Hypotyposeis (Free subscription) | 14 hours ago
People have begun setting “forums” for discussing topics related to Biblical Studies. They include: Chris Weimer’s Ancient Mediterranean Cultures forum ( RSS feed ) Wieland Willker’s Textual Criticism forum.
Better Bibles Blog (Free subscription) | 07/24/2008
Parts of Codex Sinaiticus will go online starting today. CNN reports : The British Library plans to begin publishing the Codex Sinaiticus, a 4th century text handwritten in Greek, on its Web site. The Gospel of Mark and the Book of Psalms go online Thursday. The full manuscript is to be online in a year.
Better Bibles Blog (Free subscription) | 07/23/2008
A poster on a private mailing list about Bible translation put forward an argument which was essentially that Bibles should be translated literally and concordantly in order to preserve the verbal links and word plays between different books, even between the Testaments. This is what I wrote in reply: This reminds me of a talk I heard from an Islamic scholar arguing that the Qur'an is untranslatable,...
Better Bibles Blog (Free subscription) | 07/23/2008
Don't miss Rick Mansfield's latest post, Rise of the New Living Translation .
Codex: Biblical Studies Blogspot (Free subscription) | 07/23/2008
Blogger extraordinaire John Hobbins over at Ancient Hebrew Poetry will be hosting Biblical Studies Carnival XXXII in the first week of August 2008 (I suspect he will have it uploaded promptly at the beginning of the month). In order to save John considerable work, please nominate some posts today (and tomorrow, the next day, and the [...]
Participatory Bible Study Blog (Free subscription) | 07/22/2008
. . . or so I might be led to believe by reading Christians Spend Too Much Time Studying the Bible (HT: JakeBouma.com). I don’t know enough about the pastor who wrote this, so I can’t say whether it provides an appropriate balance for his congregation. Perhaps he is plagued with church [...]
Hypotyposeis (Free subscription) | 07/22/2008
Robin Parry has some nice things to say about April DeConick’s work on Thomas: "Not Gnostic?!" DeConnick on the Gospel of Thomas (July 22, 2008).
Better Bibles Blog (Free subscription) | 07/21/2008
Iyov has a post comparing different versions of Ecclesiastes 11:1 . Here’s the KJV: Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth. Looking at the different versions on Iyov’s post you can tell a lot about the philosophies of the different translation committees. Iyov is critical...
Better Bibles Blog (Free subscription) | 07/19/2008
I love 1 John 3:1 in NIV and TNIV , especially the first part: How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! (NIV) See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! (TNIV) There is something wonderful about the thought that the Father has lavished his love on us, and I mean in the idea, not just in the alliteration....
Better Bibles Blog (Free subscription) | 07/17/2008
I think that most English Bible translators hope that their translation of the Bible will serve the needs of more than one church denomination. It is interesting, however, to note the denominational background (or funding) for some English Bible versions. In this post I'll note denominational connections. But before doing so, I want to emphasize that many, if not most, of those who have translated...
Higgaion (Free subscription) | 07/16/2008
… and I missed it. But you can catch up again by visiting Biblical Studies Carnival XXX on Tyler Williams’s Codex blog and Biblical Studies Carnival XXXI on James Getz’s Ketuvim blog. I am so far behind on my “online life” that I barely know what month it is. I love my in-laws, but 28K dial-up [...]
tolle lege (Free subscription) | 07/15/2008
I just finished reading Alvin Plantinga's "Two (or More) Kinds of Scripture Scholarship" in "Behind the Text": History and Biblical Interpretation , Bartholomew, Evans, Healy and Rae, eds. (Scripture and Hermeneutics Seminar vol 4; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), 19-57--something I've been meaning to read for some time now. I may at some point give some of my reflections on this thought-provoking piece...
Ben Byerly's Blog (Free subscription) | 07/15/2008
Responding to a quote by Carl Trueman, Carlos Bovell writes - Whose job is it to get us out of this mess? [Bolding mine:] . . . Is the question, “What does it mean for scripture to be God’s Word'” a systematic question or a biblical studies question? It would seem to me a theological question. [...]
Hypotyposeis (Free subscription) | 07/14/2008
The famous “Serenity Prayer” goes something like this: God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed courage to change the things that should be changed and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other. That’s how Reinhold Niebuhr preferred it. Or, did it go like this (from 1936)? O God, give us serenity to accept what cannot be helped courage to change what must...
Jesus Creed (Free subscription) | 07/14/2008
I begin this new series on Christopher Wright’s book, The Mission of God, with a view to helping us (1) understand the Bible better and (2) understand “missional” better. I’ve mentioned Wright’s book before, and I’ve mentioned that we will be using this book in one of our classes this Fall at North Park, but [...]
