Category Archives: Bible

Matthew 27:52f – Many bodies raised

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27:52f And tombs were opened, and the bodies of many saints who had died were raised.  (They came out of the tombs after his resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.)

The issue to be discussed here is the historicity (or otherwise) of this account.

So-called ‘mainstream’ critical scholarship regards it as ‘legendary’.  According to Harper’s Bible Commentary, for example,

‘One wonders what the resurrected saints were doing between Good Friday and Easter.

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1 Timothy 4:10 – ‘The Saviour of all people’

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1 Timothy 4:10 – ‘…the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of believers.’

Obviously, Paul was no universalist.  So what interpretative options are left?

1. All, potentially, and believers, actually?  Some, including Fee, think that Paul means that salvation is available to all, but effective for those who believe.  This would be consistent with 1 Tim 2:6.  Understood in this way, the verse becomes a strong support for the doctrine of universal (as opposed to particular) atonement. …

Hebrews 12:1 – ‘A great cloud of witnesses’

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12:1 ‘Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses…’

Does this mean that the redeemed in heaven observe us here on earth? Some think so (with varying degrees of clarity and conviction, Donald Guthrie, EBC).  It is noted that the imagery is that of the amphitheatre, and so it would make sense to understand these ‘witnesses’ be the spectators in the grandstand.  Even if this interpretation were correct, the text gives little encouragement to the kind of popular sentimentalism (“Grandma is looking down on us”) that operates in the absence of gospel faith.…

Hebrews 6:4-6 – ‘It is impossible…to renew them again to repentance’

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Hebrews 6:4 For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, tasted the heavenly gift, become partakers of the Holy Spirit, 6:5 tasted the good word of God and the miracles of the coming age, 6:6 and then have committed apostasy, to renew them again to repentance, since they are crucifying the Son of God for themselves all over again and holding him up to contempt.

This is, perhaps, the most challenging passage in Hebrews. …

John 4:44 – ‘His own country’

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Jn 4:4 ‘Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country.’

In this passage, ‘his own country’ may apply to:-

  • no place in particular.  Michaels, judging all the suggested specific identifications to be unsatisfactory, concludes that Jesus’ meaning is simply that his is an itinerant ministry, and therefore he doesn’t intend to spend so long in any one place as to make it his ‘own country’.  ‘The saying, after all, is a generalization.
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John 3:16f – What is meant by ‘the world’?

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John 3:16 For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 3:17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him.

What is meant by ‘the world’?  Does is refer, moe narrowly, to God’s elect?  Or, more broadly, to the entire (fallen) humanity?…

Matthew 8:5-13/Luke 7:1-10 – son? servant? male lover?

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Mt 8:5 When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him asking for help: 8:6 “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible anguish.” 8:7 Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.” 8:8 But the centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. Instead, just say the word and my servant will be healed. 8:9 For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me.…

Genesis 6-8 – A worldwide flood?

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This description of a worldwide flood, in which the highest of mountains was submerged and which led to the deaths of all living creatures except Noah, his immediate family, and the animals taken into the ark, seems to stretch credulity well beyond its breaking point.  The water would have been more than five miles above normal sea level: where did all that water come from, and where, when the flood subsided, did it go to?

Comparative Ancient Near East Literature

Noah’s flood has many parallels in the literature of the ANE. …

Genesis 6:1f – ‘The sons of God’

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Gen 6:1 .When humankind began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, 6:2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of humankind were beautiful. Thus they took wives for themselves from any they chose.

Who were these ‘sons of God’?

(a) Angels or demons?

The view of many interpreters, ancient (e.g. Josephus) and modern (e.g. Wenham,) is that these are (fallen) angels, cf. 1 Pet 3:19-20; 2 Pet 2:4; Jude 6.…

Matthew 16:18 – “This rock”

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16:18 “I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.”

The interpretation of this saying has far-reaching implications for church government, apostolic succession, and the role of the pope.

1. The rock is Peter himself, along with his Roman successors

In support of this interpretation is the fact that what Jesus says is in the singular, and must have been addressed to Peter himself (even if it also had a wider application).  …