All too often people attempt to substantiate their interpretation of a passage of Scripture based on the idea that it is “the plain meaning” of the text. It is particularly popular in arguments over the meaning of Genesis 1–3 where it is used to substantiate the claim that God created the world in seven 24-hour…
Category: bible
go west, young man!
I like precision. If my watch is more than 2 seconds off the real time, I feel the need to rectify it (if only Aus had an atomic radio signal like most of the civilised world). Not only do I like to know precisely what time it is, I like to know precisely where I…
what’s wrong with a literal translation?
Wayne Leman has been posting portions of a paper by Mark Strauss entitled Why the English Standard Version (ESV) should not become the Standard English Version over on the Better Bibles Blog. It’s long, and so it comes in parts, beginning here. Strauss highlights numerous problems with the ESV, its translation, its use of English,…
bible codes, part II: gematria
Having previously discussed the Bible’s use of Atbash codes, it is time to look at the other type of code probably found in the Bible (as opposed to those people erroneously see there), that is, gematria.1 Before going too far, if you don’t have decent unicode support in you OS and browser, you’re going to…
where was the garden of eden?
OK, the correct answer is “I don’t know.” (But we did come across an idyllic valley during our travels in Tasmania once…) Genesis doesn’t tell us too much, and although we know of two of the rivers identified (the Tigris and the Euphrates), there’s no consensus on precisely what the other two rivers refer to….
disciplining children
Everyone has something to say about the best way to discipline children, even people without children! In Christian circles it is common to emphasize the “biblical” approach to discipline, an approach which inevitably (and not inappropriately) turns to advice from the book of Proverbs. Here are a few of the verses in Proverbs to which…
bible codes, part I: atbash
Now the title to this post ought to be enough to signal that things could very easily get very strange (or perhaps “silly” is a better word)—am I about to predict the date of Jesus’ return? or perhaps disclose the results of some future sporting event? Are next week’s lotto numbers hidden in the pages…
is everything we do ‘worship’?
There’s a tendency among many evangelicals—at least many of those with whom I’m familiar—to take Rom 12:1 as the basis for arguing that the Bible tells us that all we do should be described as “worship.”1 As a corollary to this, the point is often also made that referring to parts of a church service…
is it always wrong for christian couples to choose to remain childless?
Recently, Lionel Windsor over on the the Sola Panel wrote an article entitled Welcoming Children in which he argued that it is inappropriate for Christians who marry to plan not to have children: The Bible teaches that marriage is good, and that one of the indispensable reasons for marriage is children. So if you notice…