Teraphim

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Stephen L. Cook notes that the word ‘teraphim’ occurs 15 times in the Hebrew scriptures.

The usual translation – ‘household gods’ – is, he suggests, somewhat misleading.

Cook thinks that they were effigies of deceased ancestors that were believed to live on in a different form, watching over a person’s household, Exod 21:6; 1 Sam 28:13; Isa 8:19.

In Gen 31:30 Laban searches for his stolen teraphim, calling them his elohim (a term that can apply to supernatural beings other than major deities, cf.…

The good news of God’s judgment

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Bruce Milne writes

‘Properly understood…God’s judgment is good news as well as bad. The negative certainly arises for those who have committed evil and refused to repent. But there is a glorious positive here as well, for God’s judgment means nothing less than the establishing of his just and joyous reign, the putting right of all that has gone wrong, and the liberation of all things from the usurping reign of evil. It is this perspective that enables the psalmist to celebrate God’s judgments: ‘Let the heavens re- joice, let the earth be glad…let the fields be jubilant…the trees… will sing for joy…before the LORD, for he comes…to judge the earth…and the peoples in his truth’ (Ps.…

Can we do ‘Christ-like’ miracles?

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Dr Peter May is a retired GP who has taken a particular interest in claims of miraculous healing.

Dr May is not a thorough-going sceptic.  He is a Christian who has served the church in a variety of ways over many years.  He believes that God answers prayer, and that this might lead to the improvement or recovery of a sick person.  He believes that the miracles attributed to Jesus actually happened.

But he does not believe that ‘Christ-like’ miracles occur today.…

Jesus as the new Moses in Matthew’s Gospel

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Readers of Matthew’s Gospel have long pondered and puzzled over his references and allusions to the Old Testament Scriptures.

Bart Ehrman invites us to consider the story that Matthew tells in his first five chapters:

  • a male child is miraculously born to Jewish parents,
  • but a fierce tyrant in the land is set to destroy him.
  • The child is supernaturally protected from harm in Egypt.
  • Then he leaves Egypt and is said to pass through the waters (of baptism).
…

Eze 28:11-19 – Is Satan a fallen angel?

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28:11 The word of the LORD came to me: 28:12 “Son of man, sing a lament for the king of Tyre, and say to him, ‘This is what the sovereign LORD says:
“ ‘You were the sealer of perfection,
full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
28:13 You were in Eden, the garden of God.
Every precious stone was your covering,
the ruby, topaz, and emerald,
the chrysolite, onyx, and jasper,
the sapphire, turquoise, and beryl;
your settings and mounts were made of gold.…

Is your devil is too small?

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Based on this post, by Peter Mead.

Many Christians will acknowledge the existence of the devil.  Yet few have any real sense of his activities in the world today.

Perhaps this is part of his genius: if he can’t persuade us of his non-existence, then he’ll convince us of his non-importance.  And so he is left to do his malicious work unopposed by the prayers and actions of the faithful.

But consider this outline of biblical teaching on Satan:

1.…

Teaching methods of Jesus

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Based on this post, by Brandon Hilgemann

1. Jesus spoke with authority

He was able to say: “You have heard that it was said…but I say…” (Matthew 5:22, 28, 32, 34, 39, 44).

The crowds were amazed because he taught as one with authority, unlike other teachers (Mark 1:22, Matthew 7:28-29).

We cannot preach on our own authority.  But we can and must rest on the authority of Christ and his word.

2. Jesus told stories

He told countless parable. …

Why Are There Differences In The Gospels? – 3

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Summarising chapter 3 of:

Licona, Michael R. Why Are There Differences in the Gospels?: What We Can Learn from Ancient Biography. Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Parallel Pericopes in Plutarch’s Lives

In this chapter, Michael Licona examines differences within thirty pericopes that appear two or more times within nine Lives written by Plutarch.

Here, I shall simply reproduce Licona’s own chapter summary:

In the fifty Lives written by Plutarch that have survived, we have focused our attention on nine, since they feature main characters who, for the most part, knew the main characters in the other Lives: Sertorius, Lucullus, Cicero, Crassus, Pompey, Cato Minor, Caesar, Brutus, and Antony.

…

‘Why Are There Differences in the Gospels?’ – 2

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Summarising chapter 2 of:

Licona, Michael R. Why Are There Differences in the Gospels?: What We Can Learn from Ancient Biography. Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Who Was Plutarch?

Plutarch (cAD 45 – cAD 120)  was a Greek philosopher, historian and biographer.  He wrote more than 60 ‘lives’ (biographies), of which about 50 survive.

There are important differences between ancient history and biography and their modern counterparts.  Ancient biography had its own literary conventions.  The biographer’s main aim was to illuminate the character of his subject. …

‘Why Are There Differences In The Gospels?’ – 1

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Summarising chapter 1 of:

Licona, Michael R. Why Are There Differences in the Gospels?: What We Can Learn from Ancient Biography. Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Compositional Textbooks

Students of rhetoric were taught preliminary exercises or progymnasmata.  The earliest known textbook of these was by Theon, and dates to the 1st century CE.

A chreia is a brief account of what a person said or did.  Relating of a chreia could be varied in any of a number of ways: by varying the number of people involved, for example.…