Category Archives: Bible

The Codex Sinaiticus: rival to the Bible?

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Roger Bolton writes on the BBC web site:-

What is probably the oldest known Bible is being digitised, reuniting its scattered parts for the first time since its discovery 160 years ago. It is markedly different from its modern equivalent. What’s left out?

Mk Bolton goes on to tell us which bits of our modern versions of the Bible are missed out of this early manuscript.

The Codex – and other early manuscripts – do not mention the ascension of Jesus into heaven, and omit key references to the Resurrection, which the Archbishop of Canterbury has said is essential for Christian belief.

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The authorship of the Pastoral Epistles

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Within the world of New Testament scholarship, the idea that the Pastoral Epistles (1 & 2 Timothy, Titus) were written by the Apostle Paul is generally rejected.

New Testament scholar I.H. Marshall has discussed this from an evangelical perspective, suggesting that these letters may contain, in substance, the work of someone writing after Paul’s death, but in a Pauline tradition, without any intention to deceive.  “These are the things that I think Paul would have written if he were still alive.” …

Pseudonymity

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The issue is of a writing seeming to bear a claim to have been written by a given author but commonly understood to have been written by someone else.  This practise was not uncommon in antiquity.  An apocalyptic writing, for example, might bear the name of some great individual from the past, such as Moses.  It is not known if the original readers of such a writing would have taken it as having come from the hand of the stated author. …

Reviews of a recent book discussing ‘inerrancy’

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I was interested to learn of the fairly recent publication of:-

The Divine Spiration of Scripture: Challenging Evangelical Perspectives
A.T.B. McGowan
Apollos (an imprint of Inter-Varsity Press), 2007, 229pp.
£14.99, ISBN: 978-1-84474-220-2

Apparently, in addition to advocating the notion of ‘spiration’ instead of ‘inspiration’, the author challenges the concept of biblical ‘inerrancy’, arguing instead for ‘infallibility’.  Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, it has attracted rather hefty criticism from those whose position it questions.

Some reviews (mainly critical of the author’s proposals) can be found here, here, here, here and here.…

Craig Blomberg on ‘Inerrancy’

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Craig Blomberg is Distinguished Professor of New Testament at Denver Seminary.  He’s the author of a number of fine books, including one on the Historical Reliability of the Gospels and another on the The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel.

I was interested to read this recent interview with Blomberg on Justin Taylor’s blog, Between Two Worlds.

Blomberg shows that the kind of approach to the inerrancy question that James Orr was advocating a century ago is still, thankfully, alive and kicking.…

James Orr on ‘inerrancy’

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I noted in an earlier post that debate about the inerrancy of Scripture has been sharper in North America than in Britain.  This is due to a considerable extent to the contrasting views taken by the Princeton theologians in America and their British counterparts.  Now, I love the Princeton theologians – B.B. Warfield is a special favourite of mine – but I continue to have a few problems with the concept of inerrancy.

One of the leading scholars on the British side was the Scot, James Orr (1844-1913). …

The Post-Evangelical – 5

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In chapter 5 – ‘Woolly Liberals?’ – Dave Tomlinson informs us that he shares with evangelicals a rejection of theological liberalism.  But what he does not share are evangelicals’ reasons for opposing liberalism.

Indeed, he expresses amazement at ‘how paranoid evangelicals are about liberalism’.  Evangelicals are constantly patrolling their boundaries, lest one of their number should trespass into liberal territory.

This is not to suggest, says Tomlinson, that theology and doctrine are unimportant:

‘Far from it; but there is no evidence from the Bible that it is (sic) of ultimate importance. 

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The Myth of Christian Origins

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Dan Brown’s The Dan Vinci Code is well past its sell-by date now.  But it has given wings to a fanciful myth about Christian origins which had being crawling around in the academic world in the US and elsewhere but has now, thanks to Brown’s book, nested in the public consciousness.

What is this myth?  The redoubtable New Testament scholar N.T. Wright, in the course of a lecture given in 2005 which exposes the sillinesses of the above-mentioned book, outlines the five elements of the Myth of Christian Origins:-

1.  …

The Bible in Action

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The Bible contains some very rich metaphors of its practical effects.  It is

1.  A judge, discerning our thoughts and intentions, Heb 4:12
2.  A shower of rain, refreshing and reviving us, Deut 32:2; 2 Sam 23:2-4
3.  A seed, producing fruit in our lives, Lk 8:11; 1 Pet 1:23
4.  A sword, piercing sharply, convicting and converting, or condemning, Eph 6:17; Heb 4:12
5.  A hammer, breaking and then fashioning us, Jer 23:29
6.  A fire, refining us, Jer 20:9; 23:29
7. …

Satire

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We tend to think of satire as a rather modern thing.  The 21st century, however, does not have a monopoly on stupidity, and therefore does not have a monopoly on the use of satire as a means to expose that stupidity.

Satire has three main elements: a target, a vehicle, and an implied norm against which the target is criticised.  Satire is often accompanied by a comical or mocking tone.

The flaws of biblical characters are often exposed satirically. …