, an academic ministry you should be aware of. This strikes me as just the right note to play: As we celebrate 70 years of service of the church, we are looking to increase and develop the work of Tyndale House and to raise up a new generation of Bible scholars whose desire is to serve the global church. The use of the library has risen by about 20% in just over a year and we're planning to add new desks in the library in the coming months. In an age where...
Sneak, Snank, Snuck
I was recently informed by a well-meaning copy editor that my use of snuck was "incorrect" despite "being increasingly common." Sneaked, she said, is the correct term. My usage-determines-meaning alert fired immediately, of course. If something is "increasingly common," it's probably bidding fair to be "correct." If a growing number of people are using "snuck," by what standard may one say that they are "incorrect"? Is there an English dictionary enshrined among Plato's forms? As a...
Hilarious Story: The Name of Abraham’s Servant REVEALED!
True story, told with permission: Dr. Dan Olinger was once an editor for Faith for the Family magazine, a publication of Bob Jones University. It was his (occasional and usually unenviable) task to review unsolicited submissions to the magazine. He had to read these and write courteous thanks-but-no-thanks letters. One submission, however, caught his attention. It was actually quite good. It was a short piece of historical fiction based on the events of Genesis 24, the story of Abraham's...
A Backhanded Compliment from Jonathan Haidt
I'm finally nearing the end of a book I've been wanting to read for quite some time, Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind. Haidt first came to my attention as that rare bird: a card-carrying liberal who was permitted by other liberals to talk extensively about morality, and to complain that liberal morality was deficient. Haidt has done some valuable work using the tools of science (particularly of psychology) to think critically about human morality. His idea of moral foundations is genuinely...
The Allure of the Iron Cage: Reactions to Steven D. Smith’s The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse
I hope to publish the paper I read at the Bible Faculty Summit, but for my blog audience I'll go ahead and offer the pre-release PDF and the audio (downloadable). The audio is also available below (no video included):