During the recent annual meetings for biblical studies scholars held in San Antonio, Dr. Heiser interviewed a number of scholars about their recent work. In Part 5 of those interviews, we meet Dr. John Walton (Old Testament professor at Wheaton College), Dr. Ben...
John Walton
New Book on Ancient Near Eastern Backgrounds to the Hebrew Bible
Just a heads up, as I am often asked about such resources. This link leads to two reviews of this new book: My “go to” recommendations for this sort of information, though, are Walton’s two volumes: Ancient Israelite Literature in its Cultural...
Naked Bible 76: Leviticus 16
This episode focuses on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) ritual. Unlike many popular commentaries teach, this important Old Testament ritual was about “resetting” the tabernacle/temple sanctuary, its priesthood, and the Israelite people to the state of ritual purity...
Comments on the Four Views of the Historical Adam Reviews
As promised, I want to post a few thoughts on Nijay Gupta’s posted reviews of the four views book on the Historical Adam. These comments presume you have read the reviews (here and here). On Lamoureaux’s view (“Evolutionary creation and no historical...
Inerrancy, Adam and ETS
It’s been two weeks since I attended the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society (held this year in Baltimore). The theme this year was inerrancy. I know it’s a tired subject for many, but it’s still quite current within ETS, due in no...
On John Walton’s Understanding of Hebrew Bara’
Some of you have asked for a summary of where I disagree with Walton on bara’. What follows below is an exchange between John Hobbins (another friend of mine and Hebrew scholar) and Walton. My reservations are essentially those that are expressed by Hobbins....
The Cosmology of Genesis 1 and the Old Testament’s Pre-Scientific Worldview
Naked Bible readers will remember I got into this issue several times during the discussion on inerrancy. It’s current again for me for two reasons. One is N.T. Wright has chimed in on the subject in this video, which I offer for the curious (I’m not...
Thoughts on ETS 2009
I’m still in New Orleans, where, since Wednesday, I’ve been attending and participating in the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS). The next conference begins tomorrow, the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL)....
ZIBBC Volume 1: Pentateuch, Part 1
When you think of background research for understanding the OT, it’s natural to think of the books that cover Israel’s early history and the worldview of Israel. As Bible students know, it’s the Pentateuch that primarily covers that material. The...
Blogging with Dr. Barry, Part 3
Same procedure as the previous two posts. My response is blocked and marked by “MSH”. ————– You do not become a hermeneutical rapist overnight. I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to write The Bible and Flying...
ADD Over ZIBBC
Over the past decade since its publication, I’ve told more than one student, colleague, and reader of my websites that seemed as much of zealot for an ancient, contextualized biblical theology as I was that The Dictionary of Deities and Demons was the only...