Category Archives: Bible

Exodus 22:29-30 – Did God command child sacrifice?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Ex 22:29-30 – “Do not hold back offerings from your granaries or your vats. You must give me the firstborn of your sons. You must also do this for your oxen and for your sheep; seven days they may remain with their mothers, but give them to me on the eighth day. “ (Emphasis added)

Does this command require the sacrificial slaughter of firstborn sons?

Jon Levinson (Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity, 1993):  Ex 22:29 requires the sacrificial slaughter of firstborn sons. …

Lk 19:12-26 and ‘editorial fatigue’

Walking With Giants Posted on by

In Jesus, Contradicted, Michael Licona discusses the issue of ‘editorial fatigue’ as a way of explaining some of the differences between the Gospels.

He quotes Mark Goodacre:

When one writer is copying the work of another, changes are sometimes made at the beginning of an account that are not sustained throughout. The writer lapses into docile reproduction of the source. Like continuity errors in film and television, editorial fatigue results in unconscious mistakes, small errors of detail that naturally arise in the course of constructing a narrative.

…

1 Tim 3:3 – ‘The husband of one wife’

Walking With Giants Posted on by

3:2 ‘The overseer then must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, an able teacher, 3:3 not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not contentious, free from the love of money. 3:4 He must manage his own household well and keep his children in control without losing his dignity. 3:5 But if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for the church of God?’…

2 Kings 15:27 – ‘Pekah…reigned in Samaria for twenty years’

Walking With Giants Posted on by

15:27 In the fifty-second year of King Azariah’s reign over Judah, Pekah son of Remaliah became king over Israel. He reigned in Samaria for twenty years.

The chronology of Pekah’s reign is fraught with difficulty: there appears not to be room for a 20-year reign.

The difficulty is summed up by Archer (Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties):

‘Second Kings 15:27 states that “Pekah son of Remaliah became king over Israel in Samaria—twenty years.” (NASB inserts “and reigned” in italics before “twenty years.”)

…

Mt 20:29; Mk 10:46; Lk 18:35 – Approaching, or leaving, Jericho?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Matthew 20:29-30 As they were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed them.  Two blind men were sitting by the road. When they heard that Jesus was passing by, they shouted, “Have mercy on us, Lord, Son of David!”

Mark 10:46 They came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus the son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the road.

Luke 18:35 As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the road begging.…

Inerrancy – a mainly American problem?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Michael Bird, while not disavowing biblical inerrancy, is concerned with how that doctrine has functioned, especially in North America.

‘American evangelicals demand a rigid precision for inerrancy not shared by the global church, they position inerrancy rather than christology as the chief marker of orthodoxy, and they police inerrancy in their networks with a Taliban-esque ferocity.’

Moreover, suggests Bird, when they seek to defend inerrancy what they often end up doing is defending the inerrancy of their own interpretation of Scripture and the hegemony of their own evangelical tribe.…

John 1:29 – ‘The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’

Walking With Giants Posted on by

1:29 On the next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 1:30 This is the one about whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who is greater than I am, because he existed before me.’ 1:31 I did not recognize him, but I came baptizing with water so that he could be revealed to Israel.”

What does this identification of Jesus as ‘the Lamb of God’ mean?…

1 Jn 4:8 – ‘God is love’

Walking With Giants Posted on by

4:7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been fathered by God and knows God. 4:8 The person who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 4:9 By this the love of God is revealed in us: that God has sent his one and only Son into the world so that we may live through him. 4:10 In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.…

2 Tim 2:13 – ‘If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful’

Walking With Giants Posted on by

2:11 This saying is trustworthy:
If we died with him, we will also live with him.
2:12 If we endure, we will also reign with him.
If we deny him, he will also deny us.
2:13 If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, since he cannot deny himself.

Is this meant to console, or to warn?  Does Paul mean that God will remain faithful to his gracous promises, or to his threat of judgement?

Following are the main interpretative options.…

Titus 1:6 – ‘Believing’ children, or ‘faithful’ children?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

1:6 An elder must be blameless, the husband of one wife, with faithful children who cannot be charged with dissipation or rebellion. 1:7 For the overseer must be blameless as one entrusted with God’s work, not arrogant, not prone to anger, not a drunkard, not violent, not greedy for gain. 1:8 Instead he must be hospitable, devoted to what is good, sensible, upright, devout, and self-controlled. 1:9 He must hold firmly to the faithful message as it has been taught, so that he will be able to give exhortation in such healthy teaching and correct those who speak against it.…