This is long, but bear with me. There's a discussion payoff at the end. The Three Annual (Required) Festivals for Israelites in the Book of Exodus are: Passover / Unleavened Bread (the month of Abib was renamed to Nisan during exilic times) Harvest (qatsir)...
Inspiration
Beginning a Serious Discussion about Inerrancy
I've been thinking about inerrancy a good bit lately--not whether I want to surrender it, or whether it's a term that has any value or not. My thoughts have focused on the Peter Enns dismissal from Westminster. I think they made the wrong decision, and the reasoning...
The Point of My Exodus 21/ Deuteronomy 15 Illustration
A little while back a commenter to the discussion of inspiration and inerrancy wanted me to put forth examples where something written in Scripture was later changed in Scripture. I provided two examples off the top of my head since I've thought about both again...
Round Two with John Hobbins and the Bellingham Statement
I really don't like basketball ("ball in Mike's court"), so the boxing metaphor is substituted! Once again, I'm pleased to chat with John and the rest of you in regard to his latest post responding to my comments on his revision of my Bellingham Statement draft. Here...
An Afterword on the Changes to Passover in Deuteronomy
If you're following the comments on this post, you will note that one of the readers (Chris) has argued that the rules for the Passover in the book of Exodus weren't really rules - Exodus only described a memorial. Therefore, the rules in Deuteronomy were the "real"...
Article IX of the Chicago Statement
I got a bit carried away with Article IX, so I didn't post all the rest of the articles and my responses to them here. Here's Article IX: Article IX. WE AFFIRM that inspiration, though not conferring omniscience, guaranteed true and trustworthy utterance on all...
The Naked Bible’s Thoughts on Inspiration, Part 4 – Which Edition of the Book of Joshua Originated with God but not the Human Writers?
My focus for this post is Joshua 8:30-35. For centuries scholars have considered the placement of Joshua 8:30-35 to be a odd problem in that book. The reason is that it is completely out of place (or so it seems) with the campaigns of Joshua. In Joshua 5 the new...
Book Recommendation Related to the Inspiration Discussion
Some of the posts on this topic have dealt with the looseness of how NT authors quote / use the OT. I've given a couple of examples, but if you want to see how thorny the issues are, I recommend a recent book on the subject--nay, an entire commentary on this...
The Naked Bible’s Thoughts on Inspiration, Part 3 – The Myth of the Holy Stapler
In the previous two posts I've laid out my thoughts on the relationship of the human writers to God's role in producing the Scriptures. I have argued that it is flawed thinking to deny that Scripture originated with humans in ANY sense; that is, anthropopneustos is...
Looking at the Inerrancy Definitions, Part 1
Let me say at the outset that I personally have no problem with the word "inerrancy" and want to embrace such a doctrine as an evangelical. My problem is that I'm not sure how to articulate what the word should mean so that it's honest, defensible, and coherent. I...
Definitions of Inerrancy
Well, here we go with the inerrancy issue. Hopefully by now you have read the required readings for this discussion (yes, they are required; I have specific goals with this thread, and comments posted that make me think you haven't done the reading will likely not be...
Historically-Conditioned Scriptures
This short piece was posted by Larry Hurtado today. Good food for thought, especially in the context of our (now old) discussion of inspiration (which we will revisit at some point). Larry targets fundamentalists (read: black and white thinkers) on both the...
For Those Who Don’t Like the Bellingham Statement’s Articulation of Inspiration
If you don't like the way I've described inspiration, notably: (1) my denial that God gave the words to each writer and (2) the subsequent notion that humans are the immediate source of Scripture while God is the ultimate source (and so BOTH are sources), then you...
Another Consideration for Inerrancy: The NT Author’s Quotation of (or Alteration of) the OT
In three previous posts I sketched out three principles I think are important to keep in mind for an accurate and honest statement of inerrancy. I list them here for review: 1. Taking the Bible on its own terms. 2. The idea of divine accommodation. 3. Distinguishing...
A Third Consideration for Articulating Inerrancy
In two previous posts I sketched out two principles I think are important to keep in mind for an accurate and honest statement of inerrancy: taking the Bible is taken on its own terms and the idea of divine accommodation. I now offer a third: distinguishing literary...