Thursday, July 2, 2009
Welcome to the Archives
Biblia Hebraica has been an active biblioblog from February 2008 until early July 2009.
Normal blogging is scheduled to resume in the fall of 2009.
In the meantime, the archives are conveniently located on the right hand sidebar. If you are new to this blog, there's plenty to keep you busy until September.
Thanks for dropping by!
Prelims on My Mind or TTFN
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
New Revelation: The Apocalypse of Eve
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Ancient Authors
The point of writing this is to ask a question: if our understanding of authorship and our concept of author is a modern understanding that is pushed back onto the Hebrew Bible, then why do people make such a fuss about the Mosaic authorship of Torah or of Isaianic authorship of Isaiah or of Solomonic authorship of Proverbs, etc.? After looking at the data within the Hebrew Bible itself as well as the data within the historical milieu of the Hebrew Bible, to continue arguing issues of authorship seems to be not so much arguing for a “high view of Scripture” as much as it is arguing for a “high view of modern categories.” [emphasis added]I've been wondering the same thing for a long time, Art. For some reason, their very ability to believe Scripture is divine seems to hang on it. I wrestled with the issue a while back in my posts on apologetics and Bible scholarship because those are the very issues that come up for debate. Somehow it's essential for inerrancy and inspiration. But I agree with Art's assessment that it's an argument from modern categories more than anything else. (See McGrath's review of Beale's book on the inerrancy debate for much the same assessment of his argument.)
Back in the Biblioblog Top 50

Monday, June 29, 2009
Genesis One and Creation
Viewing Genesis 1 as an account of functional origins of the cosmos as temple does not in any way suggest or imply that God was uninvolved in material origins—it only contends that Genesis 1 is not that story. To the author and audience of Genesis, material origins were simply not a priority. To that audience, however, it would likewise have been unthinkable that God was somehow uninvolved in the material origins of creation."—The Lost World of Genesis One, page 96 (italics original)James has more quotes from Walton on the temple, dust, the focus of creation, translation, and what constitutes creation. Can I borrow the book when you're done, James? I guess it is pretty cheap though . . . only $10.88 at Amazon ($3.50 cheaper than Eisenbrauns, James!).
(Also see the recent discussion at New Leaven on the purpose of creation.)
Saturday, June 27, 2009
More Pastors Need PhDs
We Don’t Need No Education
. . . to rightly divide the Word of Truth. At least, some people don't think education is important when it comes to reading and interpreting the Bible.
I was briefly distracted from my studies the other night when I saw this link that Ken Brown noted on Twitter (posted earlier by Brandon Wason). The link directs to an article titled "Why Bible College is Unscriptural and Wrong" by the infamous Pastor Steven L. Anderson (of "pisseth against the wall" Youtube fame), fundamentalist, King James only, uneducated . . . and proud of it.
I was baffled by his attempt to write-off "college" because the Bible doesn't mention "college" except once in the KJV and it's associated with . . . <gasp> a female preacher! More precisely, it relates to the prophetess Huldah in 2 Kings 22:14 (and parallel in 2 Chron 34:22) who lived "in Jerusalem in the college." Of course, if Anderson knew anything about Hebrew or used any other translation than the KJV, he would have known the word the KJV translates “college” is ha-mishneh “the Second Quarter” of Jerusalem; it has nothing to do with higher education. I’m really not sure where the translation “college” came from, unless it was just an anachronistic assumption that the prophets and prophetesses lived together in the same area (used religiously in the “college of cardinals” sense). I have to admit that I stopped reading at this point. I’d seen more than enough to recognize the work of a crank.
Then to my surprise, the crazy exegesis of Mr. Anderson popped up again yesterday in my RSS feeds. Darrell Pursiful and Dr. Claude Mariottini (also here) fearlessly take up the cause of pointing out how ridiculous Anderson's interpretation of Deut 22:5 really is (the part where the Bible says cross-dressing is wrong).
His completely ignorant, anachronistic way of reading Scripture can only be explained by the fact that he believes formal biblical training in college or seminary is somehow wrong and unscriptural.
Yes, we’re all incredulous at his assertions. Yes, he’s serious. He might be crazy, or at least slightly out of touch with reality. He definitely needs to take 1 Tim 2:2 about respecting the government more seriously.
I think he should be in the running for the next Worst Preacher Ever competition. There are many more examples of how bad he can be on his Youtube channel with over 400 videos uploaded. Education? He doesn’t need it.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
30,000 - June 25, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Satlow: Between Faith & Reason
I've finished the first podcast of the "From Israelite to Jew" series by Michael Satlow entitled "Between Faith and Reason." (Background here). It is an articulate explanation of the assumptions underlying the academic approach to the study of religion and a thoughtful assessment of the struggle to relate faith and reason. The issues Satlow raises in this podcast relate directly to the quote that I posted recently from Stephen Prothero about the difference between studying religion and doing religion. All who were interested and involved in the discussion related to that post will find it well worth their while to listen to Satlow. I'm sure Brooke would agree with me.