a reader’s hebrew bible

29 April 2008 — art

Yesterday A Reader’s Hebrew Bible went on sale at Westminster’s Bookstore. I had been hounding Mark for a while about getting this book in stock (to his defense, it was only published about a week ago) because I have enjoyed using A Reader’s Greek New Testament. I was able to get my hands on one this afternoon and find it extremely helpful.

The text of A Reader’s Hebrew Bible (hereafter RHB) is the exact text of the Leningrad Codex (hereafter L) that is maintained by the J. Alan Groves Center for Advanced Biblical Research, which is on the bottom floor of Westminster’s library where I took Aramaic last semester. The text is “virtually identical” with the texts of Biblical Hebraica Stuttgartensia (hereafter BHS) and Biblica Hebraica Quinta (hereafter HBQ). One of the major differences is that RHB does not attempt to deal with or display the textual apparatus. It does, however, include the Kethib (non-pointed) and Qere readings (masoretic pointings) in the text, which are identified by superscripted K before Kethib and superscripted Q before Qere. They also include a raised black circle Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Old Testament. Tags: , , , . 10 Comments »

midrash mondays 11

28 April 2008 — art

Every Monday there will be a midrashic fable posted from Louis Ginzberg’s classic collection Legends of the Jews. This week the midrash concerns the sexually charged story of drunken Noah and his three sons.

As found in Genesis 9.18-28, after Noah gets off the ark with his family, he grows a vineyard, drinks wine, and gets drunk. Apparently Noah knew how to party, because he ended up naked in his tent. His son Ham, who is mentioned as being the father of Canaan, saw his “father’s nakedness” and goes to tell his other two brothers, Shem and Japheth, about Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in midrash mondays. Tags: , , . 4 Comments »

jesus rocks the ganja?

27 April 2008 — art

As many of you know, I love watching documentaries. This afternoon as I was taking a much needed nap, I watched a documentary entitled “Super High Me.” It’s a play on the title of the popular documentary on McDonald’s called “Super Size Me” which was done by Morgan Spurlock. “Super High Me” is the brainchild of stand up comedian Doug Benson. It originally started as a bit he did during his stand up routine until he was approached by a film maker who encouraged him to actually make a movie based on his idea. So he did.

The premise is that Benson has to spend 30 days not smoking weed, which is something he regularly participates in. During those 30 days he took a Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in New Testament, Oh Life. Tags: , , , , , . 10 Comments »

wright and ehrman: conversation on theodicy

25 April 2008 — art

One of my friends pointed me to a back and forth conversation between N.T. Wright and Bart Ehrman centered around Ehrman’s new book (which I reviewed here) and the problem of evil.

The series of essays are very enlightening. Wright, I believe, does an excellent job in answering Ehrman’s objections in a very thoughtful, patient, and Biblical manner. Here are the links Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Agnosticism, N.T. Wright. Tags: , , , , . 5 Comments »

wts documents released

24 April 2008 — art

The documents that were prepared by the Historical and Theological Field Committee against Peter Enns’ book Inspiration and Incarnation as well as the response to their report by the Hermeneutics Field Committee (in favor of Enns) were handed out to interested students yesterday. Today, they have been released on Westminster’s website.

Along with these reports are also the Edgar-Kelly Motion, the Faculty Minority Report, and an essay by Dr. Peter Lillback.

These documents are extremely enlightening. I’ll be sure to weigh in on them in the near future.

Posted in Peter Enns, WTS. Tags: , , , . 61 Comments »

the infallible rule?: interpreting scripture by scripture

24 April 2008 — art

The Westminster Confession of Faith 1.9 states:

The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly.

I believe this statement fully, but disagree with some people’s interpretation of it. Some people within the Reformed world use this section of the Confession to combat or downplay the role of secondary sources (archeology, ANE texts, second Temple Judaic texts, etc.) in our interpretation of Scripture. Unless Scripture is being interpreted by Scripture itself, some will say that this section of the Confession has been violated.

I find this viewpoint to be inherently flawed for two major reasons: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Critical Rants, Pipes Cigars and Alcohol (PCA), WTS. Tags: , , , . 7 Comments »

how to deal with doubt

23 April 2008 — art

Tonight I have the opportunity to speak at Philadelphia University on the topic of doubt. I’m half tempted just to recapitulate verbatim what Tim Keller said a few weeks ago during his lecture at the University of Pennsylvania! I honestly do not think I could say anything better than Keller.

The topic that I’m speaking on is “How to Deal With Doubt” and it has two focal points: 1) how a Christian deals with doubts about God, Jesus, religion, the Bible, etc. and 2) how to talk to someone (either Christian or non-Christian) about their doubts surrounding the Christian religion.

The first point is somewhat autobiographical because I am probably the most skeptical person I know (of course, I’m also skeptical about that, so I might not be!). There have been times in my life after I became a Christian where I seriously doubted the validity Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Tim Keller, Urban Ministry. Tags: , , , , . 26 Comments »

midrash mondays 10

21 April 2008 — art

To the left is a picture of the winged she-devil Lilith holding an amulet, which wards Lilith off from injuring young children, according to Jewish folklore.

Every Monday there will be a midrashic fable posted from Louis Ginzberg’s classic collection Legends of the Jews. This week the midrash concerns the first woman God gave to Adam: Lilith. She ended up pronouncing the Divine Name, which gave her magical powers to fly. In Jewish folklore, she is a she-devil (as mentioned last week) because she demanded equality with man.

This midrash is based on a close reading of the first two creation narratives. In the first creation narrative, both “male and female” are created by the divine acts of speech and then creation, seemingly at the same time. In the second Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in midrash mondays. Tags: , , . 4 Comments »

keller at wts

19 April 2008 — art

Westminster’s Gospel and Culture Project has just made three videos of Tim Keller available to stream online.

The first is a roundtable discussion at WTS with William Edgar, Scott Oliphint, Doug Green, and Tim Keller.

The second is Keller’s lecture at Penn on his new book The Reason for God.

The third is the Q&A that followed the lecture at Penn (which includes a question by yours truly which Keller couldn’t answer because he hadn’t read Bart Ehrman’s new book yet).

Posted in Tim Keller, WTS. Tags: , , , . 4 Comments »

farnsworth is a bum

18 April 2008 — art

If Kyle Farnsworth doesn’t get his act together, he’s going to have South Boston’s finest after him wielding brass knuckles on their Shamrock-tattooed hands.

Throwing 97 MPH fastballs behind a guy who just jacked two homeruns is not part of the game. It’s the reaction of an immature cretin who doesn’t understand real competition. A real baseball player and a real man who has any amount of chutzpah knows that the best way to get back at someone who hit two homeruns is to strike him out.

A spoiled, mid-town Manhattan, effete, sorry excuse for a Major League pitcher tries to hit him with a pitch. He should have been thrown out of the game, fined, and then kneed in the temple for being such a lowlife bum.

Just had to get that off of my chest.

Posted in BoSox. Tags: , , , . 2 Comments »
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