I’ve had a number of people ask my opinion of Alter’s new translation. I haven’t read it. I also had several people send me the recent Wall Street Journal review by Blaire French. (Thanks to all of them!) I’ve reproduced it below. It’s a...
Hebrew
Dr. Mike Brown Tells People the Truth About the Hebrew Alphabet and Of Course Pays For It
Back in March I posted a link to the video below, which was created and posted by Dr. Michael Brown. The video is about how Hebrew is not to be read / translated / interpreted according to the shapes of the original picture-script (“pictographic”) from...
Graduating from Strong’s Word Study Tools for Better Word Study: Logos’s Reverse Interlinears
I decided this morning to do a quick screen capture video on reverse interlinears. This tool was pioneered in digital form by my employer, Logos Bible Software. I’m asked repeatedly about how to do word studies, so I created this as an answer to that question (I...
Introducing Yesod Bible Center
I want to make you all aware of a new website: Yesod Bible Center. It’s the creation of Dr. Igal German, a friend of mine that I met in Chicago. In particular, Dr. German offers online courses and podcast material. His site is also a gateway for accessing a...
How To Argue From the Biblical Text for a Local-Regional Flood Instead of a Global Flood
I’ve gotten this question before in podcast Q & A, but I was reminded of it today when someone posted this article on Facebook, aimed at “flood geology”: Twenty-One Reasons Noah’s Worldwide Flood Never Happened. It’s by a retired geology...
Are the Hebrew Letters to be Interpreted from their Original Picture Signs?
I recommend the video below created by Dr. Michael Brown. It’s more than a debunking of the deeply flawed, nonsensical idea that the meaning of Hebrew letters is to be found in their original pictographic (picture) representations. Like myself, Dr. Brown is a...
Has Isaiah’s Signature Been Uncovered in Jerusalem?
Well, if you can read paleo-Hebrew that sure looks like: [לישׁעיה[ו] נבי[א as in: ל = “belonging to” [ישׁעיה[ו] נבי[א= Isaiah the prophet (with some letters missing) We’ll see. I can hardly wait for the minimalist crowd to come up with another...
Of Yehovah and Jehovah’s Witnesses
A week or so ago I saw something on Twitter that made me shake my head. An apparently well meaning Hebrew enthusiast gleefully reported that, after searching through hundreds of manuscripts, he’d found thousands of places where the divine name (YHWH) was...
Naked Bible Podcast Episodes 190, 191, and 192: Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) Interviews
The interviews from the 2017 SBL meetings had to be broken up into three episodes: Episode 190 (SBL, Part 1) We get caught up with David Burnett, now in his first semester of doctoral work at Marquette University. We also chat with Marina Westerdahl, a former student...
PEERANORMAL Episode 13: Bible Codes
Back in mid-nineties a peer-reviewed article was published that sought to legitimize the idea that the Hebrew text of Genesis encrypted meaningful information about modern persons and events. Their method for detecting the presumed encrypted knowledge was known...
Review of Passion Translation of Song of Songs (Solomon): “Truly Awful”
The first few sentences of this review of the Song of Songs (aka, the Song of Solomon) in the Passion Translation (the one that is enthusiastically promoted by NAR apostles) says it all: This translation of the Song of Songs is truly awful. As a professor of biblical...
New Online Hebrew Transliteration Tool
I sometimes get email asking about transliteration (and pronunciation) of Hebrew words. Transliteration can help folks who want to try and pronounce Hebrew. This new online tool allows you to paste in Hebrew text and get an instant transliteration (an accurate one,...
Not Good News: The New NAR “Passion Translation” of the Bible
This just popped into my In box. I apologize for being so behind the curve on this but, as I noted on my “About” page, I don’t follow the NAR (New Apostolic Reformation) nor do I think its distinctive teachings are scriptural. But lots of movements...
Article on Rethinking Biblical Language Instruction by Naked Bible Podcast Guests Just Published
Last November I interviewed Dr. Carl Sanders and Dr. Thomas Hudgins about their controversial paper delivered at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. The paper argues that major shifts in thinking about how biblical languages are taught and what...
Naked Bible Podcast Episode: Translating Genesis 1-11
In this episode Dr. Heiser talks to the men behind a new translation project, John Hobbins and Samuel Bray. The first volume of their effort is entitled Genesis 1-11: A New Old Translation for Readers, Scholars, and Translators. Our discussion focuses on the...