On a recent Q&A one of the viewers asked about God’s silence: My question is: why has God gone so quiet? Just a few thousand years ago he appeared to people quite regularly. He turned rivers to blood, he parted seas, he flooded the world etc. He provided us with people like Moses, Jesus &…
Category: bible
biblical pronouncements
There’s a new app for iOS called “Biblical Audio Pronunciations” (also available in “Lite” version) which aims to offer “correct” pronunciation of biblical terms. The web page claims: We carefully researched and recorded the pronunciations of important terms, names, and places, to help you embrace the Word of God more easily. Does it live up…
yabt (yet another bible translation): the common english bible
The Common English Bible has been completed, the result of an impressive array of scholars, with admirable goals. A page comparing it with the NRSV and NIV is available here. Some brief and very initial observations based primarily on a few passages I like to check follows.
“is a word-for-word translation unbiblical?” — part 2
Another illuminating example is Deut 6:5 — the greatest commandment. Again there’s little substantial difference evident between the MT and the DSS: ואהבת את יהוה אלהיך בכל לבבך ובכל נפשך ובכל מאדך These reflect a tripartite division of “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (NASB). The LXX follows…
“is a word-for-word translation unbiblical?” — part 1
OK, that’s just a catchy title for this post, but let me explain the issue I want to highlight. There are great debates about which translation methodology is best all over the web (including on this very blog, see here and here). Is a literal “formal equivalent” translation better, or is a “dynamic equivalent” translation…
lead light on early christianity?
The Australian media has started picking up the story of the lead codices which purportedly relate to early Christianity. Since the media coverage is typically inadequate (Adam Spencer on ABC local radio in Sydney this morning certainly didn’t offer a particularly probing interview of David Elkington), I’m just offering a link to a more detailed…
are children always a blessing?
Let me begin with a warning. What I’m about to suggest is probably to be perceived as sacrilegious to many and tantamount to heresy. I have lost count of the number of times I’ve heard/read/been told that children are only and always a blessing in the Bible. The assertion is frequently made, but rarely demonstrated….
four centuries of the king james version: the funny bits
Unless you’ve been hiding away you’re probably aware that the King James Version of the Bible is now 400 years old. People everywhere are making comment on this fact and offering observations and well-considered thoughts. In many respects it is remarkable how well the translation has stood the test of time, but it does nonetheless…
an ancient perspective on day and night in genesis 1 before the creation of the sun
Many readers of Genesis 1 have noted that day and night exist before the record of the creation of the sun in Gen 1:14. This has been met with numerous imaginative attempts to account for this apparent discrepancy between the Genesis account and a modern scientific understanding of the universe.
reviewing cbmw’s review of the 2011 niv
CBMW (an organisation which stridently opposed the TNIV) has posted a preliminary evaluation of the 2011 NIV. Unsurprisingly they conclude that “we still cannot commend the new NIV(2011) for most of the same reasons we could not commend the TNIV.” However, I think there are a number of problems with their analysis which I’d like…