Last night my wife and I saw the Exodus movie by Ridley Scott. She talked me into it. She told me it would be something people would expect me to see and say something about. Pardon me, but if my audience is this cruel, I need to rethink what I'm doing online. What...
Exodus
Thoughts on Some New Testament Salvation Language
I recently received a question from a reader asking me to comment about the NT phrase "born again" with respect to its relationship to "saved" language in the NT. What follows are a few thoughts. Here was the question: "My question, that I hoped you would get to in...
History, Archaeology, and Faith
The Bible Places Blog (BPB) draws our attention to a new book edited by James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary entitled, Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith?: A Critical Appraisal of Modern and Postmodern Approaches to Scripture. It looks like a quality resource....
Anti-Semitic Bible Study
I often get asked about the "true pronunciation of the divine name" or "the authentic meaning of YHWH, the Tetragrammaton." I've often wondered why people care -- why is it that they can't be content with the scholarly convention of "Yahweh" in this regard, especially...
Naked Bible Podcast Episode 023: Legal Genre
In the last episode of our series on studying the Bible, we transitioned to an important area of study: learning to read the Bible in terms of the various types of literature found in its pages. Our first example concerned reading narrative, where I...
Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch: Changes in Law in Deuteronomy
In my previous post on JEDP I said this post would be my last on that topic. In the intervening days I told someone in the comments page that I would add a post to the topic the best example I can think of for changes made in OT law between Exodus and Deuteronomy....
Mosaic Authorship of the Torah: Problems with the Documentary Hypothesis (JEDP), Part 3
I'm thinking this will be my next-to-last post on JEDP. The topic has not generated much discussion, so I'm going to move on. Can't say I'm surprised. I'm not all that interested in composition of the Pentateuch myself. Toward the end I'll sketch what I think. In...
Ron Wyatt and Those Egyptian Chariot Wheels
I've complained before about the poor quality of Ron Wyatt's "research" (loosely defined) before. While he may have been well-intentioned (his aim was to defend the Bible's content), there is no excuse for the kind of paleobabble he has become notorious for. What...
Thoughts on the Bridegroom of Blood
Just wanted to summarize some thoughts on the passage before moving on to my next "all commentaries are not created equal" illustration. I think I can summarize the best thinking on the passage in a comprehensible way now that you have all been exposed to solid...
Archaeology and the Israelite Exodus from Egypt
As Passover approaches, we will get the obligatory articles (usually written by devoted skeptical journalists) about "the real truth" behind Passover (and Easter, of course). The article you'll find at this post over at Todd Bolen's Bible Places blog isn't of that...
Blogging with Dr. Barry, Part 5
Sorry I got away from the "Blogging with Barry" series. I have to admit I'm getting a little bored with it, especially given the startlingly poor logic Dr. Downing is bringing forth to defend his ideas (it just gets repetitive). I think for what remains of his...
ZIBBC – Exodus
In my judgment, Exodus is one of the more neglected books in the Old Testament. This may sound surprising since there is so much in the book that is familiar to so many: the burning bush, the plagues, the exodus, the ten commandments, the tabernacle, and the ark of...
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"...
Example #2 – Changes in Passover Laws
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)...
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...