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. …
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 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.…
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). …
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.
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 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. …
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. …
The issue
Lee Irons summarises the issue:
‘As is well-known, the phrase pistis Christou in Paul’s writings (e.g., Gal 2:16, 20; Rom 3:22; Phil 3:9) is grammatically ambiguous. The genitive Christou could be taken in an objective sense (“faith in Christ”) or a subjective sense (“Christ’s own faith”). Since the Greek word pistis can also mean “faithfulness,” most who hold to the subjective genitive interpretation render the phrase “the faithfulness of Christ.”’
Scholars (e.g. Leon Morris, Dictionary of Paul and his Letters) tell us that the Greek word ‘pistis‘ usually means ‘faith’, but can occasionally signify ‘faithfulness’. …
Ever since I came to a living faith in Christ at the age of 19, I have been persuaded of the truthfulness and trustworthiness of the Bible.
I also acquired at that time a real desire to study the Christian faith in general, and the Bible in particular. This led me to my local library where a book that caught my eye was the Bible Handbook by G.W. Foote and W.P. Ball (don’t you just love that pair of names?). …
