A little while ago I posted some passages for Dr. Johnson's take that (obviously) were relevant to his discussion about atonement / substitution language. Turns out he had been discussing those with some of you. What follows are his answers, as well as email questions...
death
Naked Bible Podcast Episode 148: Q & A Number 19
The episode is now live. In Episode 148 of the Naked Bible Podcast, Dr. Michael Heiser tackles deep theological questions from listeners on topics ranging from spiritual death to the divine beings in Genesis and the resurgence of Gnosticism in modern Christian...
New Online Encyclopedia for PSI Studies
Dean Radin just recommended (on Twitter) this new (in progress) reference tool: The PSI Encyclopedia. The "Learn More / About" page reads, in part: ‘Psi’ is the modern collective term for the psychic functions of telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition and...
A New Kind of Commentary: The High Definition New Testament (HDNT) Commentary Series
Readers here at Naked Bible recall that I've blogged before about the different types of commentaries. I only recommend commentaries that engage the text. Unfortunately, many commentaries that engage the text are filled with ancient language words and phrase and...
James Tabor’s Essay on Early Christianity’s View of Resurrection: A Review
I have to this point confined my thoughts on the "Jesus Family Tomb" (Talpiot A) and the more recent adjacent tomb (Talpiot B) to my PaleoBabble blog, but my thoughts on James Tabor's recent blog post entitled, "Why People are Confused about the Earliest Christian...
John Milor vs. Gary Bates
A few days ago Dr. Stephen Yulish was kind enough to forward this link to me. If you follow the link you'll find an article on the UFO Digest website by John MIlor entitled "Cosmic Salvation." Milor is a Christian and believes (in most general terms) that the Bible...
Returning to Sheol
I've been getting asked about Sheol and the afterlife a lot recently, so I thought I'd return briefly to the topic. (I had blogged about this in relation to ghosts in the OT). Specifically, here is the question: does the OT contain the idea of either a blissful...
Paul, Original Sin, and Rabbinic Theology
I've had a request for the two articles on the idea of "original sin" and rabbinic material. Here they are: S. Porter, "The Pauline Concept of Original Sin in Light of the Rabbinic Background," Tyndale Bulletin 41:1 (1990): 3-30 Kister, "Romans 5:12-21 Against the...
Back to Romans 5:12 — Replies to Reader Comments
Here we go again - same format as before. COMM: Spiritual death is a Biblical truth that you have not considered in your rejection of original sin... MSH: First, I haven't rejected original sin. There was an original sin. That's plain from the text. What I am...
Romans 5:12, Part 5: A Few More Replies to Replies
Still doesn't seem like the time to go into what I really want to (the "where do babies go when they die?" thing). I promise that will be the next post. But for now, some mop of further replies and questions seems best. Same format as last post. COMM: "You SEEM (I am...
Romans 5:12 – What It Says and What It Doesn’t Say, Part 2
Time to get back to Romans 5:12. My first complaint about the misuse of this passage concerned how creationists (of the literal, 24 hr. day variety) use this verse to argue against the possibility of ANY death before the Fall. This in turn is used to argue against the...
Romans 5:12 – What It Says and What It Doesn’t Say (Part 1)
Okay, I can't contain myself any longer. Along with the canon posts, which I'll continue, I have to start in on Romans 5:12. This verse is on my short list of most abused and misunderstood texts in the Bible. I'm going to start with an egregious abuse of it, and then...
Discerning the Dead, Part 3
We're at the point now in our intermittent forays into the biblical realm of the dead to flesh out (again, pardon the pun) who's who in the Underworld. I noted at the start that I wanted to start with the term metim to see if that term spoke of the human dead, as...
Discerning the Dead, Part 2
Here is the short list of passages (from the last post) we need to consider: Deut 18:11; Deut. 26:14; Deut 28:62; Psa 88:5; Psa 88:10; Psa 106:28; Psa 115:17; Eccl 9:3; Eccl 9:5; Isaiah 8:19; Isaiah 26:14; Isaiah 26:19 Continuing on in our efforts to parse the dead...
Whittling Away at the Dead
As some of you, no doubt, I've had time to go through the PDF file of the occurrences of (Hebrew) met and metim ("the dead"). You no doubt noticed that the overwhelming majority of these instances are pretty straightforward and refer to dead human beings--victims of...