What does Isaiah 7:14 mean?

Ask any crowd of OT scholars and before you get any answers to your question, you’ll be told most emphatically that it doesn’t mean Isaiah was prophesying the birth of Jesus. The context of the passage and the historical situation of Isaiah will be invoked, and any hint of a New Testament reference will [...]

Bible Reading

Tagged by Karyn:
Name the 5 books or scholars that had the most immediate and lasting influence on how you read the Bible.
I choose (in chronological order of when I read them or was taught by them):
1. N.T.Wright. Talks on Isaiah 40-55 at the OICCU in (I think) 1993.
2. David Jackman. Various talks and [...]

More than propositions

From Stephen Chapman’s essay ‘Reclaiming Inspiration for the Bible’ in Canon and Biblical Interpretation:
The decisive objection to the idea of propositional revelation is not that the biblical books fail to communicate concepts: it is instead that the biblical literature does more than convey concepts. The Bible also influences and forms its readers in a [...]

Confessionalism

One of the things that I was most shocked by during my time in the US was the prevalence of a certain kind of confessionalism (among some, but certainly not all or most of the people I met) which I had not previously encountered in the UK (which is not to say that it doesn’t [...]

Death and the ultimate denial

It’s been a while since those stories first started circulating about crazy nutters who have organised for their bodies to be kept in cryogenic suspension after their death, in the hopes that one day medical science will have improved sufficiently to be able to revive them. I think I’d written it off as yet [...]

Never noticed that before

You don’t have to read many books on the Song of Songs before you become thoroughly sick of reading Rabbi Aqiba’s comment on it from the mid-second century AD: ‘All the writings are holy, but this one is the holy of holies.’ Most commentators simply note this as evidence for the Song’s acceptance within [...]

Biblical Studies Carnival

I have found this a very useful timesaving way to see what’s hot and what’s not in the biblical blogging world. This month’s edition is especially comprehensive. Typically posts range from the technical (ANE issues, translation etc.), through to exegetical and theological matters. Each month a different blogger hosts the carnival so [...]

WTS and conversational theology

For anyone without the time or inclination to read the 146-page pdf file now available on the WTS website, Joel Garver has provided a helpful summary and analysis of the documents. He reads between the lines to discern some of the deeper issues that have led to the current crisis.  The following paragraph is [...]

A kingdom of priests

In The Priesthood of the Plebs, Peter Leithart notes the parallel between the Sinai Covenant and the priestly ordination rites (p.76). He concludes that ‘this parallel suggests that within the covenant with all Israel, Yahweh entered, through the ordination rite, into a priestly covenant with Aaron and his sons.’ I am sure Leithart [...]

A High View of Scripture

This:

is a great book.  Allert exposes the inadequacies of many evangelical accounts of the relationship between the bible’s historical development and the doctrine of inspiration.  He claims, deliberately provocatively, that the common evangelical view of scripture is not high enough.
For the most part, evangelicals seem unconcerned with how we actually got our Bible, and when [...]